Manawatu Evening Standard. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1937 CHALLENGE OF EVEREST.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 17, 17 December 1937, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1937 CHALLENGE OF EVEREST.

The summit of Mount Everest, “the top of the world, 5 ’ still defies those who would conquer it. Six expeditious have taken up the challenge and lost, though in 1933 British airmen flew across the summit for the first time. The assaults have been made at the cost of good lives, two English, one Scottish and nine Indian climbers and porters having perished through misadventure. At the base .camp there is a memorial to the gallant and fatal attempt of Irvine and Mallory to reach the summit in 1924, but whether they succeeded no ' one will ever know, for the supreme heights of the great peak are their undiscovered mausoleum. Later Norton and Somerville got to within 900 feet of the summit, and last year Ruttledge’s party had to bow to defeat when the weather kept the mountain inviolate. But experienced mountaineers are convinced that Everest can be conquered and Norton, in his “Fight fcfr Everest,” has said that “where originally all was doubt and speculation there is now conviction.” So another British expedition is taking up the challenge. It will comprise seven men led by Mr TV. H. Tilman, who has not yet participated in a main attack on the mountain, though he was a member of the 1935 reconnaissance party. Four of Mr Ruttledge’s party in Messrs Smythe (one of the most famous of present day mountaineers), Sliipton, Warren, and Oliver, will be members of the Tilman expedition. Probably no better leader could have been chosen, for he is one of the small band of men who have stood on the highest peak yet conquered by man, Nanda Devi.

A member of tbe small BritisliAmerican Himalayan expedition whose original objective, Kanehenjunga, the forbidding mountain which some months ago hurled back a German party with terrible toll of life, had to be abandoned in favour* of Nanda Devi when permission to enter Sikkim was refused by the Government of India', Mr Tilman with his companions brilliantly scaled a mountain rearing its majestic peak 25,000 feet above the mound line. Encircled by a forbidding ring of peaks it had been declared to be unclimbable owing to the difficulty of setting foot upon its slopes. In 1934 Tilman and Shipton penetrated this ring which had defeated such well-known climbers as Bruce, Longstaff, and 'Ruffled ge, and on August 29, 1930, the expedition triumphed. This mountain feat clearly showed, it

is recorded, that a small party of experienced mountaineers can ■travel farther and accomplish more than large expeditions. So from that experience a small party will attempt the assault on Everest. In his book the leader of the new Everest expedition emphasises the truism that mountaineers climb on the shoulders of their predecessors and learn from the' failures to win final success. Past Everest expeditions have brought back many lessons, and Dr. Warren, one of the medical officers of the' 1936 party, says it is coming to be realised that the climbing of a mountain is almost as much a physiological problem as a mountaineering feat. Up to a point the human body is able, if given time, to adjust itself to a lack of oxygen, but at 21,000' feet this natural adjustment either ceases or is neutralised by a swifter physical deterioration which can only be checked by the use of oxygen apparatus. He considers that in view of the risks due to this mental impairment the last lap should not be tackled without the use _ of oxygen which requires training. Such research is most invaluable towards the conquest of Everest which, apart from its scientific value and great adventure, calls to the spirit of man to climb the greatest height to which he can ascend on his own feet.