Norton Couloir
Encyclopedia
Mount Everest
Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at above sea level. It is located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. The international boundary runs across the precise summit point...
in Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
, which lies east of the pyramidal peak and extends to within 150 m below the summit.
Its companion to the west of the summit is the Hornbein Couloir
Hornbein Couloir
The Hornbein Couloir is a steep gorge high on the northern side of Mount Everest in Tibet, that lies west of the summit pyramid and extends to about 150 metres below the summit itself.Its companion to the east of the summit is the Norton Couloir....
.
| Green line | Normal route, largely corresponds to the 1924 Mallory Route, with high-altitude camps at about 7,700 and 8,300 m, today's 8,300 m camp is somewhat more to the west (2 triangles) |
| Red line | Great Couloir or Norton Couloir |
| Light blue line | 1980 Messner Traverse; in 1924 Norton crossed the north face between the light blue and the green lines |
| b) | Point on west face of the couloir, up to which Edward Felix Norton Edward Felix Norton Edward Felix Norton DSO MC was a British army officer and mountaineer.He was educated at Charterhouse School and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and then joined artillery units in India and served in World War I. He had been introduced to mountain climbing at the home in the Alps of his... ascended in 1924 |
Origin of the name
The steep gorge was named after the lead member of the 1924 British expedition, Edward Felix NortonEdward Felix Norton
Edward Felix Norton DSO MC was a British army officer and mountaineer.He was educated at Charterhouse School and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and then joined artillery units in India and served in World War I. He had been introduced to mountain climbing at the home in the Alps of his...
, who reached a height of about 8,570 metres in this steep valley during an unsuccessful summit attempt on 4 June 1924. He avoided the dangerous windswept ridge and, by traversing the north face, ascended into the gorge which has since borne his name.
Everest solo, Reinhold Messner
The Norton Couloir was the scene of one of the greatest mountaineering achievements when, in 1980, Reinhold MessnerReinhold Messner
Reinhold Messner is an Italian mountaineer and explorer from Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol "whose astonishing feats on Everest and on peaks throughout the world have earned him the status of the greatest climber in history." He is renowned for making the first solo ascent of Mount Everest without...
entered this gorge to avoid what, for a solo climber, was a dangerous ridge - especially to circumvent the Three Pinnacles - and ascended to the summit, alone and without using artificial oxygen. The most successful climb to that point by F. Edward Norton in 1924, was Messner's inspiration for this attempt: Norton had also used no oxygen.
Other climbs through the couloir
In 1984 an AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
expedition succeeded in climbing a new route. From the main branch of the Rongbuk Glacier
Rongbuk Glacier
Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Rongbuk Glacier and Mount Everest as seen from the International Space Station.rect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateau...
they went directly onto the north face and established their third high-altitude camp at the entrance of the couloir at 7,500 metres. From another camp at 8,150 m Tim Macartney-Snape
Tim Macartney-Snape
Tim Macartney-Snape is a mountaineer and author. On 3 October 1984 Macartney-Snape and Greg Mortimer were the first Australians to reach the summit of Mount Everest. They reached the summit, climbing without supplementary oxygen, via a new route on the North Face...
and Greg Mortimer reached the summit on 2 October without bottled oxygen, the first Australians to reach the top of Everest.
In 2001, young French snowboarder Marco Siffredi succeeded in the first snowboard descent of Everest by using the Norton Couloir. He died the following year attempting a new descent via Hornbein Couloir
Hornbein Couloir
The Hornbein Couloir is a steep gorge high on the northern side of Mount Everest in Tibet, that lies west of the summit pyramid and extends to about 150 metres below the summit itself.Its companion to the east of the summit is the Norton Couloir....
.
Sources
- Tom Holzel, Audrey Salkeld: In der Todeszone - Das Geheimnis um George Mallory; Goldmann, München 1999, ISBN 3-442-15076-0
- Conrad Anker, David Roberts: Verschollen am Mount Everest - Dem Geheimnis von George Mallory auf der Spur; Heyne, München 1999, ISBN 3-453-17711-8
- Reinhold Messner: Everest Solo; Fischer, Frankfurt 2001 - ISBN 3-596-15092-2