Everest | 1984 N Face (Hornbein Couloir)

A UK expedition to Everest in 1984 via N Face (Hornbein Couloir), led by Bronco Lane, Brummie Stokes. Summit reached on 2nd April 1984. 11 members recorded.

Expedition Details

Field Value
ID 1570
Imported 2026-03-06 18:04:49.359634
Expedition ID EVER84104
Peak ID EVER
Year 1984
Season 1
Host Country 2
Route 1 N Face (Hornbein Couloir)
Route 2 -
Route 3 -
Route 4 -
Nationality UK
Leaders Bronco Lane, Brummie Stokes
Sponsor Special Air Service Regiment
Success 1 False
Success 2 False
Success 3 False
Success 4 False
Ascent 1 -
Ascent 2 -
Ascent 3 -
Ascent 4 -
Claimed False
Disputed False
Countries -
Approach -
Basecamp Date 1984-03-18
Summit Date 1984-04-02
Summit Time -
Summit Days 15
Total Days 16
Termination Date 1984-04-03
Termination Reason 6
Termination Notes Abandoned at 6860m due to avalanche destroying ABC
High Point (m) 6860
Traverse False
Ski False
Paraglide False
Camps 0
Fixed Rope (m) 0
Total Members 14
Summit Members 0
Member Deaths 1
Total Hired 0
Summit Hired 0
Hired Deaths 0
No Hired True
O2 Used False
O2 None True
O2 Climb False
O2 Descent False
O2 Sleep False
O2 Medical False
O2 Taken True
O2 Unknown False
Other Summits -
Campsites BC(18/03),ABC(29/03,6200m),xxx(02/04,6860m)
Route Notes Brian Hall - 27 May 84 SAS Everest Expedition Were to climb N Face up or near Hornbein Couloir. Said they would do a new route but Hall does not know what would have been new about it - perhaps planned to climb to left of Hornbein. Vassilev, Bulgarian Everest Expedition - 24 May 84 British army were on N Face directly below Hornbein Coluoir. Bulgarians met them including Stokes or Lowe (who had lost fingers to frostbite & said had scaled Everest before) and saw their camp on Rongbuk main glacier. Met them on Lho La at Bulgarian's C1. Everest - two British Attempts. In the spring there were two British expeditions attempting Everest from the north. The nine-man Cumbrian expedition led by Pat Gunson had planned to try the W Ridge while the fourteen-man Special Air Service Regiment expedition led by Bronco Lane was trying the N Face by the Hornbein Couloir. The latter established Base Camp on March 18 and started pushing the route up the N Face towards the Hornbein Couloir, making excellent progress and reaching 22,500 ft on April 2. On April 3 there were five occupants at Advance Base when a huge powder snow avalanche [at 5 am], triggered by collapsing seracs from the N Col two miles away, swept the entire upper glacial basin and destroyed the camp. Tony Swierzy was killed and the other four injured. The expedition was abandoned. Bronce Lance (by email) - 20 Sept 2005 SAS on Everest 1984 Before the Falklands War erupted, Brummie Stokes and I had been given permission and encouragement from the Director SAS to apply for an attempt on Mount Everest, in the pre-monsoon season 1984. The team, drawn from members of the SAS Mountain Troops, would total 14 and our route was to be the North Face, with an approach via China and Tibet to the Rongbuk Glacier. Travel by westerners in both these countries had only recently been made possible and the in country costs encountered, some £100,000 was at least three times that of neighbouring Nepal. This made for some interesting fund raising, which fortunately became viable at the last minute by the arrival of George Williams, owner of “Anglian Windows”, to take the burden. We had asked founder of the SAS, David Stirling to be a patron and together with SAS serving Officer Ian Crooke, provided us with their accumulated experience, contacts and the necessary support for us to take on the expedition leadership. As we personally knew the climbers in the unit - selecting a team did not present problems. However, to establish the crucial team identity and check crucial altitude adaptation, Brummie took the whole group for a successful ascent of Mt McKinley (20,320 feet) in May of 1983. During this trip Merv, Andy Baxter and Tony Swierzy made the then fastest non-stop ascent of Mt Hunter, a major feat. Following some last minute (cordial?) negotiations in Beijing by Mal Parry and I, the Chinese Mountaineering Association allowed us to call forward the remainder of the team to a rendezvous in Lhasa. The last occasion a group of British soldiers had been there was when Younghusband led a punitive campaign in 1904 to demand allegiance from the then Dalai Lama. Hopefully our short sojourn would not re-open any half forgotten memories! Mal and I were to be in advance of the remainder by some 10 days, sorting out our gear and making last minute purchases from the bazaar of goodies for the yak herdsmen and our 4 locally employed Sherpa assistants and cooks. Mal, an old Mountain Troop hand who had helped spearhead the high climbing standards of the late 1960s, was in his element. The local officials became mesmerised by his graphic accounts of English bowmen in the battles against the French. All this delivered in half English, half Welsh via an English-Chinese and then Chinese-Tibetan interpreters. From Lhasa we then travelled in the footsteps of all the pre-war attempts, except we were required to use trucks! 3 days later found us at our initial Base Camp, beside the derelict Rongbuk Monastery, at 16,000 feet and in need of some serious altitude acclimatisation. Our previous requests to the Chinese authorities to be allowed some time on the approach to acclimatise had fallen on deaf ears. However by taking it very easy for the first ten days we were fortunate in not having anyone suffer unduly from the altitude. The way ahead lay initially up the Rongbuk Glacier and then, after two intermediate Camps, took a line to the left of where the Hornbein Couloirs cuts into the North Face. We intended to use oxygen to assist us, as our goal was to make the summit and return, with all the team intact. Initial progress was very good and we had fixed rope out to nearly 23,000 feet, when disaster struck. Brummie plus Andy Baxter, Graham, Tony Sweirzy and Merv were based at Camp II, 21,350 feet, at the foot of the North Face. For three consecutive days they had been making excellent progress, first lead climbing, then “fixing” the route behind them. At 6.15am on the morning of the 3rd April 1984, a huge avalanche engulfed Advance Base, carrying it down the glacier - killing Tony Sweirzy outright and injuring the remaining four, Andy Baxter quite seriously. Brummie later recalls the event: ...“During the night the wind started to blow up, but sheltered as we were in our tents in the lee of the hill, we knew little about it as we snuggled deep in our bags and slept off the effects of our little yellow sleeping pills. Pulling on my boots at 6.15 the next morning, I hear Merv scream a warning, but it came too late. A chunk of ice whistled through the tent in front of my face and the whole world went crazy. The tent, with me inside, was picked up and thrown down the mountainside by what I took at the time to be a big wind. I felt myself being lifted from the ground and rolled around inside the small blue capsule as it was flung down the hill, all my kit tolling and tangling around me as we went. I was screaming with panic, convinced I was going to die without seeing anyone again. My mind was racing: I had to do something. Bouncing off the snow, I felt my shoulder jar as it hit something. I then noticed that a small hole had been made by the ice when it flew through the tent earlier. Pushing my hand into this hole, I ripped a large tear down the side of the bubble I was in, deflated it quickly and was half outside as tons of snow began piling in on top of me. I blacked out. When I came to, I was swimming for the surface through the suffocating snow. I fought my way clear, knelt up and opened my eyes. What I saw horrified me and scared. Snow and ice blocks were piled up everywhere, bodies lay crumpled and half buried in the snow, and there was such strong winds blowing, it was almost impossible to scramble to my feet. A large rumbling noise echoed in my ears together with a high pitched whine of the wind as it tore savagely at my clothing. I stood up but was immediately bowled over again. “Oh no”, I thought. “It's starting again!” Any minute now I expected to be blown away once more, and cried out in anguish, “God, No! No! Please don't make it now! Please don't make it now!” I was shouting at the wind to stop like a crazy man. I couldn't understand what was going on, what had happened. Later I learned that Merv, who had screamed the warning, had been standing outside his tent and had seen a 400 foot frontage of serac high on the mountain start to tumble towards us. The crash that followed - after it had fallen free for a thousand feet - shook the whole amphitheatre and triggered off avalanches of powdered snow from Everest and Changtse. The whole lot poured on us, completely devastating our camp and sweeping it away. Still numb with fear and shock, I looked up the hill to where Merv was waving and yelling over the wind “I'm all right!” But he continued to wave, obviously trying to tell us something. I made out the words “Help me! Help me! Bring an axe!” Dazed I looked around at the tatters of my tent: no axe, no anything. It had all gone, all been buried. I turned to look down the slope and felt a hot iron on my neck. “Ohhh My neck! My neck! It's broken!” It hurt so much, I couldn't move it, and fell back to my knees clutching at my head which seemed to be lying on my shoulder. I had never felt such pain, but something in my mind insisted I get up and help Merv. Staggering over towards where he was bending over something, I felt the snow give way beneath me and fell into a shallow crevasse. Once more, panic rose almost uncontrollably. I hung on; a burst of adrenaline gave me the strength to drag myself out and over to Merv. “An axe, an axe, we need an axe” he was saying, but I had not understood why until I saw for myself that Tony had been killed and Andy's head was buried under an ice block. There were no tools anywhere with which to dig him free, and in desperation I pulled a plastic spoon from my pocket and scraped away at the snow covering the ice block that trapped Andy's head. He was conscious, but very dazed and did not really understand what was happening. We kept reassuring him as Merv and I scrabbled away at the solid ice until, with a cracking sound, the ice Learning from Merv that Graham was alive, although badly bruised and shocked, I wandered off to look for some oxygen and the remnants of a tent with which to protect Andy from the icy wind. Miraculously, the radio, my oxygen masking and one cylinder were located from the area where my tent had come to rest, and I quickly fitted the mask onto Andy's face and switched the control valve to maximum. There was instant reaction in Andy's eyes as the oxygen brought his body warmth. “How's Tony?” His first words were for his friend and climbing partner. Choking back tears, I had to tell him that Tony was dead. Merv appeared the least injured of us all. He pulled out a torn length of tent fabric from the rubble and wrapped it around Andy, doing his best to console him as he did so. I made my way over to Graham. Just after 7-o-clock I made radio contact with Bronco at Base Camp. In what must have been an almost hysterical voice, I told him what had happened and begged him to get a rescue party up as soon as possible with tents and sleeping bags. Archie and John, I learned, had left Base Camp already and so was on their way to us unaware of what had happened. They heard the roar of a large avalanche, but thought no more about it than to comment that is sounded like a big one. Two miles away below our camp, they came upon the signs that all was not well. A blue sleeping bag lay flapping in the wind on the glacier, not far from our boulderstone. The higher they got the more debris they encountered. Bits of tents, hats and as Archie was to comment later, “There were lumps of ice the size of Minis scattered everywhere”; the camp had been pushed half a mile from where it had stood. Knowing by now that they had to expect tragedy, it must have been a harrowing experience for them to come up and find out what had happened: John later told me that he half-thought to find us all dead. Even so, we could read the extent of the damage by the expression in his face: Tony dead, Andy with broken ribs and shoulder, me with a damaged neck, Graham with frost-bit on his fingers, Merv bruised and all of us in a state of shock. Nothing had escaped the avalanche. Out kit lay scattered over a square mile. All we could do was gather up what clothing we could find to keep warm in and get ourselves down to Base Camp as quickly as possible. An hour and a half later, we spotted the others making their way at best speed up the glacier to meet us and, leaving Andy in the care of Archie and John, the rest of us limped down to meet them. I tried to ignore the burning pain in my next at each jarring step, and to put from my mind for a moment the horror of what had happened. But it would not go away. The whole thing had been so harsh, so brutal, and it had happened so fast. So many things now needed to be done. Until now I had been reacting instinctively, had kept going solely on adrenaline. Now, away from any immediate danger, a wave of emotion swept over me and I felt absolutely drained. Dropping to the ground on the cold snow, I wept bitterly. Why, why, why had this happened? Just when all was going so well for us?"... There then followed two exhausting days as the remainder of us, assisted by Pat Gunson's Cambrian team, carried Andy down on a make-shift stretcher fashioned, from a ladder length. At one stage Andy's lung nearly collapsed, giving Doctor Richard Villar a sleepless night keeping him alive. Three days later Brummie, Andy and Graham, escorted by Richard left by road for Lhasa and then air to Hong Kong, where they all made a satisfactory recovery. (Tragically, Andy was to later die as a result of a brain tumour). The remainder of us held a simple burial service for Tony Sweirzy where he had died and erected an inscribed memorial stone to his memory at the snout of the Rongbuk Glacier. We assessed our situation, the options open and decided our future intentions. We concluded, that with the loss of nearly half of the team including our Doctor, Richard Villar, plus some irreplaceable equipment, the SAS Mount Everest 1984 Expedition was over. As I pointed out in the opening paragraph to this chapter, the SAS Regiment is a constantly evolving organism. Re-assessing how it carries out its MoD roles and functions and ensuring that firstly, best value for manpower investment is obtained and secondly, that they are always thinking “What the NEXT job will be” then trying to be prepared for that eventuality. Following our attempt in 1984, as we departed Beijing the Chinese were requested to consider a return visit. They agreed to this for an attempt, post monsoon 1986, on Mount Everest North East Ridge, an unclimbed and formidable route. However, a revised perception, by the then SAS Regiment Command Group of MoD doctrine for its current and future employment meant this attempt; (to be led by Brummie as I was unavailable) had sadly to be curtailed. Subsequently, Brummie retired from the Army and returned to Mount Everest to make a successful attempt on the route with a civilian team that included; Paul Moores, Joe Brown, Mo Antonine and Harry Taylor, with once again David Stirling as Patron and sponsorship by George Williams, Chairman of Anglian Windows Norwich. Bronce Lance (by email) - 24 Sept 2005 Richard, to answer your queries: (1) Oxygen was taken for use at and above 25,000 feet. (2) The Sherpas (we had 4) were not from Nepal and had limited technical expertise. The plan was that they would load carry too 25,000 once the fixed ropes were in place and keep the lower logistics flowing with one or two of the Brit members, whilst our summit attempt was made. (3) Yes we did use Oxygen extensively during the casevac on Andy. This took us 3 days, carrying him down to the Rongbuk on a makeshift stretcher of ladders and mats, as the team one had been destroyed in the avalanche. Fortunately there was a US Medical Research team at Base Camp with very little to do - just a bit useful! (4) Ages. Graham would have been 37, Merv and Andy both about 30.
Accidents Avalanche from N Col destroyed ABC killing Swierzy and injuring 4 others
Achievement -
Agency -
Commercial Route False
Standard Route -
Primary Route False
Primary Member False
Primary Reference False
Primary ID -
Checksum 2447912
Year 1984
Summit Success False
O2 Summary None
Route (lowercase) n face (hornbein couloir)

Members

11 recorded members.

Name Sex Year of Birth Citizenship Status Residence Occupation
Michael Patrick (Bronco) Lane M 1945 UK Co-Leader - - Details Other expeditions
Anthony Mark (Tony) Swierzy M 1956 UK Climber Bradwell, Newcastle, Staffordshire, England Member of G Squadron Headquarters Hereford Garrison Details Other expeditions
Richard Villar M 1958 UK Exp Doctor - - Details Other expeditions
Melvyn (Mel) Parry M 1946 UK Climber - - Details Other expeditions
Andrew David Rowland (Andy) Baxter M 1955 UK Climber - - Details Other expeditions
John Henry (Brummie) Stokes M 1945 UK Co-Leader - - Details Other expeditions
Archie Scott M - UK Climber - - Details Other expeditions
E. Mervin (Merv) Middleton M 1956 UK Climber Bodmin, Cornwall, England - Details Other expeditions
Phil Mallard M - UK Climber - - Details Other expeditions
Graham Cook M - UK Climber - - Details Other expeditions
John Bloom M - UK Climber - - Details Other expeditions

References

11 recorded references.

Expedition ID Journal Author Title Publisher Citation Yak 94
EVER84104 AAJ Bonington, Chris - - 59:337-338 (1985) -
EVER84104 AJ Villar, Richard Everest North Face - A Doctor's View - 90:110-112 (1985) -
EVER84104 AJ Bonington, Chris - - 90:214 (1985) -
EVER84104 MM - - - 97:11 (May 1984) -
EVER84104 MM - - - 99:8 (Sep 1984) -
EVER84104 - Lane, Bronco Military Mountaineering Hayloft Publishing, Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria, England - -
EVER84104 - Stokes, Brummie Soldiers and Sherpas (2nd ed) By author, Hereford - -
EVER84104 - Stokes, Brummie Soldiers and Sherpas Michael Joseph, London - S766
EVER84104 - - http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/12198533700/Asia-China-Everest-Two-British-Attempts - - -
EVER84104 - - https://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_1985_files/AJ%201985%20110-112%20Villar%20Everest.pdf - - -
EVER84104 - - https://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_1985_files/AJ%201985%20213-215%20Bonington%20China.pdf - - -