Everest Tragedy. On June 19 Roger Marshall set out with the hope of making a solo ascent of Mount Everest via the Japanese and Hornbein Couloirs. He made good progress and, at the end of the second day, he was at the foot of the Hornbein Couloir. However something must have been amiss since he was observed by his friend Ruth DeCew to begin on the morning of June 21 to descend. On very hard ice in the Japanese Couloir he slipped and fell to his death. Marshall was born in 1942 in England and moved to Canada in 1967. During the past few years he had lived in Boulder, Colorado. In 1984 he soloed Kangchenjunga. It had been his ambition to solo the five highest mountains of the world.