Tal des Schweigens
In 1921 George Mallory and Guy Bullock had reached an unnamed col between Pumori and Lingtren and Mallory reported on looking down on the Western Cwm "However, we have seen this Western Glacier and are not sorry we have not to go up it. It is terribly steep and broken." Shipton and Bryant reached the same point on 9 August 1935 but, despite waiting several hours, mist prevented any view of the Cwm. They again reached the col on 11 August and on this occasion the mist cleared after many hours and they were able to get the first photograph of the Khumbu Icefall leading up to the Western Cwm. Bryant wrote "A westerly spur of Nuptse curled round to the north thus squeezing the glacier of the upper basin into a narrow lip over which it poured in a gigantic ice-fall, a wild tumble of contorted ice, to the Khumbu Glacier 2,000 feet below. The cwm itself must be an amazing place, completely ringed in as it is, except for that narrow entrance, by a mountain wall nowhere less than 25,000 feet high." Shipton reported how the Sherpas became quite excited as they recognised landmarks in their homeland, the Solu Khumbu. He said of the route up the icefall and cwm "it did not look impossible, and I should very much like to have the opportunity one day of exploring it".