AN UNSCALED PEAK

Taranaki Daily News, 21 January 1921, Page 7

AN UNSCALED PEAK

CHALLENGE OF EVEREST THE NEW EXPEDITION. The formidable difficulties confronting" the expedition, which, according to a recent cable message, is to attempt to climb Mount Everest next year, are described by a mountaineering correspondent in the London Observer. Should the expedition succeed in reaching the summit of that great peak, he writes, the achievement will be a supreme test of the endurance of those who have planned to stand at the highest point of the earth’s surface. The height of Everest is generally given as 29,002 ft., but that value was determined many years ago when factors which enter into the triangulation of mountain peaks from great distances were ignored or insufficiently allowed for. A few years ago the Indian Survey retriangulated the summit Under more favorable conditions, and the result showed that its height had been ! under-estimated and that the most reliable value is 29,140 ft., 138 ft. in excess of the adopted figure. On the top of Everest a barometer, i which at sea level stands at 30in., would ! fall to only 9in., and the decrease of ’ pressure compared with the ground level : would be more than 101 - to the square : inch—little more than 41b. per square inch compared with 14flb. In other words, the air over one square mile, which at the earth’s surface weighs nearly 28,000,000 tons, would on the top of Everset weigh barely 8,000,000 tons. In the middle of summer, with a ground temperature of 70deg. F., the thermometer on the top of Everset would probably fall at least 40deg. below zero F., or 72deg. of frost. These are the most likely conditions of atmospheric pressure and temperature which those who succeed in climbing to the top of the world’s highest mountain must be prepared to endure. Blinding snowstorms and blizzards are certain to be encountered. It is, indeed, doubtful whether it will be possible to get within several hundred feet of the top, owing to the perpetual snow with which the summit is enveloped. It is the presence of snow and the diurnal variation of its level, combined with tricks of atmospheric refraction, which make all triangulations of the mountain’s height from a distance unreliable. In a recent memoir published by the Indian Survey it is stated that a neighboring peak in the Nepal Himalayas—Dhanlagiri, the height of which is somewhere about 27,000 ft. —appears to be 800 ft. lower at noon than at sunrise, and to increase 300 ft. between noon and sunset. Everest is the king of the Himalayan giants, but there are several which stoutly contest its supremacy. Two others—“K2” and “Kinchinjungal.”—are well over 28,000 ft., and no fewer than 284 other peaks exceed 23,000 ft. The highest point yet reached in the Himalayas stands to the credit of the Duke of the Abruzzi, who just before the war climbed within 500 ft. of the summit of “The Bride Peak,” the height of which is given by the Indian Survey as 25,110 ft.; but Dr. Longstaff, in 1907, stood on the actual top of Trisul Mount, 23,406 ft. above sea level, a summit record which no one else has yet beaten. Up to the present the Indian Government has always forbidden any attempt to climb Everest, owing to the possibility of political complications with Nepal or Tibet. Even the Duke of the Abruzzi, who had intended to add Everest to his many mountain records, was unable to get the veto removed, and had to content himself with conquering “The Bride Peak” instead. But there is reason to believe that the authorities will make an exception in the case of the coming expedition, which has the backing of the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club, and has been pronrsed the help of the Indian Survey, which lately carried out a survey of Tibet without any opposition from the Government of that country or its people. The Nepalese would almost certainly oppose any attempt to reach the slopes of Everest from their territory, and such a route has been ruled out. In all probability, should a satisfactory arrangement be come to with Tibet, the mountain will be approached by way of the comparatively barren region lying north of the Himalayan watershed, which leads to the unknown and quite unmapped northern slopes of the giant.

Everest was named 63 years ago after Sir G. Everest, the first director of the Indian Survey. Continental geographers protested against this on the ground that the native name, Devodliunga (God’s Seat) was far more suitable; but the Indian Survey has proved that the natives have no name for Everest, Deva-dhunga being their name for a neighboring and lower mountain.