1936 British Mount Everest expedition facts for kids
The 1936 British Mount Everest expedition was an attempt to climb Mount Everest. It faced many challenges and did not reach the summit. This was Hugh Ruttledge's second time leading an expedition to Everest. Heavy snow and an early monsoon season made it very difficult for the climbers. In their last try, two climbers almost died in an avalanche. This expedition was also special because it was the first time climbers used portable radios on Everest.
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Looking Back: The 1935 Expedition
British explorers had been trying to climb Mount Everest since 1921, but no one had reached the top. These trips were planned by the Mount Everest Committee, a group from the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club.
The 1935 expedition was a smaller, cheaper trip to scout out the mountain before a bigger attempt in 1936. Led by Eric Shipton, this team confirmed that the best way to climb Everest from Tibet was through the East Rongbuk Glacier to a spot called the North Col. However, during the monsoon season in 1935, the team couldn't get much higher than the North Col.
Planning the 1936 Climb
Since Nepal was still closed to climbers, the team had to approach Mount Everest from the north side, as before. Earlier expeditions in 1922, 1924, and 1933 had explored some routes above the North Col. The 1936 expedition was planned to be the biggest one yet.
Eric Shipton had hoped that the success of the smaller 1935 expedition would convince the organizers to try a lighter, faster approach. But he was disappointed. He felt that the 1936 expedition was going to be too large, just like earlier ones. He even thought about not joining.
Hugh Ruttledge was chosen to lead the 1936 expedition. He had led the 1933 trip. Some climbers, like Bill Tilman and Dan Bryant, were not chosen because they had trouble getting used to the high altitude. Interestingly, Tilman later led a very successful climb of Nanda Devi in 1936, which was the highest mountain climbed at that time.
The climbing team included experienced climbers like Frank Smythe (who was the main climbing leader), Shipton, Percy Wyn Harris, Edwin Kempson, Charles Warren, Bill Wager, and Edmund Wigram. Two new climbers, Peter R. Oliver and James M.L. Gavin, joined after impressing Smythe in the Alps. John Hunt was not allowed to join because a medical check found a minor heart issue.
Other important team members included John Morris (who managed transport), Gordon Noel Humphreys (the doctor), and William R. Smijth-Windham (who handled communications). The team brought oxygen equipment and new radio gear that allowed them to talk between base camp and Darjeeling. The whole trip cost about £10,000.
The Expedition Begins
The team traveled through Darjeeling, Kalimpong, and Kampa Dzong. They arrived at Rongbuk Monastery on April 25, 1936. The weather was good, and there was plenty of snow. Sixty porters came with them from the start, and they hired another hundred at Rongbuk.
By May 9, Smythe, Shipton, and Warren reached the North Col, which is about 7,020 meters (23,031 feet) high. They used the same path as the 1935 team. However, heavy snow for the next two days made it hard to move forward. On May 13, Smythe led a new attempt. He asked Sherpa Rinzing to lead the way, cutting steps in the snow. This was the first time a Sherpa led on an Everest climb.
The team set up ropes to Camp IV at the top of the North Col in just five days. In 1933, it had taken fourteen days. Over the next two days, porters made 96 trips to set up Camp IV. For the first time, climbers could use portable radios, which weighed only about 15 pounds (6.8 kg).
However, conditions on the north ridge were bad, with soft snow about 2 feet (0.6 meters) deep. More snow fell on May 18, forcing Smythe to go back to Camp III at the bottom of the North Col. Ruttledge then decided to pull the team back to Camp I because the path to the Col had become too dangerous.
News arrived that the monsoon season had started in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), which was unusually early. Thinking they only had two weeks left, they tried again on May 23. But the monsoon had already reached Darjeeling and was moving very fast. Two days later, it hit Everest itself.
When they reached Camp III, they were again forced back by the snow. A week later, they tried to occupy the camp for a third time. On June 4, climbers reached the North Col again, but it was impossible to get the porters up there. The bad weather continued.
Wyn Harris convinced Ruttledge to let him and Shipton try one more time. They barely survived a huge avalanche on the steep slope leading to the Col. Shipton later said it was "a ridiculous thing to do, but we were rather desperate." Because of the terrible weather, they couldn't test their oxygen equipment at high altitude, and the attempt to reach the summit failed.
Smythe and Wyn Harris explored the mountain on the western side of the North Col. They thought that climbing from that side might be safer during the monsoon, even though it would be less protected from the wind. However, they realized that the higher parts of the mountain would still be impossible to climb. The expedition left Base Camp on June 17.
What Happened Next
Many people saw the expedition as a failure. George Finch, who had been on the 1922 expedition, spoke out. He said that future Everest expeditions should be planned and led by climbers, that climbers should be between 25 and 35 years old, and that the leaders should not be from the military. He believed that the risks of climbing needed to be accepted.
Tenzing Norgay, a famous Sherpa who later became one of the first two people to reach Everest's summit, wrote about the expedition:
Mr Ruttledge was too old to be a high climber, but he was a wonderful man, gentle and warm-hearted, and all the Sherpas were very glad to be with him. This was a very big expedition, with more sahibs than there had ever been before, and a total of sixty Sherpas, which was five times as many as in 1935.
—Tenzing Norgay, Man of Everest: The Autobiography of Tenzing (1955)
In 2013, Frank Smythe's son published a book about his father. It included copies of letters Smythe sent during the 1936 expedition. In one letter to Teddy Norton, Smythe wrote that he had seen something that looked like a body through binoculars from base camp. This was in a gully just below where Mallory or Irvine's ice axe had been found by the 1933 expedition. Smythe wrote, "It's not to be written about as the press would make an unpleasant sensation." Later, in 1999, a team found Mallory's body in this exact spot. Pictures of his remains were on the front pages of newspapers all over the world.
