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in Snowdonia. It is easy to dismiss his amateurism, yet contemporary accounts from other Everest expeditions tended to be in the Victorian spirit of adventure, dismissing altitude and ice walls as mere inconveniences. Seen off by his girlfriend and a small crowd, Wilson departed on 21st May 1931. After eventually reaching the Middle East, he ignored orders not to fly across Persia and finally reached the westernmost airstrip in India after a nine-hour flight and with the fuel gauge on zero. Despite the fact this was a remarkable achievement for an experienced pilot in the early days of flight, the authorities impounded the
aircraft. Undeterred however, Wilson slipped into Tibet disguised as a deaf-mute Buddhist monk and almost immediately made an abortive attempt at the summit, reaching some 20,000 feet before turning back, exhausted and debilitated by his war wounds.
Three weeks later and accompanied by two Sherpas, he set off again, this time reaching the dreaded North Col at 22,700 feet before being defeated by a sheer ice wall. After a short rest, he set off again, alone, wearing a blue suit with a long red silk scarf, on 29th May 1934 and was again defeated by the Col. Camping alone, he wrote his last diary entry two days later: ‘Off again, gorgeous day!’ Wilson’s body was found a year later, by another British expedition, at the foot of the Col and interred by them in a nearby crevasse. Every decade or so, melting ice reveals his remains to unwary climbers before being reburied by the next cold snap. Bizarrely, his rucksack contained ladies’ clothing, and a Chinese expedition in 1960 found an ancient tent and a lone female shoe much closer to the summit – leading to theories that Wilson did, indeed, conquer Everest, but died on the descent.
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