Kangchenjunga: The Himalayan giant

by Doug K. Scott

Kangchenjunga is the third highest mountain in the world and a notoriously difficult and dangerous mountain to climb. First climbed from the west in 1955 by a British team comprising Joe Brown, George Band, Tony Streather and Norman Hardie, it waited over twenty years for a second ascent. The third ascent, from the north, followed in 1979 by a four-man team including the visionary British alpinist Doug Scott. Completed before his death in 2020, and edited by Catherine Moorehead, Kangchenjunga is Doug Scott’s final book. Scott explores the mountain and its varied people – the mountain sits on the border between Nepal and Sikkim in north-east India – before going on to look at Western approaches and early climbing attempts on the mountain. Kangchenjunga was in fact long believed to be the highest mountain in the world, until in the nineteenth century it was demonstrated that Peak XV – Everest – was taller. Out of respect for the beliefs of the Sikkim, no climber has ever set foot on the very top of Kangchenjunga, the sacred summit. Scott’s own relationship with the mountain began in 1978, three years after his first British ascent of Everest with Dougal Haston. The assembled team featured some of the greatest mountaineers in Scott, Joe Tasker, Peter Boardman and Georges Bettembourg. The plan was for a stripped-down expedition the following spring – minimal Sherpa support, no radios, largely self-financed. It was the first time a mountain of this scale had been attempted by a new and difficult route without the use of oxygen, and with such a small team. Scott, Tasker and Boardman summited on 16 May 1979, further cementing their legends in this golden era. Kangchenjunga is Doug Scott’s tribute to this sacred mountain, a paean for a Himalayan giant, written by a giant of Himalayan climbing.

Genres: Mountaineering

288 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2021

About the author

Douglas Keith Scott CBE, known as Doug Scott, is an English mountaineer noted for the first ascent of the south-west face of Mount Everest on 24 September 1975. Scott and Dougal Haston were the first Britons to climb Everest during this expedition. In receiving one of mountaineering's highest honours, the Lifetime Achievement Piolet d'Or, his personal style and climbs were described as "visionary".

Reviews

[Jon Sparks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kangchenjunga is the third highest mountain in the world, but its prominence in views from places like Darjeeling gave it a renown in the West long before Everest or K2 were fully surveyed and known to be higher. Due to its position and exposure to monsoon weather, it is particularly prone to avalanches and remains one of the most challenging of the world's great mountains. According to Doug Scott, for one, it is also the grandest.
And Scott, who sadly died in 2020, was as well-qualified as anyone to voice such an opinion. He made the front pages when he and Dougal Haston became the first Britons to climb Everest, as part of Chris Bonington's South-West Face expedition, but he climbed all over the world, generally focusing on climbing challenging objectives in the best possible style. In 1977 he and Bonington made the first ascent of The Ogre (Baintha Brakk) in the Karakoram, a climb which became legendary when Scott both broke legs when abseiling from the summit, leading to an epic descent; one of the great survival stories in world mountaineering.
Two years later, Scott, with Pete Boardman and Joe Tasker, made the third ascent of Kangchenjunga; this came 24 years after the first, a measure of the mountain's difficulty. Like previous ascensionists, they stopped a few metres short of the highest point, respecting the beliefs of the Sikkimese people that the summit is home to the gods.
This climb was a mountaineering landmark for several reasons. It established a new route via the North Ridge, but more significantly, it was the first time an 8000-metre peak had been climbed by an expedition which made no use of bottled oxygen. Messner and Habeler had climbed Everest without oxygen the previous year, but the route was already partly prepared by others using it. Scott, Boardman, and Tasker, along with Georges Bettembourg, established the whole route themselves and no oxygen was used anywhere on the mountain. It's very possible to ague that theirs was the greater achievement; it certainly deserves to be at least equally well remembered as that of Messner and Habeler.
A concise but vivid retelling of this climb forms the final section of this book, but before then we are treated to a comprehensive account of this great mountain. Geology, geography, climate and vegetation are all covered before turning to the human history of the region. There's deep coverage of the early explorations by Westerners, the mapping of the mountain, and the first probes by climbers. Scott is commendably even-handed when dealing with controversial characters like Aleister Crowley and even with the Nazi-sponsored expeditions of the 1930s, though he leaves us in no doubt about leader Paul Bauer's closeness to senior Nazis like Heinrich Himmler and his role in the exclusion of Jews from the German Alpine Club.
All of this reveals that Doug Scott not only displayed a very impressive level of scholarship in researching this book, he also possessed the ability to distil it into highly readable prose; two things which don't automatically go together! It is important to remember that mountains are not merely playgrounds, but mean many things to many different people. And a fuller understanding of a mountain's exploration and climbing history gives us a richer sense of the significance of any one ascent.
I'd like to think that there could be more books like this, giving us the full sweep and context of a mountain's story; the sad thing is that Doug Scott won't be around to write any more of them.

[Mathew Bourne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kangchenjunga by Doug Scott

I had heard of Doug Scott, who had recently passed away and of his exploits in climbing mountains throughout the world, his support of the people of Nepal, but I had never read any of his books. Reading this, shows Doug’s labour of love for the third highest mountain in the world and through his extensive research of the mountain, its people, nature and holistic place within its society, the reader is transported through the different periods of time as explorer after explorer slowly reveal the cloak that surrounds this mystical mountain.
If you are expecting a riveting read of Doug’s ascent of the mountain without the use of supplementary oxygen or support, you will have to wait till the final chapter. Instead, we get an in depth study of the mountain, its character and how it has shaped the people and fauna of the area. The book is extensively researched giving pointers for further reading, but it also shows Doug’s passion for the area and the people who live in the shadow of the behemoth. Reading through the chapters from those early pioneers and the race to climb which unbeknown to many as the highest mountain in the world before proper surveys were completed, the reader is transported to those ascents and expeditions, wondering whether you would have the application to be able to complete such journeys in those times.
This is a book to read slowly to enable the reader to absorb the information given, I often had to read in small chunks to be able to comprehend the amount of research displayed, saying that, the book also opened up a new area of a region I knew very little about. Doug’s book gives the reader everything and leaves no detail out, in that we have to applaud his tenacity to eventually follow in those early pioneering footsteps and step foot on the mountain – whilst also respecting the reverence of the mountain by not actually climbing to the very top. A fascinating read, worthy of the acclaim it has been given.

[Jim Brady · Rating 5 out of 5]

Doug Scott, who sadly passed away in 2020, was an outstanding climber; before he died he finished writing Kanchenjunga, an outstanding work.
The book begins with chapters on the geology, geography and the people of the massif. It continues with the fascinating history of the exploration of the mountain from 17c missionaries and colonial surveyors.
Each chapter, from the Victorian gentleman adventurers, to the international expedition of the 1930s, and the first accent in 1955, is an engaging snapshot of a much wider historical story. There are maps and some gorgeous photos, both historic and of his 1979 expedition, plus many references to original sources.
The final chapter is an account of Doug’s own ground breaking alpine style ascent in 1979: four men, no oxygen, no support, trail blazing a difficult new route on one of the worlds highest mountains, truly extraordinary.
I enjoyed this book a lot and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys history, and loves the mountains and its peoples as Doug Scott clearly did.

[Adrian Trendall]

Kanchenjunga, The Himalayan Giant
by Doug Scott

Doug Scott was a legend and this is his final book. Finished before his death last year it was subsequently edited by Catherine Moorehead. The back of the dust wrapper has a quote from Reinhold Messner sums things up well;

“Doug’s achievements are so numerous that I can’t say which one is the greatest. His Kanchenjunga adventure stands out for high altitude. It was and remains unique; no oxygen, no Sherpas, new line on difficult terrain. Doug’s style – and ability to tell his stories – puts him amongst the greatest climbers of all time.”

Scott’s expedition was seminal with a small team, minimal Sherpa support, no big budgets or publicity and a great contrast to other huge expeditions of the era. It was a hugely strong team with not only Scott but also Joe Tasker, Peter Boardman and Georges Bettembourg. Kanchenjunga has a notorious reputation and was long thought to be the highest peak in the world.

Rather than just being the traditional expedition book, a report on a particular trip, this book covers the history of this sacred mountain in detail from early attempts. In fact some of the earlier history is as interesting as the Scott expedition itself.

Aleister Crowley, “the most infamous character in British Mountaineering” was involved in the first attempt on Kanchenjunga. The team were ill matched, 4 porters died as did a Swiss member of the team. In 1892 Crowley and his Mother stayed at Sligachan and the young Aleister got a taste for the Cuillin including an ascent of Sgurr nan Gillean’s Pinnacle Ridge.

The first ascent wasn’t until 1955, no teams having apparently got any higher than Crowley’s 1905 attempt which reached about 6000m. Whilst living in Snowdonia I did quite a few climbs with Joe Brown and 1955 was his first foray to the greater ranges. He was almost certainly Britain’s best rock climber with a great alpine record but this was to prove a quantum leap as he along with George Brand successfully made a first ascent of this 8000m peak. To my mind, there can have been few climbers who excelled in such a variety of climbing and mountaineering genres. Top rock climber with a prolific CV of new routes, new alpine routes and first ascent of an 8000m peak.

All in all this is a fantastic addition to mountain literature and would make a worthy addition to any library rounding off other books by Doug Scott and available from Vertebrate.

[Lina Arthur · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book about a mountain, not about mountaineers. Of course there are mountaineers in it, but the bulk of the book is more about Kangchenjunga itself. In fact the reader feels rather like the pioneer visitors to the region - initially skirting the edges of the region, unable to draw near to the peak itself. It is only in the last few pages, with Scott's own successful summit that the mountain as a whole is revealed. It is masterfully done.

Scott situates the mountain within its context, making it clear that the mountain has a long history in the local area prior to the arrival of Western visitors. Scott presents the history even-handedly, signposting where there is historical controversy or doubt. The book itself is a masterpiece of research, drawing together a wealth of information about Kangchenjunga and the surrounding region from spheres including geology, geography, religion, history and international politics and diplomacy.

This is a fascinating read, and its factual nature is enlivened by some wonderful tidbits (mountain rhubarb mistaken for cairns...), and due attention given to early female visitors to the area, who have been left out of earlier writings. It also offers a refreshing perspective on Himalayan expeditions beyond Everest and emphasises the multi-national nature of climbing from 1900-1950.

The book was completed before Scott's death in 2020, and Catherine Moorehead's sensitive editing has produced a fine book. A helpful timeline, bibliography and index will make this book a priceless resource to researchers and minimal but pertinent footnotes will be helpful to non-experts without being obtrusive or interrupting the flow of the narrative.

Vertebrate are to be commended for bringing it to print.

[Richard Plummer]

Just having a copy of this on a shelf holds a certain cachet - the iconic climber Doug Scott's last book covering an iconic mountain from every angle. Like the peak itself it's a beautiful, substantial thing.

Despite his Lennon like presence and his legendary climbing exploits, Scott would probably have had little time for being called iconic. His honesty and frankness comes through in his highly readable account of his own successful summit attempt - which with characteristic modesty only makes up the final chapters of the book.

The rest is an encyclopedia of every aspect of Kanchenjunga - the nature and geology giving way to painstakingly researched accounts of the attempts to climb what was at one point believed to be the world's highest mountain.

Scott gives proper emphasis throughout to the role of the local individuals, as well as offering a fascinating insight into characters such as the infamous Aleister Crowley (who actually comes off as having an anachronistic degree of self awareness) and working class hero Joe Brown, who excelled on an expedition among the then more usual aristocratic demographic.

There's too much information here for one sitting, but that is not necessarily a bad thing - it's the rare kind of book that I'll come back to bit by bit, picking up stories over the years until it becomes a family heirloom.

How often can you say that about a book?

[Moire O'Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Kangchenjunga, the 3rd highest mountain in the world, from the legendary Himalayan climber and writer Doug Scott.

A superbly and meticulously researched book making it incredibly interesting, in-depth read.

[Alex Ekins · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first 2/3rds are a comprehensive yet concise history of the people who live below the mountain, the first explorers, the botanists and artists and then the mountaineers who began to visit the mountain. There is a sympathetic account of the Crowley expedition and the tale of the first ascent by Joe Brown and George Band. The book ends with a lovely personal account of the first oxygenless ascent by Doug Scott, Joe Tasker and Peter Boardman. This final section has made me eager to read Scots recent autobiography Up and About.

[Sarah Laing · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an in depth book detailing all you could ever possibly know about the worlds third highest mountain, written by one of the most powerful, knowledgeable and dedicated Himalayan climbers of the last century. Doug Scott takes us through the geological history, tales of early christian explorers, Victorian pioneers, the sacred aspect of the mountain to the Indians and Nepali peoples, early expeditions to the peak and eventually to his teams third overall ascent in 1979. The level of research which must have went into this book is incredible, a real lives passion, and it shines through on every page.

Anybody with an interest in the history of the Himalaya, early explorers, and griping tales of daring in an unexplored country should thoroughly enjoy this book.

[Kalyan Ganguly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading it . Pioneering efforts to climb a very difficult peak. The challenges and triumphs.