Tamserku Scaled

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30593, 9 November 1964, Page 13

Tamserku Scaled

(Special Crspdt. N.Z.P.A.) KATMANDU, November 8. Mt Tamserku, a 21,730 ft peak in the Himalayas, has been climbed by a New Zealand party. The deputy-leader of the expedition, Mr J. Wilson, of Christchurch, led the assault. The summit party was Messrs P. Farrell (Christchurch), L. Crawford (Christchurch), R. Stewart (Invercargill) and J. Makinnon (Dunedin). Sir Edmund Hillary, leader of the expedition, who planned the assault, told on Friday of the successful climb on the previously-unscaled peak. Tamserku was conquered on Wednesday after an exceptionally difficult climb, said Sir Edmund Hillary. The route up the south ridge, a terrifying mixture of mountaineering problems, required four staging camps. In the final stages, the fourman party had to use a fixed rope and rope ladders 100 ft long to climb 1000 ft of difficult terrain. The route to the summit led 2000 ft up a steep snow gully, scoured with deep avalanche grooves, then over a sharp subsidiary snow peak. Next came the worstlooking section of the climb, several hundred feet of almost vertical rock, capped by a huge ice bulge. The last half-mile to the summit ridge was over wafer-thin snow perched uneasily at more than 21,000 ft, “a fretwork of giant overhanging cornices, icy towers and ragged gaps.”