SCALING EVEREST.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 May 1924, Page 11

SCALING EVEREST.

CLIMBERS GROW BEARDS. LESSONS OF FIRST TRIP. London, May 11. “'Full of strange oaths and bearded like a, pard,” members of the expedition which is attempting to scale Mount Everest are nearing Shekarjong, says Major F. Norton, who has been in charge since Brigadier-General Bruce was compelled by illness to return. Major Norton’s despatch, dated April 22, forwarded from Knishong, in Tibet. The beards have passed the prickly stage now, and if they are not ornanental they are beginning at least to be a useful protection against our old nemy the Tibetan wind. The strange oaths represent the impatient attempts of some of the new i members to compete with unfamiliar tongues. Full details of the plan to attack the mountain have now been settled. The plan has been given much anxious thought. Some of us have been worki ing on it ever since Christmas. It was ‘ when we got to Darjeeling on the eve of our departure that we could begin to discuss other than by correspondence. In the end Mr. G. L. Mallory gets the credit of evolving a plan combining the best points of all the schemes. We continue to nave milder and - pleasanter weather than in 1922. In i addition, we are equipped in the light of experience. Thus we have mitigated many previous minor discomforts. No longer, for instance, do we suffer the agonies of the Tibetan saddle. We have our own saddles, and in most cases our own ponies. Windproof clothing has almost superseded tweed, while the topee (pin helmet) is generally considered unnecessary, and its place has been taken by the more comfortable tweed and felt. Thanks to the early issue of landline and vaseline and the cautious avoidance of the ultra-English vice of coldbathing in the open, we have retained a high average proportion of skin on the nose, lips and finger-tips. We shall t be duly thankful for this later on the 'glaciers in the higher regions. In short, but for the sad loss of our leader, all goes well with the expedition.