National Mountaineering Exhibition - New Exhibits

News of some new attractions at the excellent Helly Hansen National Mountaineering Exhibition at Rheged in the north Lakes.

Last week, Sir Chris Bonington unveiled a display case containing the actual ice axe used by George Mallory on the 1922 Everest Exhibition. Remarkably, Mallory used the wooden-shafted axe to hold a three-man fall above the North Col of the mountain while descending the North Ridge after an unsuccessful attempt on the mountain.

An exhausted and frostbitten Henry Morshead slipped pulling two other climbers on the rope into a potentially fatal slide. Fortunately Mallory's quick reflexes and instinctive reactions allowed him to hold all three with an emergency ice axe belay averting potential tragedy.

The 1922 expedition set an altitude record on Everest and paved the way for Mallory's return. He was issued with a new axe for that famous but ill-fated attempt on the mountain. After his death the axe was apparently donated by his widow to the all-female Pinnacle Club and later used by a young Lakeland climber.

The picture below, from the Audrey Salkeld Collection, shows George Mallory's son, John, being shown the axe during a visit to the Exhibition in May.

Also newly on display at Rheged is the one-piece down suit worn by Reinhold Messner when he became the first climber to ascend Everest without supplementary oxygen in 1978.

Finally there's another little piece of mountaineering history with Doug Scott's boots, fibrepile jacket and underwear also going on display. They were worn during his first ascent of Everest's SW Face in 1976 when he also became the first Briton to stand on the summit of the world's highest mountain.

Look closely and you'll see that the boots and the knees of his leggings have holes worn in them. These are the direct result of Doug's epic descent of the Ogre with two broken legs when he crawled around eight miles down the mountain and back to base camp helped by Chris Bonington and two other climbers. One of mountaineering's great survival stories written in ragged clothing.

A selection of Scott's photos are on display in the exit gallery of the museum and there's also a realistic replica of the snowhole where Scott and Dougal Haston survived the world's highest bivouac on their descent. Brrrrr... Someone pass the central heating please.