22,500 FEET ASCENT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20425, 2 October 1934, Page 1

22,500 FEET ASCENT.

Young British Army Officers’ Triumph. .mountaineering expedition.! LONDON, August 25. ! Two young British Army officers re- | c-ently returned to Srinagar from a gallant attempt to climb the 23,500 ft sum- > mit of Nun Kun, 120 miles from NangaParbat.. Kashmir. They are Lieutenant J. B. Harrison, aged 26, of the 2nd Battalion, Bth Punjab Regiment, and Second Lieu- , tenant J Waller, aged 22, of the Royal Artillery. The main idea of the expedition was to show that previous expeditions, including those to Everest and Kanchenjunga, were unnecessarily cumbersome, and went to considerable unnecessary j expense. The expedition therefore travelled ultra light, taking only the absolute . necessities for living in mountain tents, : without even such extras as beds or bearers. Beyond a squad of coolies for carrying food supplies, the climbers had only one companion-- a cook named Abdulla, who had experience of the Everest ascent. The young officers’ route lay up the Sind Valley to Kargil and thence towards Suru, the base camp hieing'pitched at an altitude of 15,000 ft in the Rangdun Valley. They encountered heavy snowdrifts and blinding storms, during which they were marooned lor days in their sft by oft tent. Finally after battling against terrific odds, the attempt to reach the summit was abandoned when the climbers had reached a height of 22.500 ft—-only 1000 ft from the goal. Nevertheless it was an achievement unparalleled 1 y any small expedition in the annals of Himalayan climbing. To add to the troubles of the climbers, their cook became ill and had to be sent back to the base camp, so that for a week they did all their own cooking. The cold was so intense that eggs froze solid and exploded with a noise like rifle fire when dropped into boilBoth men suffered from snow-blind-ness and experienced agonies from the thirst commonly experienced in such high altitudes when, owing to the breakdown of their spirit stove, they were unable to boil snow for drinking water