Kangchenjunga The Untrodden Peak

Kangchenjunga - The Untrodden Peak is written by Charles Evans, the leader of the 1955 British Kangchenjunga Expedition to climb the third highest mountain in the world.

Charles Evans was the deputy leader of the successful 1953 British Mount Everest Expedition, and selected to lead this expedition two years later. Another from the Everest expedition who was present here was George Band; Tom Brown was the first reserve for Everest. Other members of the team were Norman Hardie (the New Zealander) who was deputy leader, John Streather, Tom McKinnon, John Jackson, Neil Mather, John Clegg and the Sherpa's Dawa Tensing, Annullu & Urkien, among others.

It is no spoiler to say the expedition was successful, with the first (George Band & Joe Brown) and second teams (Norman Hardie & Tony Streather) reaching the near top. I say near top, because as the book title alludes, the peak is untrodden, due to an agreement with the Nepalese that the climbers would not stand upon the very summit. They respected this request by stopping a few feet from the very summit.

Evans' writing is very accurate, and thorough, and he takes a lot of care to accurately describe each aspect of the mountain. For me this was a bit too much detail, with lots of climbers terminology, but if the reader was more au fait with technical climber's language it would no doubt be more helpful. No matter how many mountaineering books I read I don't seem to retain the meanings of those words for any length of time, but usually I just move through them ok (same with nautical terminology) as I lack the commitment to get up and google them!

Nevertheless this is an interesting book with plenty worth reading. It contains a number of b&w photographs, some pen & ink maps and some pen & ink sketches of the mountain from different directions which plot the camps and route - these were particularly helpful in understanding the climb sequence where Evans had two person teams moving up and then down the mountain, acclimatising and resting according to the plan to climb.

There was some interesting detail around the oxygen systems they used - both open and closed circuit systems - new technology since Everest, which they had different people trialling in different circumstances. As usual, the amount of gear (and in this case heavy oxygen bottles) that the expedition brought with them, and the number of porters at the beginning just to get the gear to the lower base camps astounded me.

There are also a number of appendices which provide a bunch of statistics, and cover things like the equipment, the food, the oxygen systems and statistics on how the climbers fared with them, a medical section and the sponsor list.

Overall, slightly too technical and slightly dry, but a solid 3.5 stars, rounded down.