Bonington to try Alps

Press, 17 November 1976, Page 6

Bonington to try Alps

Big expeditions are a tiling of the past for the renowned British mountaineer, Chris Bonington, who is visiting New Zealand to promote his latest book, “Everest the Hard Way,” and to climb at Mount Cook. He was in Christchurch yesterday to give a lecture on the British expedition which climbed the south-west face of Mt Everest. Bonington led the expedition, which cost £lOO,OOO. “The pressures on the leader of an expedition are huge,” he said yesterday. Big expeditions had their 'place and were the only way he could have conquered the south-west face of Everest. “But now that I have experienced that aspect of climbing I prefer to climb with a small group.”

Bonington speaks easily and with the same disarming I candour which is characteris'tic his books.

“I am not a great writer but I write readable prose. I go in for honest writing which lets one in for a certain amount of introspection.” But writing does not come easily and in the early 1960 s he almost sweated blood writing his first book. “Writing the book is infinitely harder than climbing the mountain,” he said. Although he has led most of the expeditions he has ibeen on, his next big climb will be led by Doug Scott. It will be to the Karakoram Mountains in Kashmir where he and five other climbers will tackle The Ogre, a 24.000 ft unclimbed peak, next year.

In 1978 he will lead an expedition to K2, also in the Karakorams.

Many of Bonington’s climbing friends manage two or three big climbs each year. But because his life is shared by a wife and faSiily as well

as mountains he happily limits his big climbs to one a year. “I have one good rich experience each year and savour it.” This -is his first visit to New Zealand, but he predicts that it will not be his last. Next year he will be on a world tour and after climbing at Yosemite Valley in California he plans to visit New Zealand on another lecture tour and perhaps do some more climbing in the Southern Alps. One place in the world ■where he has not climbed is the Antarctic. “I would love to climb down there,” he said, but he has no immediate plans to do it. He arrived in New Zealand after lecturing and climbing in Australia. He is sporting a damaged hand, which is a result of climbing in the Australian Blue Mountains. “The rock there is fantastic — it takes a lot of _ ;