HAZARDS OF MT. EVEREST

Gisborne Times, Volume LV, Issue 6153, 10 August 1921, Page 6

HAZARDS OF MT. EVEREST

STRANGE MOODS OF HATE IN HIGH ALTITUDES. Presiding at the anniversary general meeting of the Royal Geographical Society held in the Aeolian Hall, London, Sir Francis Younghusband referred to the expedition to Mount Everest. He said: “The committee had to choose for the party who would be expected to climb highest, men, in the perfect prime of life, in the finest physical condition, and of proved skill and experience in mountaineering. They had, too, to be men who could be trusted to keep going when by days the rays of a tropical sun, freely piercing the thin air, were beating them down with sunstroke, and when at night a cold of Arctic intensity was threatening them with frost-bite, when at any time they might be caught in blizzards which would cut into their very bones, and when in face of hardships accumulating in severity the higher they reached their vitality, through lack of oxygen, was being correspondingly reduced. “Lastly besides these high physical qualities, and the grit and determination to hold on in such circumstances ; besides, too, the nerve to keep steady when disaster can only be avoided by coolness and quick and right decision, they had also to possess _in high degree the capacity for getting on with one another. At great heights men get very nervous and irritable At 16,000 feet they begin to lose patience with one another, and the higher tliej' climb the deeper they hate. A simple calculation will show that at 26‘,000 feet will be the intensity of their mutual repugnance.

“At this point they will have to he closest to each other and most continually together. In order to economise in baggage they will have to sleep together in the same sleeping hag at night, and bv day, owing to the danger of the mountain slope, they will have to he on a rope tied inseparably together. “Now the expedition will have to march for more than 300 miles through Sikkim and Tibet before reaching the mountain itself. Most thorough arrangements for transporting the party and their equipment, and for keeping them amply and well fed throughout their three months on the mountain will have to he made. And Tibet is inhabited by a very seclusive and independent people, quite unaccustomed to tlie visits of scientific expeditions so that special care is required to treat the inhabitants with delicacy and circumstances.

“We had, therefore, to find for tho leadership of the expedition a man capable not only of directing the supply and transport arrangements, But of properly handling the local inhabitants. In addition, lie had to possess the capacity for reconciling the clashing interests of different members of the expedition. On an expedition like this each member is terribly in earnest about his own particular job. Each quite rightly thinks that the expedition will be a failure unless ho does his own job to perfection. “In every particular of the expedition there has 'been an effort to get the best. The preliminaries have been carried out in an atmosphere of high excellence. And because there has to he this intense striving for the best, men enjoy taking part in the expedition. ‘‘This enjoyment in high effort which’ all who take part in the expedition—even those who know the fearful hardships they themselves will have to endure—is one good to he obtained from attempting to climb Mount Everest. Another good will he obtained when our hopes are achieved, arid that is tlie raising of the standard of achievement.”