Mount Everest, the Reconnaissance, 1921Howard-Bury, Charles
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Mount Everest, the Reconnaissance, 1921
Howard-Bury, Charles
Everest, Mount (China and Nepal); Mount Everest Expedition (1921)
The photographic outfit has been considerably enlarged, including a
cinematograph instrument. The question of supplying oxygen has been most
thoroughly gone into. All flyers in aeroplanes at high altitudes find
oxygen absolutely necessary. In mountain climbing, however, the almost
insuperable difficulty is the weight of the apparatus supplying the
oxygen. As far as possible, this weight has been reduced to a minimum. A
large number of cylinders, the lightest and smallest obtainable, have
been sent out full of compressed oxygen, and it is hoped that they will
be capable of being used by the party that will attempt to climb to the
summit of Mount Everest. If the climbers are capable of carrying them,
and so getting a continuous supply of oxygen during the whole of the
climb, there is little doubt that climbing up to 29,000 feet is
possible. In aeroplanes considerably higher altitudes have been reached
with the help of oxygen. Moreover, there is this fact in favour of the
climbers on Mount Everest, they will be acclimatised to altitudes of
20,000 feet, whilst anyone in an aeroplane is not so acclimatised,
having risen from sea-level. The climbers will have to accommodate
themselves only to an increased height of 9,000 feet, whilst those in an
aeroplane have to suffer a diminution in pressure equivalent to 29,000
feet.
Finally, arrangements have been made with the Press for the publication
of telegrams and photographs from the Expedition. Full information of
the progress of the Expedition will therefore be available for the
public, and it will be possible to follow the climbing party, after they
leave the base camp, which will be somewhere near Choebuk, as they ascend
the East Rongbuk Glacier to the advanced base under the North col.
Afterwards all the preliminary arrangements will be reported, and
finally there will be an account of the great attempt to reach the
summit.
The Expedition will be starting nearly two months earlier than in 1921.
The weather in May and June, before the monsoon breaks in July,
apparently is more or less settled, and so the most must be made of it.
In 1921 from the end of July till September high climbing was
impossible. It is therefore obvious that a determined attempt to climb
Mount Everest should be made before the monsoon sets in.
The ascent from the North col, Changa La, 23,000 feet, to the summit of
Mount Everest, 29,000 feet, is only 6,000 feet, and the distance to
traverse is about 2 miles. As far as can be judged from the numerous
photographs of Mount Everest, the climbing is straightforward with no
insurmountable difficulties in the form of steep rock precipices. There
will be no glaciers overhanging the route which might send down
avalanches, and no excessively steep ice-slopes.
[Illustration: MOUNT EVEREST AT SUNSET from the 20,000 foot camp, Kharta
Valley.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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