Re: What In The World Happened Here? XXXV11


no, not there.

salty took the huge clue of Peak b (first Western name for Everest) and ran with it - see his clues and mine.

Here is the rest of the story, modified from my manuscript that so far two wilderness/mountaineering journals have not been smart enough to accept:


The 1933 Fourth British Everest Expedition was perhaps most famous for climbing high on the mountain where an ice ax was found lending speculation as to what happened to Mallory and Irvine. Above Camp VI, Wyn Harris found an ice-axe that could only have been left or dropped there in 1924. The Willisch brand axe was identified later, by three nicks on the shaft, as probably belonging to Irvine. In addition they found, in the tent left by Mallory and Irvine, a torch that still worked after nine cold years (because it was dynamo-powered rather than a battery flashlight).

While there were no 1924 members returning, the 1933 team included leader Hugh Ruttledge, famed explorer Eric Shipton, climber-writer Frank Smythe, and perhaps a young Tenzing Norgay. One member less well-known to today's readers was John (Jack) Longland.

Jack Longland came to the 1933 expedition as the 28-year-old president of the Cambridge University Mountaineering Club and a rock climber of unparalleled reputation. Off the mountain, Longland lectured at Durham University until 1936 and became an influential figure in education, local government, and mountaineering circles. He was later the Question Master of the BBC radio quiz program "My Word!" for twenty years. Knighted for his educational services, Sir Jack was one of 3 judges for the very first Boardman-Tasker Prize (1983) when they decided not to award it at all, instead waiting until the following year for The Shishapangma Expedition by Doug Scott and Alex MacIntyre.

But before that....on the approach march from India through Tibet, something strange happened in 1933. That afternoon the first Olympiad in the history of Tengye Dzong was held amidst the utmost enthusiasm. It included some spectacular pole vaults by Jack Longland, an expert performer, the "pole" being a section of a wireless mast.