MOUNT EVEREST.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 October 1921, Page 12

MOUNT EVEREST.

WILL THE SUMMIT BE REACHED? SIR M. CONWAY DOUBTFUL. Though the advance party of the Mount Everest expedition, after an extensive reconnaissance of previously unmapped country to the east, north and north-west of the mountain, have found an apparently practicable route to the rummit, formidable difficulties will confront the main party - when it comes to attempt the actual ascent of the peak. Sir Martin Conway, M.P., the famous mountaineer and leader of the first expedition to the Himalayas, in a lecture given in Switzerland in August, expressed the opinion that the present attempt to ascend Mount Everest w’as not likely to succeed. He feared that none of the Himalayas was likely to be ascended. Tremendous avalanches with great frequency bombarded the lower slopes. He had counted 18 in 20 minutes. Furthermore, a great precipice cut off most of the mountain bases.

He described the enormous difficulties of the adventure, based on his own knowledge of the region. “In the first place,” he said, “we are in complete l ignorance as to the nature of the mountain. It is only known by distant Views of the upper part. Nobody before the present expedition has been within 40 miles of the mountain, and only one person has been as near as that. The Himalayas are much younger than the Alps and the Welsh hills, end differ from the former in being much more precipitous and much, less rounded off by the action of the forces of denudation inasmuch as they are in an earlier stage of disintegration. The result is that it is the exception to find a peak that is at all elimable. Many of the big mountains of the range are cut off all round by peaks below, and even if this is not so in the case of Everest and if it be proved that the mountain may be scaled from base to summit, the mere length of the ascent presents problems too complicated in character for any expedition tc anticipate.

“So far as it is possible to judge from photographs' of the upper part of the mountain, its summit is reached from the north by a long and not very steep, though probably narrow ridge, which at an Alpine level might not be difficult. But climbing at. an altitude of 28,000 ft. to 29,000 ft. is a totally different proposition. The highest ascent thus far is that of the Bride, in the Himalayas, which the Duke of Abruzzi climbed to a height of 24,500 ft. •

“It was not difficult, but on the last day the rate was only 150 ft. an hour, and it is safe, therefore, to assume that beyond 26,000 ft. experts could not proceed faster than 100 ft. an hour, with a maximum of luOOft. a day. To ensure this progress a series of camps woiiid have to be established at exceedingly high altitudes, beginning at the lowest with one at IS,oooft. Others would have to be placed at altitudes of 21,000 ft-., 23,000 ft., 24,000 ft., 26,000 ft., 27,000., and 28,000 ft. respectively, each higher camp being somewhat smaller than that immediately below. These camps would necessitate carying considerable weights up to great heights; tjiey would have to be strong enough to withstand the heavy storms which are more frequent than good weather at high altitudes; they would have to be victualled for 'several days, and they would have to provide shelter for several sleepers, and for at least two in the highest of all. “Tent platforms are not likely to be provided by nature, and would most probably have to be hewn out of the solid ice. This would be very slow work, because the primary effect of high altitudes on man is to induce sleep and fatigue rapidly when any work is done. The camps would also have to be fairly permanent structures to last at least two seasons?

It seemed to Sir ‘ Martin, therefore, jnost difficult to imagine that an expedition, however competent and well organised, unless it included a large ‘•body of able porters, each more or less a skilled mountaineer, could be expected to conquer Everest in a single season. Sir Martin’s own experience of the Himalayas protapted him to the belief that it would be useless to base hopes on the fact that all the Alpine peaks had been conquered. The assumption that all the peaks of the worjd are vulnerable was far too sanguine. What, however, he did expect from the party now attempting to ascend Everest was a good general guryey of the* mountain and of the district surrounding it, together with geological observation of the structure of the peak itself, the nature of its glaciers, its watersheds, and general topography,