ATTEMPT ON EVEREST

Northern Advocate, 8 November 1932, Page 9

ATTEMPT ON EVEREST

NLW BRITISH EXPEDITION. AIR SMVTUE’S .PEATS. The seeond-iu-eominand. of tin; new Hri tixh expedit ion to attempt the conquest of untamed .Mount Everest, -Mr Francis s. Smythe, is still a young man. lie was horn in .1000, and after education in engineering joined the Air Force, from which Jie was invalided in 11*28. This will he his third groat effort to conquer a mountain for he has been in the .North. Indian region twice before. lu 1030 he was a member of the International Expedition which attached Kanchcujunga, and ho climbed the .Jonsong peak. On this journey .Mr Smythe represented the London “Times’’ and the New Mirk “Times,and he described how the feat was accomplished. The following year Smythe led his own expedition against a mighty mountain, Kamel, ; and made the climb of tills giant peak, 25,447 feet, high. This was accomplished-in June of last year. Eiftyj-li ve coolies carried 2-KHI pounds of equipment to the base of the peak, and iu his report o.C the climb Smythe declared that the trek to the base camp would probably rank as the most dangerous part of the whole journey. Narrow roads and hairpin bends made travelling precarious.

The actual climb was begun on June 8, and three days later Base Camp No. 2 was set up at an altitude of IS,(JUU feet. The way from Base Camp No. 1. had to be made across the East Kamel glacier. Five miles up, the glacier narrows into a gorge and walls of lee hundreds of feet in height lean outwards and over the reddish precipices. From .Base Camp No. 2 a string of camps was established, with tiie increase in altitude smaller each time. Three separate attempts had to be made before a suitable site could be readied for Camp 4, and after that Camp o was an easier matter. 'From thbre on the expedition climbed over unknown ground. The route followed was that used by C. F. Meade, who in 1012 ascended to within 20(H) feet of the sum mil.