CONQUEST OF EVEREST

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18918, 21 January 1936, Page 5

CONQUEST OF EVEREST

RECONNAISSANCE WORK NARRATIVE OF LEADER LONDON, Jan. 20. “The expedition climbed 26 peaks, all over 20,000 ft., of which the. summits of only two had previously been reached, says Mr. C. El Shipton, in a further article in the Daily Telegraph describing, in serial form, the reconnaissance expedition to Mount Everest in June, in preparation for Mr. Hugh Ruttledge’s forthcoming assault on the summit. “During the descent on the North Col on Mount Everest, we found an enormous avalanche had recently broken away, largely along the line of our ascent, pealing off the whole face of the slope to a depth of'6ft., which was an alarming discovery, and tliisi eventually, with other considerations, decided us to have nothing further to do with the North Col during the monsoon period.

“Later, wo established that the monsoon snow neither disappears nor consolidates at altitudes above 20,000 ft. in the region of Mount Everest until the reestablishment of the winter gales. Thus we were able to decide that the only time there is a reasonable hopo of reaching the summit of Mount Everest would be during the exceedingly short interval between the end of the winter gales and the arrival of tho monsoon, but in 1933 there was no such interval.

“When \ve reached the Rongbuk glacier at the end of August we found that above 22,000 ft. we were floundering waist deep in soft snow, while above 23,000 ft. the snow was a bottomless morass. Tho stoves did not function and we were unable even to melt snow for drinking purposes, although we later devised a burner that, could 'be used with an atmospheric pressure equivalent to 35,000 ft.”