Everest team — ‘further than they said...'

Press, 13 June 1977, Page 6

Everest team — ‘further than they said...'

By

ALAN KNOWLES

Climbers on the expedition to Mount Everest are returning to New Zealand nursing numb frost-nipped fingers, and telling stories of broken ribs, terrifying winds, and death.

The expedition did not reach the summit but it did put two climbers on the South Col — something the sceptics said was impossible for such a small expedition climbing without Sherpa porters. The two men who reached the Col arrived back in Christchurch yesterday saying that climbing the world’s highest mountain was more technically difficult than most people believed. But Mike Browne and Father Mike Mahoney still think that a small expedition carrying its own equipment is capable of reaching the summit.

Although the climbing was technically more difficult than they expected, it was well within the capabilities of the New Zealanders. However, more than two months at altitudes over 18,000 ft, continual blizzards, and heavy load-carrying, combined to exhaust the seven New Zealanders and one Canadian, who unanimously agreed to abandon the attempt on May 19. The extreme hardships experienced by Mike Browne and Mike Mahoney in reaching the Col were worse than anything they had known in New Zealand. They began with an exhausting climb up the Lhotse face to discover, in late afternoon, that their high camn had collapsed and frozen solid. “We. had to chip the ice off the tent and wrench the frozen sleeping bags open — and then lie between layers of ice all night,” said Mike Mahoney. They were at 25,000 ft and were too cold to sleep, in

spite of using oxygen. The] tent was on a ledge above! the Western Cwm and the pair had the constant worry of being blown to their deaths. While they were there, a young doctor with the German expedition which climbed Lhotse fell past their tent, 5500 ft to his death. They later found his climbing harness, made of thick nylon, which had been torn from his body by impact with a rock. Messrs Browne and Mahoney’s first day at the high camp was spent reconnoitering a route to the Col. They managed to partially dry the sleeping bags by tying them to the tent in the wind, but they spent another frozen night without sleep. The next day, with Nick Banks and Art Twomey they made a push for the Col but turned back 2000 ft short.

’ After another sleepless ■ night the two climbers set f oft once again for the Col. ! They were climbing without ; oxygen as the masks w-ere , too claustrophobic. This I meant they were gasping for - breath, and moving and i thinking slowly because of . the altitude. “We felt in- < tensely alone,” said Mike ■ Browne. “If we got into trouble there would have • been no-one to help us.” * The wind was so strong ' that blown snow reduced 1 visibility to less than 50 feet. ' “We were gasping for air like 1 fish out of water and too ' stuffed to call out to each ! other,” said Mike Mahoney I — and so they waved feebly i to each other whenever a I belay anchor was secure. ; As they climbed the last ! snow gully to a point above ’ the 26,000 ft Col, the wind intensity increased. Finally they had to crawl across the rocks and snow to the Col

after being blown off their feet.

“We were terrified of breaking our crampons on the rock as the cold made the metal brittle. The ice was like glass and we would have lost the bloke who broke a crampon,” said Mike Browne. Five crampons were broken at various times during the expedition. At the Col they gazed up at the last 2000 ft of the climb and decided that the expedition was in too poor a condition to attempt the steep, broken, ice and rock south-east ridge of Mount Everest.

However, their trials were not. over, as after retracing their steps across the steep treacherous ice slope they arrived at their camp which now had no food or fuel for melting snow for drinking water. It was only the oxygen which saved them from frostbite that night.

Both of the climbers were most appreciative of the help given to their expedition by the Germans. Both expeditions participated in putting the route up the Lhotse Face and shared the ropes when they were fixed. But “the two Mikes,” as thev were known in the expedition, were adamant that they would have been able to climb the face without the German help. They said it was remarkable that the expedition members had suffered to little damage during the climb. Keith Woodford and Art Twomey broke ribs coughing, and others suffered from frost nip. The leader of the expedition, Keith Woodford, has also returned to New Zealand, but not Christchurch: and Dr Dick Price returned to his job at the Timaru Hospital at the week-end.