BURSTThe Kangshung Face of Mount Everest rises approximately 3,350 metres from the Kangshung Glacier to the summit. It’s one of the mountain’s largest and most remote walls. The upper portion is dominated by hanging glaciers, while the lower face consists of steep rock buttresses separated by couloirs. Its southern third also forms part of the northeastern face of Lhotse.
Mountaineers first surveyed the Kangshung Face in 1921 during the British reconnaissance expedition to Everest. George Mallory and Guy Bullock reached the eastern side of the mountain after being led by local yak herders through the high Langma La and the rhododendron forests of Kama Chu. The expedition’s observations established the face as part of Everest’s eastern geography, but no attempt was made to climb it.
The wall’s three-kilometre-wide base could be approached only through avalanche-prone gullies or by climbing steep buttresses. The hanging glaciers and snow slopes made for epic avalanche hazards, especially during storms. Because much of the technical climbing is low on the face, retreat could also be difficult once climbers committed. Mallory said this of the possibility of climbing the face in his expedition book: “Other men, less wise, might attempt this way if they would, but, emphatically, it was not for us.”
The first modern reconnaissance was in 1980 by the American climber Andy Harvard, and then a year later, an American expedition led by Richard Blum and Louis Reichardt attempted to climb the face. The team included Edmund Hillary, George Lowe, John Roskelley, and Kim Momb. The climbers made progress on the steep rock buttresses but abandoned the attempt at approximately 7,000 metres because of the danger from avalanches.
The first ascent came in 1983 by an American expedition led by James Morrissey that spent five and a half weeks working on the route. On Oct. 8, Kim Momb, Carlos Buhler, and Louis Reichardt reached the summit of Everest. George Lowe, Dan Reid, and Jay Cassell reached the summit the following day.
In his 1984 American Alpine Journal story, Morrissey wrote, “You could feel the press of winter in the ice forming in the water bottles at night. Almost every afternoon the clouds rolled up the valley and swallowed us on the avalanche-prone slopes of the upper mountain.”
The second route, called Neverest Buttress, up the Kangshung Face was in 1988 by an American-British expedition. About the climb, Ed Webster said, “Their team [1983 team] used bottled 02, we did not. Neither expedition had any Sherpa support on the mountain. My three partners were Robert Mads Anderson, Stephen Venables, and Paul Teare. Stephen attained the summit on May 12, 1988, alone, becoming the first British mountaineer to summit Everest with no 02. Robert and myself reached the South Summit; Paul the South Col. Only two books recount Everest’s Kangshung Face: Stephen Venables’ Alone At the Summit, and my autobiography, Snow in the Kingdom.”
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