Everest Attempt by a Nepalese Woman. A group of ten Nepalese, four Frenchmen and a Belgian was led by Mrs. Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, the first Nepalese woman to lead a mountaineering venture. (Many of her leadership duties were performed by her husband, who runs a trekking agency and has been an active mountaineer; he was one of the Sherpa climbers.) Last year, she was a member of an expedition led by Marc Batard, but at that time she failed to climb to the summit and claims that Batard had prevented her from trying it. Despite two summit bids, on both of which she used artificial oxygen, Mrs. Sherpa was unable to reach the summit. On her first attempt, she got to the south summit on September 30 in the company of several of her group. They decided the wind was too strong to continue. On the second attempt, she got only to the last camp on the South Col. Some of the foreigners in her party were not enthusiastic about their experience. One French member said that he had to sleep in the tent of another expedition at the last camp on the night of September 29. Mrs. Sherpa’s husband explains that the Frenchman was supposed to be in the second summit party, not the first.

Elizabeth Hawley