FRENCH ATTEMPT ON MAKALU

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27415, 30 July 1954, Page 11

FRENCH ATTEMPT ON MAKALU

ADVANCE PARTY TO RECONNOITRE PEAK (Rec. 7 p.m.) PARIS, July 2». The advance party of a French expedition to the Himalayas will leave Paris today to reconnoitre the 27,790 ft Mount Makalu, about 20 miles southeast of Everest. Among their five tons and a half of equipment, the eight-man expedition will have some, ultra modem improvements such as oxygen cylinders weighing a third less than normal. They will have made to measure reindeer hide boots and nylon clothing. They will also experiment with the hormone'centropneine used previously to give relief from asthmatic congestion, but which they think may enable them to scale the last few hundred feet, since it causes oxygen to dissolve more quickly in the blood. A 10 : man American expedition from the University of California was beaten back from the summit of Makalu, the world’s fifth highest mountain, by a wave of avalanches earlier this year. It reached a height of 23,000 ft. Sir Edmund Hillary has received permission from the Nepalese Government to lead a New Zealand expedition to Makalu in 1956. The French expedition, led by Mr Jean Franco, will carry out a thorough survey this year, climbing as high as possible and establishing a base camp about 16.000 ft. It will return for its attempt on the summit in March, 1955.