Climb of a Lifetime

In 1953, we all know that Sir Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay were the first to summit Everest. What many people do not know, however, is that only 3 days before, Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans came within only 300ft of the summit. Tom designed two types of breathing equipment for this expedition (seen below)- one closed circuit system and one open circuit system.

 Tom and Charles used the closed circuit system on their attempt at Everest's summit and had to turn back when the system froze in the extreme cold. Hillary and Norgay then used the open circuit system, which was seen as inferior yet more reliable on their attempt and this same system has been used in oxygen units ever since.

In the closed system, oxygen in a climber's exhaled breathe is recycled and put back into the mask. This allows the oxygen level to stay constant and enables a climber to go almost twice as fast as a person using an open system. The bugs that Bourdillon and Evans encountered have now supposedly been fixed by researcher Roger McMorrow. Will we soon see these systems being used on 8000m mountains?!?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4775071.ece