Evening star., 1943-03-07
Worlds Highest Peck
Still Uneonquersd
Bv Frederic J. Hdsktn.

| BN frederic J. Hasktn.
In period Of daring effort and val.
liant deed, and when nature almost
everywhere has yielded to the sciencs
and skill Of men, the worlds highest
mountain. Mount Everest. stands uncon-
quered after almost century Of frequent
attempts. Above all mankind 1t remains
supreme and defiant. Haunting tts per-
petual banner Of snow.
For 16 miles its blizzard plume
stretches eastward across the cold sky
above the Himalayan chaos, blown from
earth's highest summit like smoke froma
volcano. In the hope Of reaching that
gale-swept summit many men have given
their lives. and scores Of others have
and nerve could drive them. Always
this mountain Of mountains has tri-
umphed, yet the spirit OF man viii not
be broken. He still believes that the
uppermost part Of Mount Everest can b
scaled.
Again and again adventurers have
learned how savage Mount Everest Is.
Often they have spent all their strength
endeavoring to reach the top, and fall
ing. have rested and tried once more.
Failure to get to the top Of this noun
tain is, to the Tbetans, nothing to worry
about, but to civilized man 1t means
much. To him, at first, the Everest
climb was sporting adventure. Now it
has become prime enterprise Of the hui
man spirit-an undertaking in which
pride is challenged, bafhed and h,lmbled.
Pride being what 1t Is, the Everest enter
prise will 60 on. Man will no more give
it up than, in an earlier time, he gave UP
striving to reach the North and South
Poles.
The poles have been reached and their
surrounding areas charted. and the
greatest unknovns Of the earth have been
trodden, all but one-the last thousand
feet of the worlds highest mountain,
Airmen have flown over this nearest-to.
the-heavens volume Of dirt, snow and leo
and have spied out its final secrets. But
still the superlative achievement remains,
the last major physical adventure on
earth, that of getting to the capstone
Of the peak by manpower on foot.
The first man to stand on that loftiest
Of all pinnacles will be only slightly more
than 5000 feet above the sea, and men
in helium- lifted metal cells have gone
miles higher than that. He win not add
q single square inch to the possessions OF
any nation, and he will see nothing that
has not already been seen, photographed
and described. But he will do some-
thing inmeasurably great for the spirit
Of the creature called man, who set out
ages ago to master the material en-
vironment in which he found himself
stranded, and has today all but succeeded
In that purpose.
After Mount Everest has been con.
quered, the philosophers say, there must
be conquests about which only little Is yet
known. These, presumably, would he Of
the mountainous spiritual difficulties that
still stand between life and its happy
fulnllment. There are heights beyond
the material, and the man who finally
succeeds in climbing Mount Everest may
inspire his fellowmen to attempt to as.
cend these spiritual heights, and thereby
open up for man new vistas for his seeing
eye and feeling soul.
The men who have attempted to climb
to the top Of Mount Everest record bit-
ter experiences, and even then they do
not tell all. Frostbite. sunblister, m0w-
blindness, raw parched threats and d.
lated hearts are the portion Of these ad-
venturous climbers. Nausea Is continual.
Vision fails, the eyes see specters. the
imagination plays weird tricks. judgment
becomes lax and undependable, muscular
control Is uncertain and ambition ceases.
It is these experiences that cannot be
told In full, for language falls In
the attempt in about the same ratio %
man fails to scale the uppermost part
Of the worlds highest peak. In this IN.
stance the indescribable and unsur.
mountable become twin words.
And time IS priceless. The whole
effort, from the base camp 20 miles
away, must be made over jungle, stream
and mountain within the few days In
May and June, between the end Of the
Asiatic winter and the onrush Of the
Indian monsoon. Even In that brief
period blizzards rage almost daily and
avalanches Of water and broken Ice
pour over the great heights around
Mount Everest which In themselves are
master mountains
Those who have attempted to reach
the top Of Mount Everest have given
the world outstanding examples Of cour.
age, fortitude and self-sacrifice. Up
above the clouds, beyond the sight Of
even telescopes on the glaciers below.
they battle with danger at Its fiercest.
They must battle for every inch Of their
upward climb.
Tragedy, too, is often there. and no &C.
curate record has been kept OF the num-
Der of men who have been swallowed up
by avalanches Of snow and ice, or who,
weakened by fatigue. were refrigerated.
An outstanding example Of this oc.
CURED in 1922 when three climbers
were cutting fresh TRAN, and were
hAin~ fn1lnvuAA - eAvApal eros,y%a ~