HIGHEST MOUNTAIN.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLI, Issue 9430, 29 January 1921, Page 6

HIGHEST MOUNTAIN.

CAN EVEREST BE CONQUERED? DIFFICULTIES WHICH FACE CLIMBERS. Among last week's cable messages from London was one reporting that Hie British Alpine Club and the Royal Geographical Society are organising an attempt to climb Mount Everest with the assistance of the Tibetan Government,; which has hitherto prevented the white man from going within forty miles of the mountain's base. A reconnaissance party will be sent out this year with an aeroplane to explore the approaches, map the ground, and make a photographic analysis of the moun- . am. The party will probably go to Tibet m 1922. Will they succeed ? This iiuestion forms the basis of a striking article on the great adventure by Richard Barber, m a London contemporary. He says : — Many expert mountaineers are doubtful. Some even go as far as to maintain that this f . the highest mountain' m the world, is unscalable. But then, the same hing used to be said of the Matterhorn., conquered by Whymper m 1865,' and of Aconcagua, the "Everest of the American Continent " which-. Zuiebriggen ascended m 1897. • ''•■■ : ' ; " 1 ..;;■ Of ramrsOj the Himalayan Everest is bound to prove a far tougher; jolb than did "ejifcher of the above-mentioned For one thing,, it is much loftier",'' towering; -*t© a height, of over 29,000 f*et, as against the< Matterhorn's 14,782 feet, and Aconcagua's 23,393 fewb. . , In this connection,, too,, it must be borne m mind that the* difficulties of i mountain climbing increase- m geometrical progression, when extreme altitudes are, reached, not only on. account of the intense cold experienced m theselofty regions, and the thinning of the atmosphere,, which renders breathing extremely difficult, but also because the ice-sheathed, culminating pinnacleof a very lofty mountain is frequently so steep on aiU sides as to nender the; climb-ing of it a matter of impossibility except after long and arduous preparation: . Most of the world's mountains,- even; the steepest, can be climbed by an expert mountaineer, up to, . say, aboat. ten. thousand feet, or even much higher,, according to its configuration. Even: the Matterhorn, once adjudged the most difficult, of' European mountains,, had been repeatedly ascended by Professor Tyndall and. others up to 14,000 feet or thereabouts. It was the liißt. few hundred feet- of the ascent which = proved insuperable. 1 to everybody until Whymper finally reached the summit,, but at the cost of four lives out of his party of seven. Matterhorn Child's Pay. And the Matterhorn is child's^ play to Everest, which, beside being twice' as high, is known to be steep and. rugged almost beyond human conception m its higher altitudes. Viewed through 1 powerful- glasses,, every precipice is seen to have its hanging glacier, most of which are almost continually discharging avalanches; while frozen, cataracts, every drop of which weighs tons, rush for thousands of. feet down the smooth, steep, stop.es/ of the giant., mountain, polishing 'the slippery crags, and choking the chasn^s of the lower-ice-falls as they pass oyer. Thenj too, Everest is peculiarly difliTcult of access even as regards its lower, slopes, owing to the dense forests and.. cane-brakes which enshroud and guard, them on the southern, south-western,, and south-eastern sides. It is this pestiferous jungle belt called the "terai" that is the bane of European explorers m the neighbourhood of the muontain. Even the coolies flee panic-stricken before the "black death"— akin to the African blackwater. - f exser — and other, deadly malarial pestilences which lurk m every brake, and lay their avenging, hands on all intruders rash enough to invade their reeking solitudes. The few wild natives who live m the depths. of this '.terrible jungle have, it is true, acquired almost as much immunity' from the deadly fevers that lurk there as the . tigers and other wild beasts to whom it is mainly given up, but these will undertake no hired service. And hired service of some kind is essential, for paths have to be cut through the, dense, tangled underi growth', and tents and supplies of all sorts carried on. the backs of coolies from a base camp situated, maybe, a hundred miles or more from the spot chosen for the commencement of the ascent. . Add to these natural drawbacks the fact that the nearest way to the foothills of the giant mountain, lies through Nepaul, and that the Nepaulese Government sternly discourages exploring by white. men in. their -territory, and it will be easilyArealised: ;tshat the difficulties which hae to be" negotiated and overcome by an expedition such as that which is now contemplated are colossal. •"'.''

There is,, however, an alternative v/ay of a: proaching Everest without p-oing tlirougb Nepaulese territory. This consists m. traversing, a piece of Tibet, andt reaching thfi« foot of the mountain liy t the back door, so to speak.. Till comparatively . recently . this* route, "too, was closed to Europeans. But the- Tibetan authorities are now more reasonable, and they would' probably offer no very strenuous opposition to going through this portionof their territory; although formal permission would, of course, have- to be first obtained from Lhassa. Assuming, however, that these preliminary difficulties have been overcome, and that the expedition has succeeded m establishing itself m an- advance base camp amongst the foothills : of the mountain, the question arises — | what then ? . ! Virgin Mountaineering.. Obviously, this is a question which can only be answered conjecturally, since no human foot has ever trodden anywhere near the summit of Everest, nor has anyone ever climbed any other mountain to anything like its height. Actually, the very highest climb ever made by mortal man was accomplished m this self -same region by the Duke of Abruzzi, who succeeded m ascending Mount GodwmAustin to a height of 24,600 feet. This is the second highest mountain m the world, reaching an altitude ot 28,250 feet, or only about 750 feet lower than Everest, and had he succeeded m reaching the summit he would have accomplished a feat second only m importance, and differing probably little m His essentials, from an ascent of. Everest itself. Skilled mountaineer though he is. •"wev-pr, he found tho final stage ot ■\o uijivrtcl journey impossible of ac.mnlishracnt. Mountain sickness, clue , the rarefaction, of the air, prostraifed him and his compntiiona to such

an extent ' that they had to stop and rest every few minutes, and even the slightest movement was attended by acute agony. 1 Yet they continued iheir journey under these circumstances up nearly perpendicular ice slopes, wearing shoes from which the nails had twwn* extracted to prevent" their feet from freezing. The mountain was constantly flinging down upon them from above long white avalanches of powdered snow, enveloping the party m flying, «£ust-like clouds. The temperature was always below freezing-point, even at midday,.- yet the sun would flay the skin offi the' European's face m a few minutes, so thafc they dared not go unmasked in' the day-time, while snow blindness was the certain outcome of leaving off their goggles even for the very briefest period- > ' Neither of course, could their li#S be covered by the linen masks they wore, and these were so badly blistered by the sun, and alternately frozen by the cold, that they developed into what were practically open running sores, remaining for a month or more m a state m which meals were a daily J penancs. These conditions, or conditions nearly akin, will almost certainly be eneountfcrec} on Everest,, for these giant Himalayan peaks have a curious fam-. ily resemblance to one another. The difficulties the members of the expedition are likely to meet with, therefore, m an attempt upon the highest mountain m the world, sre~ not likely to differ materially from those met with by the Duke 1 of Abruzzi' s party m their attempt upon the second highest. 'Whether they will succeed, completely, or \ even more nearly than he did, remains to be seen.. Th® Duke of Abruzzi frapkly confessed^ that he regarded the flifficulties of tHe last 4000 feet to the summit of Mount GodwinAustin insuperable as vfewed. from below.

It was not merely that tinY culminating peak appeared to be su sheer pillar of ice-sheathed rock, but tfia wfiole of the face of the mountain aßoy-fr 27,000 feet high might be imagined' to have been constructed by some demon- of : the snows for the express purpose of defence against human assault', so* sk.il- ; fuEy was each of the few comp*ai?stiveiEy weak spots raked by ice and rock ; Batteries 1 from above. ; Ring of Ice Pinnacles. ' This is- exactly the case as regards i Everest, so far as can be judged! front ! below • while m addition the central ipeak appears to be surrounded by a' ring- of sentinel v ice-clad pinnacles' that 'would 6©em to bar effectually" m apipEoackto it, no matter from whicn-side lit may be attacked. 1 Nevertheless, expert climbers do* oat .unanimously regard the mountain* as ; unconquerable. Difficulties, theyppint jouty have a way of solving themselves. m mountain climbing m the most .un.- --> expected fashion when closely and skiL- ' fully tackled. Moreover,, a vast amount of mer '•feoixjlogical da.ta bearing on the ice and snow conditions m the upper Himalayas- have been gathered and collated within the last 10 or 15" years*, and these ought to prove of immense, value to; the proposed expedition; for knowledge of ice and snow conditions is of vital importance where, as m the. case- o£ Bvereat, everything has to be carried up the , mountain, camp after oampj hy. native' bearers. One; o£ the many minor difficulties to be overcome, by the way, centresround: these bearers, as all mountain-r---ears m. this region of the globe know, to their cost. The Indian coolie is ai true child of nature. He is apt to treat, as. toys T misusing, and often even throwing away, the linen masks" and; speotacles! so- thoughtfully provided for. him as preservatives against sunburn, and snowblmdness, with dire results to himself...

Moreoveiy his chief food is rice, at. besfc.; at b«iky article. So that m the; case of an expedition carrying, say, three 1 weeks? provisions one half of eacfr man's, load- on an average consists of. rice for his own consumption ; and the. carrying capacity of the whole caranavan, therefore, is reduced to that ex^tenfc.. j Agauin the average coolie has a 1 rooted antipathy to the very first es^ eentiall to. success m high climbing — ! an eady start. Try to get him up; -with the dawn, or force him on anemergency to start before he has j . cooked and eaten his rice, and he is., as likely as not to throw down his load, and boft. And rice, be it remembered^, requires a tremendous lot of cooking at an altitude of 20,000 feet or mom •bow:© see Level. From the Tibetan Side. However, if the mountain is.attackW ed from the Tibetan side, and if Tibetan-, carriers are engaged, some of thesfi difficulties will Vanish, for these people do: uot live exclusively or even principally, on rice. Moreover, much valuable information is almost certain tp be available from them regarding the lower slopes of the mountain, at all evwnts, for Tibetan pilgrims frequently ascend its sides up to the glaciers &ar worship. Filially, there is one terrible disappointment that may conceivably await the first conqueror of Everest. Aaid that is that, it may not turn, ,<mt to be the world's highest moufiiiain after all. Its height has, of course, only been, measiired by triangulation, and although' this method has usually been found fairly accurate m regard to lower mountains, it does not neceßsarily follow that it must be so m; the case of the Himalayan giant ; oa; account of the extreme tenuity and "consequent refraction of the am at heights m excess of 25,000 feet affecting the delicate instruments usedl" Also, there are several other mountains m Tibet, unidentified, and: as yet unmeasured, but which are sstid by travellers to surpass Everest m, height.