George Band takes in the view on the way to the summit of Mount Snowdon, north Wales, in 2003.
He was the youngest member of the 1953 expedition to Everest.
Fourteen mountains exceed the magical threshold of 8,000 metres (26,250ft), but British climbers were first to the top of just one of them – Kangchenjunga, the third-highest peak in the world. On 25 May 1955, a tall Cambridge graduate called George Band, who has died aged 82, and a short Mancunian builder called Joe Brown took the last breathless steps towards the summit. They stopped a few feet short, in deference to religious sentiment in Sikkim, where locals believed the mountain to be sacred.
The ascent of Kangchenjunga was one of the very best achievements in British mountaineering history, in many ways surpassing the 1953 ascent of Everest, in which Band was also involved. The public knew Everest, however, and the long struggle to climb it, whereas success on "Kanch" was much lower key. As Band himself explained, the achievement's relative obscurity was partly down to its leader, Charles Evans, deeply admired but equally modest. "He wasn't one to shout things from the rooftops," Band observed. "He just got on with the job in a quiet sort of way."
The 1955 team was not really expected to get to the summit at all. Kangchenjunga had long been considered the highest mountain in the world. Partly due to its proximity to Darjeeling, plenty of expeditions had attempted Kangchenjunga, including in 1905 a team that included the diabolist Aleister Crowley. They had made little progress up the south-west face, considered by some too dangerous to contemplate.
But Band and his companions chose this approach for what was conceived as a reconnaissance. No one had been higher than 6,400 metres on this side of the peak. Kangchenjunga held far more secrets than Everest, which had almost been climbed on several occasions before 1953. The thought of walking up to the bottom of such a huge and untested face and climbing it first go was almost too much to contemplate. The attitude among old hands at the Alpine Club in London, before Band's departure, was "rather you than me".
Kangchenjunga's proximity to the Bay of Bengal had worrying implications for the team. The monsoon arrives with full force and the peak gets more snow than mountains further west, in the Everest region. The avalanche risk was greater.
Band lay in his tent at base camp, following the toughest approach trek he ever experienced, marking off avalanches on his tent pole with a pencil. After 24 hours he had counted 48 thundering down the south-west face. Allowing that he had slept for a third of that time, Band calculated avalanches were occurring every 20 minutes. The expedition faced immediate difficulties. "The lower icefall was horrific," Band said, "and we were absolutely extended. But then we saw this little gully up on the left that seemed to circumvent seven-eights of it. Charles suggested Norman [Hardie] and I have a crack and hey presto!" Having cleverly bypassed the lower icefall and pitched Camp 2, they found the upper section much safer. "That was thrilling, because we thought at last we're launched on the face." Above it, the expedition reached what was dubbed the "Great Shelf", the main objective for their reconnaissance. The team was working well and they could see a route ahead. Why not keep going?
Evans, with Hardie, established Camp 5 at over 7,600 metres, high enough to consider a push for the top. Back at base camp he appeared at lunch, mug of tea in hand, to announce that Band and Brown would be the first summit team. He and Neil Mather, with help from the best Sherpas, would establish Camp 6 and then let them get on with it. The stage was set.
Band was born in Taiwan, then under Japanese control, where his parents were Presbyterian missionaries. Leaving Taiwan a fortnight before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Band went to Eltham college, in south London, where he excelled at athletics, breaking those school records not set by an earlier pupil and son of missionaries, Eric Liddell. At Queens' College, Cambridge, he also met Harold Abrahams, who would do the timekeeping at athletics meets.
He also excelled at his greater passion for climbing at Cambridge, becoming president of the university's mountaineering club. As an undergraduate he climbed the North Ridge of the Dent Blanche, which caught the attention of the previous generation, and his impressive alpine record and obvious ambition won him a place on the Everest team for 1953, as the youngest member, aged just 23 when selected.
Everest was still a public-school affair, and Band's expedition diary typically recalled his joy at Cambridge winning the Boat Race. Band himself described his fellow climbers as "club players – like the London Irish – rather than internationals". Since he had served in the Signals during national service, the expedition leader John Hunt put Band in charge of the team's radio equipment. This at least allowed Band to tune into a Hallé Orchestra concert broadcast from the Manchester Free Trade Hall while perched in the Western Cwm. Music remained a great passion throughout his life.
When he told Hunt that he had actually been in charge of the mess, Band was given the task of sorting out the food as well, with expedition doctor Griff Pugh. This was more welcome. As Band told his fellow climber Wilfrid Noyce: "I'm very interested in food." Noyce, a poet, gave an elegant description of Band: "Tall, he had an immensely long reach; and bespectacled, with curved nose and smile that flashed suddenly upon the world, he had an air of benevolent learning which added tone to our expedition."
Two years later, on Kangchenjunga, the impact of working-class stars taking their place in the front rank of mountaineering nations was reflected in the composition of Evans's team. Band and Brown appeared an incongruous pair, but Brown's optimism and Band's experience proved a winning combination.
Band had other successes, including the first ascent of Rakaposhi in the Karakoram in 1954, and he did consider a full-time adventuring career, even though his parents asked him when he would start "a proper job". By the end of the 1950s he was working for Shell in Texas when a millionaire offered to back him on his next big trip. At that point he was faced with a critical decision about which direction his life would move in. When he asked his employers for more leave, he got a very similar letter to the one Chris Bonington opened during his spell at Unilever. Bonington, as he explained in his autobiography's title, chose to climb, whereas Band would later quip: "I chose to work."
Instead, Band headed for his next assignment with Shell, in the new oil fields of Venezuela, and an encounter with the legendary mountaineer and diplomat Sir Douglas Busk, then ambassador in Caracas. Over the next 30 years, Band worked in oil exploration and climbed all over the world, from Borneo to Oman. There was plenty of time spent in the mountains, but his biggest challenges were now business ones. In 1983 he left his final overseas posting in Malayasia to become director general of the UK Offshore Operators' Association.
With his business experience and illustrious climbing record, Band inevitably became part of the mountaineering nomenklatura, serving as president of both the Alpine Club and the British Mountaineering Council, and a board member of the Royal Geographical Society. After retiring from the oil industry, he was also free to spend more time travelling and writing, publishing a history of Everest, 50 Years On Top of the World (2003), and one celebrating 150 years of the Alpine Club, Summit (2006), following an earlier book, Road to Rakaposhi (1955). He returned to Kangchenjunga in 2005, 50 years after the mountain's first ascent. In 2009, he was appointed OBE.
He is survived by his wife, Susan, three children and five grandchildren.
• George Christopher Band, mountaineer, born 2 February 1929; died 26 August 2011
The ascent of Kangchenjunga was one of the very best achievements in British mountaineering history, in many ways surpassing the 1953 ascent of Everest, in which Band was also involved. The public knew Everest, however, and the long struggle to climb it, whereas success on "Kanch" was much lower key. As Band himself explained, the achievement's relative obscurity was partly down to its leader, Charles Evans, deeply admired but equally modest. "He wasn't one to shout things from the rooftops," Band observed. "He just got on with the job in a quiet sort of way."
The 1955 team was not really expected to get to the summit at all. Kangchenjunga had long been considered the highest mountain in the world. Partly due to its proximity to Darjeeling, plenty of expeditions had attempted Kangchenjunga, including in 1905 a team that included the diabolist Aleister Crowley. They had made little progress up the south-west face, considered by some too dangerous to contemplate.
But Band and his companions chose this approach for what was conceived as a reconnaissance. No one had been higher than 6,400 metres on this side of the peak. Kangchenjunga held far more secrets than Everest, which had almost been climbed on several occasions before 1953. The thought of walking up to the bottom of such a huge and untested face and climbing it first go was almost too much to contemplate. The attitude among old hands at the Alpine Club in London, before Band's departure, was "rather you than me".
Kangchenjunga's proximity to the Bay of Bengal had worrying implications for the team. The monsoon arrives with full force and the peak gets more snow than mountains further west, in the Everest region. The avalanche risk was greater.
Band lay in his tent at base camp, following the toughest approach trek he ever experienced, marking off avalanches on his tent pole with a pencil. After 24 hours he had counted 48 thundering down the south-west face. Allowing that he had slept for a third of that time, Band calculated avalanches were occurring every 20 minutes. The expedition faced immediate difficulties. "The lower icefall was horrific," Band said, "and we were absolutely extended. But then we saw this little gully up on the left that seemed to circumvent seven-eights of it. Charles suggested Norman [Hardie] and I have a crack and hey presto!" Having cleverly bypassed the lower icefall and pitched Camp 2, they found the upper section much safer. "That was thrilling, because we thought at last we're launched on the face." Above it, the expedition reached what was dubbed the "Great Shelf", the main objective for their reconnaissance. The team was working well and they could see a route ahead. Why not keep going?
Evans, with Hardie, established Camp 5 at over 7,600 metres, high enough to consider a push for the top. Back at base camp he appeared at lunch, mug of tea in hand, to announce that Band and Brown would be the first summit team. He and Neil Mather, with help from the best Sherpas, would establish Camp 6 and then let them get on with it. The stage was set.
Band was born in Taiwan, then under Japanese control, where his parents were Presbyterian missionaries. Leaving Taiwan a fortnight before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Band went to Eltham college, in south London, where he excelled at athletics, breaking those school records not set by an earlier pupil and son of missionaries, Eric Liddell. At Queens' College, Cambridge, he also met Harold Abrahams, who would do the timekeeping at athletics meets.
He also excelled at his greater passion for climbing at Cambridge, becoming president of the university's mountaineering club. As an undergraduate he climbed the North Ridge of the Dent Blanche, which caught the attention of the previous generation, and his impressive alpine record and obvious ambition won him a place on the Everest team for 1953, as the youngest member, aged just 23 when selected.
Everest was still a public-school affair, and Band's expedition diary typically recalled his joy at Cambridge winning the Boat Race. Band himself described his fellow climbers as "club players – like the London Irish – rather than internationals". Since he had served in the Signals during national service, the expedition leader John Hunt put Band in charge of the team's radio equipment. This at least allowed Band to tune into a Hallé Orchestra concert broadcast from the Manchester Free Trade Hall while perched in the Western Cwm. Music remained a great passion throughout his life.
When he told Hunt that he had actually been in charge of the mess, Band was given the task of sorting out the food as well, with expedition doctor Griff Pugh. This was more welcome. As Band told his fellow climber Wilfrid Noyce: "I'm very interested in food." Noyce, a poet, gave an elegant description of Band: "Tall, he had an immensely long reach; and bespectacled, with curved nose and smile that flashed suddenly upon the world, he had an air of benevolent learning which added tone to our expedition."
Two years later, on Kangchenjunga, the impact of working-class stars taking their place in the front rank of mountaineering nations was reflected in the composition of Evans's team. Band and Brown appeared an incongruous pair, but Brown's optimism and Band's experience proved a winning combination.
Band had other successes, including the first ascent of Rakaposhi in the Karakoram in 1954, and he did consider a full-time adventuring career, even though his parents asked him when he would start "a proper job". By the end of the 1950s he was working for Shell in Texas when a millionaire offered to back him on his next big trip. At that point he was faced with a critical decision about which direction his life would move in. When he asked his employers for more leave, he got a very similar letter to the one Chris Bonington opened during his spell at Unilever. Bonington, as he explained in his autobiography's title, chose to climb, whereas Band would later quip: "I chose to work."
Instead, Band headed for his next assignment with Shell, in the new oil fields of Venezuela, and an encounter with the legendary mountaineer and diplomat Sir Douglas Busk, then ambassador in Caracas. Over the next 30 years, Band worked in oil exploration and climbed all over the world, from Borneo to Oman. There was plenty of time spent in the mountains, but his biggest challenges were now business ones. In 1983 he left his final overseas posting in Malayasia to become director general of the UK Offshore Operators' Association.
With his business experience and illustrious climbing record, Band inevitably became part of the mountaineering nomenklatura, serving as president of both the Alpine Club and the British Mountaineering Council, and a board member of the Royal Geographical Society. After retiring from the oil industry, he was also free to spend more time travelling and writing, publishing a history of Everest, 50 Years On Top of the World (2003), and one celebrating 150 years of the Alpine Club, Summit (2006), following an earlier book, Road to Rakaposhi (1955). He returned to Kangchenjunga in 2005, 50 years after the mountain's first ascent. In 2009, he was appointed OBE.
He is survived by his wife, Susan, three children and five grandchildren.
• George Christopher Band, mountaineer, born 2 February 1929; died 26 August 2011
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