Howard Somervell - First Everest Expedition

First Everest Expedition

By 1922, Somervell had shown himself a capable climber in the Lake District and the Alps, where he climbed in particular with Bentley Beetham, a climber, photographer and ornithologist from Darlington. Somervell was invited to join the 1922 British Everest expedition. During the expedition, he formed a close friendship with George Mallory, and the two famously read Shakespeare to one another in their tent at night. By May 18, Somervell, Mallory and two other climbers and several Sherpa porters had established camp on the North Col, at 7020 metres the highest man had ever camped, and prepared to make the first ever attempt on the summit of Everest along the North Ridge and then the Northeast Ridge. Their plan had been to establish a further camp at around 8000 m, but in the thin air it proved impossible to climb as quickly at they hoped, and they were forced to send the Sherpas down and make camp on a cramped ledge at around 7600 m. The following day, exhausted and suffering from frostbite, they reached a height of 8170 m before turning round, realising that they had no hope of reaching the summit before dark. They had set a world altitude record, but such is the scale of Everest that they had not even reached the junction with the Northeast Ridge.

Over the next few days a second group of climbers Geoffrey Bruce and George Finch, using oxygen, made a second unsuccessful attempt on the summit. With the weakened climbers back at Base Camp (only Somervell was considered fit to continue by the expedition doctor), and the weather becoming worse with the imminent arrival of the monsoon, Somervell and Mallory argued that the team should make a third attempt, against the advice of Charles Bruce, the expedition leader. On the 7th June, Somervell was part of a party of four British climbers leading fifteen Sherpas through waist-deep fresh snow on the slopes below the North Col. An avalanche occurred, killing seven Sherpas. Somervell was shocked, and felt great guilt that it was the Sherpas who had paid the price for the poor judgement of the British climbers, writing

"I would gladly at that moment have been lying there dead in the snow, if only to give those fine chaps who had survived the feeling that we shared their loss, as we had shared their risk."