North Col

21st May 1924

Photo J. de V. Hazard, courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). Camp IV looking N-NW.

While Mallory, Norton, and Odell recovered, Sandy set out with Somervell, Hazard, and twelve porters to take loads up to the North Col. They had to do this in terrible weather: ‘snow falling steadily, no signs of improvement. Conditions and going were perfectly bloody.’ When they reached the ice chimney in the big crevasse it became clear that the porters would not be able to climb it with the loads on their backs, so Sandy and Somervell scrambled up to the ledge above it and spent two and three-quarter hours hauling the loads up the 200-foot chimney. Hazard stood at the bottom with the porters and oversaw the loading of the rope.

When finally all the loads had been safely winched up and the porters and Hazard had climbed the chimney, Sandy and Somervell set off towards the North Col camp, fixing ropes in all the most exposed places. As there was insufficient accommodation for everyone at Camp IV, they left Hazard and the porters on the North Col and returned to III ‘at the double as the mist and snow were thickening and the hour late’. Sandy had a nasty slip on the way down but was none the worse for it. The visibility on the glacier was less than 100 yards and they arrived at dusk at Camp III ‘very tired and thirsty. Sandy’s first impression of the North Col had not been a favourable one. He wrote a few days later to his mother, ‘I’ve been up to the North Col in a blizzard and never want to do it again.’