The Dramatized Story of the First Flight Over the Himalayas
Title: Even Higher Than Everest
Author: George Almond
Pages: 274
Genre: Historical Fiction/Adventure Fiction/Biographical Fiction
EVEN HIGHER THAN EVEREST is a vastly entertaining, fact-based, yet dramatized story of a London cockney heiress who, in the 1930s, sent a small fleet of double winger biplanes on a daring and remarkably dangerous mission to fly over Mt. Everest and film the world’s highest and most famous mountain peak.
Author George Almond met the Himalayan heroes (Sherpa Tenzing and Lord Hunt), who explained how the first aerial photographs, taken in 1933, assisted their heroic ascent of Everest in 1953. Captivated by this dazzling and little known tale, the book - Even Higher than Everest - is a dramatized recount of the tenacity of the heiress Lucy Houston and her team of prestigious aviators whose five aircraft flew to the world's highest mountains. A short 1930s film from footage of Houston’s flight, titled Wings Over Everest, won an Oscar in 1936 from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wings_Over_Everest
Commenting on his work, author George Almond says: “Inspired by true events of that first flight over Everest, the novel Even Higher Than Everest follows skilled personnel in finance, diplomacy, media, filming, engineering and aviation, all aiming for a shared objective. How these characters blended successfully, overcoming constant setbacks and challenges, was in itself a major accomplishment. I have followed the truth, tweaking just a few elements, in recounting the event.”
PRAISE:
“Yay, George Almond! You DID it! You delivered a fine story- -and a fun story- -with your Higher Than Everest dramatization. I loved many aspects about this book. You had me on the edge of my seat with the actual flights over the Himalayas. I could SEE the mountains in my mind's eye and could feel the tension and the dangers they faced.” - Amazon (Marla Bray)
Even Higher Than Everest is available at Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Even-Higher-Than-Everest-Dramatised/dp/1782226249.
Book Excerpt
But recovery came as Clydesdale activated the spare oxygen supply.
Blacker felt the revitalizing rush in his lungs before another fist of wind came charging down from the mountains. This blow punched the Westland, pushing her down several hundred feet in a single second while leaving his stomach far above. Blacker looked towards the front cockpit where Clydesdale sat, calm, stoic and fearless, looking out over the trembling wingtips as he surfed Lucy through each wave of the jet stream.
All the time, the turbo-charger lashed the 650 horse power of the Pegasus compelling it to fire on stubbornly, shoveling air over the wings while they closed on their target some ten miles ahead. But was it ten miles or five? It might have been one or two. Blacker found it difficult to estimate the distance because the terrain was so huge and dominant, so unexpectedly different and daunting at close quarters. He searched around for Mac’s Wallace and thought he saw the flash of wings in the distance.
Up here it looked like a fly lost in the atrium of a West End theatre. Blacker seized the Williamson P14 plate camera and began taking shots of Makalu. The mountain was hewn like a switchblade knife thrust into glacier arteries. He exposed several plates at Everest while the Westland rolled and pitched. He checked his belt and the line that kept him hooked within the cockpit. Bloody hell! Blacker grinned inside his oxygen mask.
This was going to be some ride!
Passing over the monstrous haft of Makalu, Blacker’s heart bypassed several beats. The altimeter was still stuck on 28,000 feet. The snow pip on the summit remained high above and they were closing on the most unforgiving surface imaginable at a groundspeed of 50 miles an hour.
Blacker bent down and heaved open the flaps of a trap door in his cabin floor, allowing more air to scythe up towards his mask and goggles. Now he was looking straight down onto the silvered shoulders and buttresses of the great mountain, all moving this way and that while Lucy danced in the air above. He took several photos and then shut the trapdoor to concentrate on the peak action.
Then as suddenly as the downdraft had begun, a reverse action set in. A surging up-draft helped Clydesdale coax Lucy’s nose up and up, pushing her towards the final gradients and cliffs of the dominant landmass.
Blacker repositioned his camera as Clydesdale drove the valiant biplane towards the snow-capped crest.
Seconds later, with the engine still thrusting against the elements, Lucy the Westland passed over the snowy peak of the great mountain with only a few hundred feet to spare. Clydesdale turned and raised his gloved hand.
Blacker waved back in unspoken triumph.
They had done it!
– Excerpted from Even Higher Than Everest by George Almond, Paragon Publishing, 2018. Reprinted with permission.
George Almond, the grandson of a Wyoming horse rancher, enjoys revisiting great adventures. Born in London and educated in France and Oxford University he has ridden horseback 1500 miles across Europe, worked for Calgary Stampede's Champion Chuck Wagon driver, sailed two oceans with the world's most experienced square-rig sea captain, taken the Flying Scotsman steam train from Boston to Houston where he was hired by Neiman Marcus. These days Almond makes his home in Europe, working on other books, including one about Jack Rackham and his two lady pirates who formerly sailed the Caribbean, preying upon merchant vessels.
