The Western Cwm
(pronounced "koom," a Welsh word for
valley) was named by George Mallory in
1921. Deceptively flat in appearance, it
stretches two miles long and about a half
mile wide with a gain of 2,000 vertical feet between Camp I and Camp II.
Andre Roch, a member of the 1952 Swiss
expedition that was the first to successfully
enter the Cwm, dubbed it the Suicide
Passage for the avalanches that crash
down the steep ramparts of Everest,
Lhotse, and Nuptse on its borders and the
huge crevasses that break up its glacier.
|