EMPIRE’S HIGHEST MOUNTAIN

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 July 1936, Page 3

EMPIRE’S HIGHEST MOUNTAIN

A N (LO-A ME RIGA N CL IM B NEW YORK. June 6. Four Americans who this summer will join four Englishmen in the first attempt ever made to climb Nanda Devi, the 25,661 ft Himalayan mountain, will sail for England in the course of the next few days. They are all Harvard University men. One of them, Charles Houston, a medical student, described to-day tjie plans for the expedition, which is being financed by the members out of their own pockets. The party will assemble at Simla on July S and will proceed as far as possible during the monsoon, which ends in the latter part of August. “Our plans,” he said, “differ from those of the Everest expeditions, because we intend to travel light. We ■•hall keep the number of porters to the minimum. We expect to make about six camps on the way up. ’ Mr. Houston went on to explain that the expedition hopes to follow in the footsteps of Mr. H. W. Tilman, one of its members, and Mr. E. E. Shipton. of the present Everest expedition. In 1934 they got through the narrow gorge penetrating the 20,000 ft rim of mountains surrounding the central peaks, and were the first -white men to reach the foot of Nanda Devi, the highest mountain in the British Empire.

One of the members of the party will be Capt. N. E. Odell, a member of the 1924 Everest expedition. He was the man who saw the last of Mallory and Irvine as they climbed to their death on the pinnacle of Everest.