Foreword by Lord Hunt of Llanfair Waterdine.

THE 1935 EVEREST RECONNAISSANCE

Interest among the British public in the long saga of efforts to reach the summit of the world's highest mountain has been widespread, enduring and, at times, intense, ever since the first expedition was sent by a joint committee of the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club in 1921, whose main purpose was to explore the approaches to Everest from the north and east. When the story of their journey was told by its leader, Charles Howard-Bury and other members, it was confidently predicted that the North ridge, and its continuation from its junction with the great N.E. ridge, could be climbed. Subsequent expeditions were sent in 1922, 1924 and 1933, whose climbers made their way laboriously upwards from the Chang La (North Col) to within 800 feet of the summit. It was then generally assumed that, benefiting from the lessons of those expeditions and inspired by the tragic failure of Mallory and Irvine to return from a point high on the N.E. ridge in 1924, one further effort would carry the day.

Yet the expedition which returned to the mountain in 1935 received a cautious brief from the Joint Committee; a further reconnaissance was required, to look for alternative routes to the summit, and to test conditions of wind and weather during and after the monsoon. There were valid reasons for this caution; but I myself, on my first big Himalayan expedition that year at the far, N.W. end of the range, was thankful to be engaged on a more challenging role. I shared the disappointment felt by many others, especially those outside mountaineering 'circles', that a determined assault was not to made on Everest that year. In correspondence I received from Edwin Kempson, my closest climbing companion in those years, who was on the Everest reconnaissance, it was clear that he envied me on Peak 36 (Saltoro Kangri) in the Karakoram. However, excerpts from his diary in this book show how much he enjoyed the great forested ridges and the wealth of bird and butterfly life in the Tista valley, which so attracted my wife and myself during our own trek in Sikkim. As was the case with Howard-Bury's "Reconnaissance of Mount Everest 1921", such perceptions greatly enhance the reading of Tony Astill's record of the reconnaissance in 1935.

When Shipton returned, albeit with a creditable record of peaks of 20,000 feet or so climbed in the Everest region, but with discouraging news of the prospects of climbers beyond the North Col in monsoon conditions, I shared the general feeling of disillusion. The story of 1935 was seen as a serious set-back : an anti-climax in the whole story of Everest.

In those circumstances it was understandable that no book was published on the expedition of 1935 and that the press should begin to lose interest when no further progress was made towards the summit. Doubts were expressed whether the mountain could be climbed and the funding of expeditions became more difficult. Public confidence began to wane.

Yet it is important, whether because or despite this down-turn in the whole - and finally triumphant story, should be made available to a public still enthralled by this prolonged human endeavour (over the prolonged saga). 1935, in particular, was a significant effort. It was successful in terms of its wider reconnaissance role; it pointed to the value and enjoyment of small, lightly equipped mountaineering parties in the higher mountains of the world. Moreover, it showed Eric Shipton in his true colours. He was, par excellence, a mountain explorer rather than a climber, hell-bent on reaching a prestigious summit; this had, I fancy, some bearing on the controversy in which he and I were reluctantly involved, over the leadership of the expedition in 1953 which was the triumphant climax of all those earlier efforts.