Pioneering Everest Doctor Dies

Dr Ward was considered one of the finest climbers in Britain in the decades after World War II, and later became a renowned authority on high-altitude medicine. Dr. Ward was the author of several books on mountaineering and its physiological effects, among them "Everest: A Thousand Years of Exploration" and with James S. Milledge and John B. West, he wrote a seminal textbook, "High Altitude Medicine and Physiology" in 1989.

As a boy, his interest in climbing was sparked by reading "Camp Six", by F. S. Smythe, an account of the unsuccessful British attempt on Everest in 1933. In the early 1950's he began sifting through the chaotic archives of the Royal Geographical Society, and discovered a collection of aerial photographs taken secretly of Everest's south face in the 1940's. He also found the famous a map, Milne-Hinks map, which had been compiled before the war and included what was then known of the mountain's south side.

Dr. Ward realised that this map and the accompanying photographs showed a clear way to the top. In 1951 together with William Murray, a noted Scottish mountaineer, he approached the Joint Himalayan Committee of the Alpine Club and the Royal Geographical Society for sponsorship of a reconnaissance expedition up Everest's south face.

That expedition, picking its way through the treacherous Khmubu ice fall, so opening up the route that was used two years later in the famous expedition that put Ed Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on the summit. Dr. Ward himself never attained the summit, remaining 1,500 feet below, at Camp Seven, on the mountain's Lhotse Face to fulfil his role as expedition Doctor.

A pioneer in early oxygen use as well as high altitude medicine, Michael Ward will be remembered as one of the greats of the golden age of Himalayan climbing. In 1983 he was awarded the CBE, a year after leading his final reconnaissance expedition - this time to the unclimbed Mount Kongur.