ESTABLISHMENT OF CAMP IV

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27683, 13 June 1955, Page 13

ESTABLISHMENT OF CAMP IV

Arduous Climb To The Great Shelf

[By CHARLES EVANS, leader of the British Kanchenjunga Expedition]

Base Camp, May 15, 1955.—The site of Camp 3, at 21,900 feet, halfway up the upper icefall, was chosen on May 4, and the next week spent in stocking it, so that it would serve as a base for movement on to the Great Shelf. Each day, eight of our Sherpas, escorted by ourselves, or by Da Tensing, would leave Base Camp after lunch, taking advantage of the slight coolness of the cloudy afternoon, to plod the 1600 ft to Camp 1. The first part of this walk is over a gently inclined- glacier, where we are forced for 100 yards to walk through the avalanche debris of an ice cliff 500 feet above the route—not a large cliff as those of Kanchenjunga go, but the least calculable risk on our route. Soon the slopes steepen, and the last pull to Camp 1 is a short, steep bit, where the snow is usually soft and deep. It brings us to a, ledge, two hours from Base, where Camp 1 stands at 19,700 feet. The accommodation here consists of three tents and an ice cave. Immediately above the camp is a series of wide crevasses, cutting the slope up which we climb towards Camp 2. A Shaky Bridge It pays to start early from Camp 1, while the snow is still crisp after a frosty night, and most parties leave at 7 a.m. while the camp is still in shadow, and cold. Almost at once, we reach a crevasse, 20ft across and 60ft deep, bridged by a shaky arch of snow, an inverted arch, which sags in the middle. It has been strengthened by an aluminium ladder. The far wall of the crevasse is sheer ice, in which a foot-wide traversing ledge has been cut for 15 feet to the right, until it is possible to climb straight up to a stairway of snow lying on ice, and safeguarded for 200 feet by a fixed rope.

The way is now clear to the ■Hump,” the crest of the Western Rock Buttress, 500 feet higher: but to reach the crest may take anything from half an hour to four hours, depending or the state of the snow. All along thf way, brightly coloured route-markin? flags flutter in the wind, givir~ the even snow slopes, in clear weather, the look of a slalom course. In thick weather, when all other landmarks are obliterated by cloud a-nd drifting snow, they are a life-saving guide to the track home.

The pass at the top of the Hump (20,500 feet) is broad and crevassed. We cross the widest crevasse by a ladder, and look down on to the lower icefall, and across to the precipices of rock and ice which fall from the Great Shelf and from Talung Peak. At our feet is the steep snow gully down which, in only a few minutes, we can plunge to the edge of the upper part of the lower icefall.

The “Worst Half Hour” Here The next half hour is the worst anywhere on the route. Here, in a blistering suntrap, we wind in and out of iceblocks plastered with soft snow. The air is still and muggy until we climb an ice wall and emerge on the level glacier 200 yards below Camp 2. This wall, first climbed by a steep, split-off edge of ice, is now made easy with an 18 foot ladder—easy, that is technically; for the Sherpas, hot, tired and laden, it is a last great effort to be accomplished, breathlessly, before flopping down in the snow at camp. We have had two teams working on this route to Camp 2, while a third team, living at Camp 2, has been making a daily carry to Camp 3. By May 11, the stocking of Camp 3 was nearly finished, and Hardie and I slept there before exploring the way to the Great Shelf and beyond. The camp is well placed, under a great overhanging wall of ice, on a platform 40 feet long by 15 feet wide, below which

the ice walls, now festooned with ropes and rope-ladders, fall towards 1 Camp 2. At the back of the ledge a low hole in the ice-wall leads into a cave, already big enough to accommodate six men, and daily being enlarged in the Sherpas’ spare time. Hardie and I started up on May 12, breathing oxygen to extend the range or our intended reconnaissance and accompanied by two of our strongest Sherpas, Annulla and Urkien. We passed out, left of the ice cliffs, into sunshine, and made steady progress up the face, passing one by one the landmarks we had seen from below—a prominent ice block, a curiously shaped rock on the face of Kambachen, or a step of the upper icefall itself. Sometimes, from below, it looked as if the stretch above, glistening against the sun, was going to be hard ice to cut; but always we were lucky, and any cutting we had to do was in firm neve, in which three or four strokes of the adze would make a step. Low Morale After Bad Night By noon we were high up in the icefail, in a little blind corner of a band of ice cliffs which stretches across the face, Hardie and Urkien were in front, facing a 20 foot re-entrant corner which alone barred us from the top of the upper icefall. Hardie started cutting up its steep right wall, and once more we were in luck, finding firm neve, not hard ice. By 1 o’clock we were up the corner and level with the Great Shelf, but cut o!f from it by a zone of crevasses and seracs. We put up our tent, Camp 4, at 23,500 feet, and the Sherpas went down. It blew hard all night, and though we slept with oxygen, we woke feeling ill, our morale low. It was overcast. the west wind still blew strongly, and the driven snow spattered against the tent, and forced its way through the sleeve openings, covering us with fine powder. Hardie worked on our oxygen sets while I made tea. We fancied no food. By 9 o’clock, Hardie had the oxygen sets working and we made a tentative start, meaning, at least, in the face of the weather threat, to find a way to the Shelf. Outside the tent, between Jannu and Kambachen, I could see Makalu, Lhotse, and Everest clear in the distance; and before turning to our own problems we speculated as to how the French were faring on Makalu. Camp at 25,300 ft Unable at once to see a way to the Shelf, we tried an obvious line, cut up and over a whaleback of a serac, and found a clear passage through. We had reached the Shelf at last. Looking up it, we saw smooth snow slopes between us and the foot of the Ganguay, and near it a ledge which would do very well for Camp 5. In two and three-quarter hours from camp, we were there, 25,300 feet.

We had reached what is to us, on this mountain, the equivalent of the South Col on Everest; and we came down at once to Base Camp to lay our final plans. Today, Camp 4 is being stocked by Sherpas who are living at Camp 3 with Mather and Streather. At Base Camp a specially chosen team of Sherpas gets ready to move up to Camp 3. Their vital role will be to carry from Camp 3 to Camp 5. Behind them, at intervals of one and two days, will follow two assault teams, intended to place Camp 6 and to explore the final ridge of the mountain. We have promised, however well things go with us, not to stand on the very summit; but we hope that one of these assault parties, at least, will succeed in reaching the summit ridge, and in going so far along it that no obstacle whatever stands between them and the top. [By Arrangement with "The Times"—» World Copyright Reserved.]