Earl L. Denman was born around either 1915 or 1923 in Tod Inlet on

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest by ...

but raised in England. He was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

mountaineer who attempted to summit

Mount Everest Mount Everest (; Tibetan: ''Chomolungma'' ; ) is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation (snow ...

in 1947. By 1947 he was working as an engineer in

Southern Rhodesia Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked self-governing British Crown colony in southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally k ...

. His illegal attempt was very different from the large-scale efforts by British mountaineers around the same time. He had little experience, having only climbed the smaller Virunga mountains in East Africa before this expedition. He did not have much money, equipment, or fuel, and did not enter Tibet with permission. Two Sherpas (one of whom was

Tenzing Norgay Tenzing Norgay (; ''tendzin norgyé''; perhaps 29 May 1914 – 9 May 1986), born Namgyal Wangdi, and also referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepali-Indian Sherpa people, Sherpa mountaineering, mountaineer. He was one of the first tw ...

, later to make the first ascent of Everest) joined his attempt. Norgay later said that he knew Denman had little chance of succeeding, but that he agreed to join Denman because "the pull of Everest was stronger for me than any force on earth." After a trekking across Tibet, Denman and the two Sherpas started their ascent on April 9, 1947. They reached about of the roughly mountain before a storm compelled them to abort the attempt and turn back. Denman tried to return to Everest in 1948, but couldn't leave India. In 1954 his autobiography ''Alone to Everest'' of his Everest attempt was published. Later he fought

Apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

, where he was living in the 1960s before he was thrown out of the country. In 1982 he was living in New Zealand.

References

Sources

* ''Alone to Everest'', by Earl Denman, Collins, 1954, pp. 256 * ''Everest'', by Walt Unsworth * ''Tiger of the Snows''/''Man of Everest'', by Tenzing Norgay and

James Ramsey Ullman James Ramsey Ullman (August 21, 1907 – June 20, 1971) was an American writer and mountaineer. He was born in New York City. He was not a "high end" climber, but his writing made him an honorary member of that circle. Most of his books were ...

* ''Into Thin Air'', beginning of Chapter 7, by Jon Krakauer

External links

Everest History (1947)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Denman, Earl Canadian mountain climbers Year of birth missing Possibly living people