George Christopher Band was an English mountaineer.
16 Facts About George Band
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George Band was the youngest climber on the 1953 British expedition to Mount Everest on which Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first to ascend the mountain.
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George Band was born in Taiwan where his parents, Presbyterian missionaries, had lived since 1912.
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George Band then read Natural Sciences, with a specialism in Geology, at Queens' College, Cambridge.
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George Band started climbing in the Alps while a student at Queens' and he soon became President of the University Mountaineering Club.
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George Band had a particularly successful alpine season in 1952, climbing in the Valais and Chamonix mainly with Roger Chorley but in the company of John Streetly, Ian McNaught-Davis and Arthur Dolphin.
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On that expedition Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made the first ascent of Mount Everest, George Band played an important role in forcing a route through the Khumbu Icefall and at a later stage in the expedition he reached Camp VII at 7,300 metres.
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George Band was aged just 23 when selected and was the youngest climber on the team.
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Extracts relating to the summit days, from the diary that George Band kept during the trip, have been published online.
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George Band made the first ascent of the south buttress of the east peak of Dykh-Tau 5,198 metres.
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George Band was President of the Alpine Club and the British Mountaineering Council.
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George Band continued to travel widely after retirement, leading adventure treks to India, Central Asia, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan and in 2005, aged 76, made the trek to re-visit the south-west Base Camp of Kangchenjunga in Nepal.
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George Band wrote the books, Road to Rakaposhi and in 2003, Everest 50 Years on Top of the World.
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George Band was an Appeal Patron for BSES Expeditions, a youth development charity that operates challenging scientific research expeditions to remote wilderness environments.
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George Band was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2009 New Year Honours.
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George Band died of natural causes in Hampshire, England, UK, on 26 August 2011, aged 82.