Inter-war Years
While there would be no advance on the altitude record until the 1950s, the summit record was broken three times in the inter-war years. The first was a by-product of the international expedition to Kanchenjunga led by Gunther Dyhrenfurth in 1930. The attempt on Kanchenjunga itself was abandoned after the death of a Sherpa, but members of the team stayed to climb a number of smaller peaks in the area and Jongsong, at 7,462 m (24,343 ft) was climbed by Bericht Hörlin and Erwin Schneider on 3 June.
In 1931 the summit record was broken again with the ascent of Kamet. Frank Smythe, Eric Shipton, R.L. Holdsworth and Lewa Sherpa reached the summit on 21 June. At 7,756 m (25,446 ft), Kamet was the first mountain over 7,500 m to be climbed.
The summit record was raised once more before the Second World War brought an effective halt to mountaineering in the Himalaya. Nanda Devi, at 7,816 m (25,643 ft) the highest mountain wholly within the British Empire, had been the object of several expeditions, and it was finally climbed on 29 August 1936 by Bill Tilman and Noel Odell.
Read more about this topic: World Altitude Record (mountaineering)
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“In that second it dawned on me that I had been living here for eight years with a strange man and had borne him three children.”
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)