EVEREST CLIMB

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 154, 1 June 1936, Page 2

EVEREST CLIMB

explorers driven back. BUT STILL UNDAUNTED. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received May 30, 2.00 p.m. LONDON, May 29 A copyright message from Mr Hugh Ruttledge on Alt. Everest says that, owing to reports of the monsoon travelling north from Tndia, also a heavy mountain snowfall, camp 8 lias again been evacuated. The snow precludes an attack on the summit for some time. The first assault party were m position on the North Col on Alay 15, a week earlier than had been planned, and had the snow cleared Everest might have been climbed under ideal conditions, but owing to the absence of the normal north-west winds the monsoon reached the Himalayas in great strength ten days before it was expected, rendering the slopes of the North Col unsafe. To this cause were due the fatal avalanche of 1922 and the avalanche of 1935 during Shipton’s reconnaissance. The only hope is a temporary break in the monsoon and the removal of snow by north-west winds. The North Col will, if necessary, be climbed at night when the frost binds the siope. “We shan’t abandon the struggle until all the possibilities are explored,” Air Ruttledge declares.