EVEREST-summit of achievement by stephen venables

Author:stephen venables [venables, stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

1951-STARTING AGAIN

Early in 1951, a young surgeon doing his military service with the Brigade of Guards in London would sneak off whenever he could to browse through the archives of the Royal Geographical Society. His name was Michael Ward. Examining forgotten maps and photographs, including Mallory’s famous shots looking down into Nepal from Tibet, and the recent aerial shots of the unknown Southeast Ridge, he began to wonder if Everest might be climbable from the south.

The British empire was now being dismantled, India was independent, and any possibility of renewing ties with Tibet was out of the question now that Chinese Communist armies had taken ancient claims of “suzerainty” over Tibet to their logical conclusion. However, after decades of isolation, the Nepal government was now allowing foreigners to visit its unknown mountain interior. In 1947, Bill Tilman had been permitted to explore the Langtang region, to the southwest of Everest. Then, in 1950, Maurice Herzog’s French expedition gained a precious permit to try one of the prestigious “eight thousanders” that were so revered by the heirs of Napoleons metric system. After many adventures trying to separate topographical fact from the confusion of existing maps, they eventually made a lightning dash to the summit of Annapurna-the highest summit so far attained by man, and the first above 8000m(26.240 feet). While Herzog and his frostbitten companions were making desperate retreat through the monsoon-drenched jungle of the Nepalese lowlands, a small Anglo-American trekking party was on its way to the most sought-after high valley in Nepal-the Solu Khumbu region immediately south of Everest.

The Everest party was organized by Oscar Houston and included his son Charles. At the last minute they bumped into Charles’s old companion from 1936 Nanda Devi Expedition. Bill Tilman, and invited him along, too. As well as climbing on Nanda Devi, Houston has led an attempt on K2 in 1938 and was to have another near miss on the world’s second highest mountain in 1953. However, this 1950 trip to Nepal was more relaxed affair. As much as anything else it was a chance just to experience the enchantment of walking through the Nepalese countryside. Many of those early visitors had been to other Himalayan regions in India, Kashmir, Sikkim, and Tibet, but Nepal seemed to have a special magic of its own. It was partly the sheer novelty of going where no westerners had ever been before, but it was also the staggering beauty of the landscape, the magnificence of the architecture, from the Hindu temples of the capital to the Buddhist monasteries and paved villages of the high valleys, and the genial friendliness of the people.

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