1975 British Mount Everest Southwest Face expedition

rdf:langString 1975 British Mount Everest Southwest Face expedition

rdf:langString John Hunt

rdf:langString "Foreword", Everest the Hard Way. 1976.

rdf:langString But I think that all members of the party would concede that the supreme example of climbing technique, applied with exceptional determination, was Nick Estcourt's superb lead, without the normal safeguards or oxygen at 27,000 feet, up the rickety outward-leaning ramp of snow-covered rubble which led from the gully in the Rock Band up to the Upper Snow Field. This must be one of the greatest leads in climbing history, comparable, at least in its psychological effect, with the original lead across the Hinterstösser Traverse or the exit gully above the Spider, on the North Face of the Eiger.

rdf:langString The 1975 British Mount Everest Southwest Face expedition was the first to successfully climb Mount Everest by ascending one of its faces. In the post-monsoon season Chris Bonington led the expedition which used rock climbing techniques to put fixed ropes up the face from the Western Cwm to just below the South Summit. A key aspect of the success of the climb was the scaling of the cliffs of the Rock Band at about 8,200 metres (27,000 ft) by Nick Estcourt and Tut Braithwaite. Two teams then climbed to the South Summit and followed the Southeast Ridge to the main summit – Dougal Haston with Doug Scott on 24 September 1975, who at the South Summit made the highest ever bivouac for that time, and Peter Boardman with Pertemba two days later. It is thought that Mick Burke fell to his death shortly after he had also reached the top. British climbers reached the summit of Everest for the first time in an event that has been described as "the apotheosis of the big, military-style expeditions".