Kangshung Face, Mount Everest

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Kangshung Face, Mount Everest
Elevation	3,050 meters (10,000 feet) (above its base)
Location	Tibet
Range	Himalaya
First ascent	1981 American expedition

The Kangshung Face, is the East Face of Mount Everest, located upon the side of the mountain that lies in Tibet. It stands 3,050 metres high, and is encrusted with snow and ice of a giant hanging glacier. It is considered the most dangerous route of ascent by most mountaineers, due to its extreme steepness. It rises from the base of the Kangshung Glacier.

The eastern side of the mountain was relatively unknown to the outside world until the 20th century, owing to the complex and isolated terrain and climate of Tibet, and Buddhist reverence for the mountains prohibiting their ascent. In 1921, George Mallory and Guy Bullock were the first Westerners to witness and survey the Kangshung Face, as a part of the British Reconnaissance Expedition which had gained permission for the first-time ever from the Dalai Lama of Tibet to attempt ascents of Everest. The first successful ascent of the mountain from Kangshung was made in 1981 by an American expedition.

The rising wall of the mountain stands 3,050 metres (10,000 feet) high. Unlike the rocky surfaces of the northern side, this wall is usually encrusted with snow and ice from a giant hanging glacier and Himalayan snowfall. To climb, the 2 mile wide base of the wall would have to be surpassed by climbing up the deep ashes of avalanche-swept gullies or through vertical, overhanging rock buttresses, full of deadly ice towers and unsteady snow. Inclement weather would leave climbers exposed to dangerous avalanches, and finding their way through an extremely complex and treacherous route. Taking into account these challenges, George Mallory noted in his expedition book: Other men, less wise, might attempt this way if they would, but, emphatically, it was not for us. (Venables, Everest: Alone at the Summit, pp. 8)

[edit] Reconnaissance

Mallory and Bullock were led by local yak herders to the east side the mountain, passing through the high Langma La and the rhododendron forests of Kama Chu. At that time of the year in August, there were meadows of flowers and rich vegetation in the valleys and beside the Kangshung Glacier. In 1980, a young American climber, Andy Harvard undertook a modern reconnaissance of the East Face.

[edit] Ascending from Kangshung

The first successful ascent of the mountain from Kangshung was made in 1981 by an American expedition. The ascent of Mount Everest in 1988 through a new route upon the Kangshung Face was a landmark expedition. The only expedition member to reach the summit, Stephen Venables, became the first Briton to summit without the use of oxygen. The expedition also pioneered a new route up a face of the mountain previously considered an impossible traverse by most mountaineers.