Читать книгу The Assault on Mount Everest, 1922 онлайн

43 страница из 72

ssss1

Now began in earnest our race against the monsoon. I have often been asked since my return, whether we should not have done better if we had started sooner. I think none of us would have cared to have arrived at our Upper Rongbuk camp a fortnight earlier in the year, nor, having done so, would any good purpose have been served. As it was, the temperature and the coldness of the wind was as much as any of us could keep up with and still keep our good health. This was to be our Base Camp at a height of 16,500 feet. We made suitable dumps of stores, pitched our mess tents, put all our porters in tents at their own particular places, and made ourselves as comfortable as circumstances allowed, strengthening the tents in every way to resist the wind. Noel also pitched his developing tent near the small stream that issues from the Rongbuk Glacier. On our arrival water was hardly available; all the running streams were frozen hard, and we drove the whole of our animals over them. Where the glacier stream flowed fastest in the centre, we got sufficient water for drinking purposes.