Fresh bid to conquer Everest’s south-west face

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33675, 26 October 1974, Page 7

Fresh bid to conquer Everest’s south-west face

I Bu

DAVID BARBER.

N.Z.P.A. Staff correspondent)

LONDON. Twenty-two years after Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing climbed Mount Everest, another British expedition will next year try to go one better, by making the ascent by the treacherous and unconquered south-west fact of Everest.

It will be the largest and best-equipped team yet to' tackle the world’s highest peak by its mrat difficult route. The south-west face, I with its sheer “rock bank”

— a wall of rock beginning at 27,000 feet — has already rebuffed five teams of climbers. Lord Hunt, who, as Colonel John Hunt, led the successful 1953 team that was the first to conquer the 29,028 ft-high mountain, said of the latest proposal: “This is a much harder climbing proposition, but they will have a mass of climbing experience and knowledge to aid them — much more than we had, even after 11 unsuccessful attempts to reach the top.” Chris Bonington, one of

Britain’s most experienced climbers, commented: “Nothing can match the achievement of Hillary and Tenzing of being the first men to stand on top of the world. We’re just going to try and do it by a more difficult route.”

The deputy-leader of the expedition will be Hamish Macinnes, a Scot, aged 44, who spent 24 years in New; Zealand in the mid-’so’s. A world authority on mountain' rescue, Mr Macinnes says i ‘that he has maintained' contact with many New Zea-i landers, and that Sir! Edmund Hillary has been told about the new attempt on the south-west face. The expedition which will tackle the face in the (northern) autumn of next year, is being sponsored,by Barclays Bank International, whose chairman, Mr Anthony Tuke, has described the bid as “the last great mountaineering challenge left to mankind.” Lord Hunt, who is chairman of the expedition’s management committee, says he is confident that the south-west face can be con-

quered, in spite of the fact that it has had five expeditions since 1970. Chris Bonington, who led an unsuccessful British expedition in. 1972, told a press conference: “We have a sporting chance this time. The expedition which will leave Britain on July 29, will aim at reaching the summit before the beginning iof winter deadline at the end 10l October.