A poignant little detail from my podcast research on Maurice Wilson, who in 1934 set out to climb Everest alone:

There was only one precedent in mountaineering history for such an impossible lone assault. In May of 1929 a young American climber, E.F. Farmer of New Rochelle, N.Y., had set off from Darjeeling on a suicidal attack on 28,146-foot Kangchenjunga. He disappeared into the clouds and was never seen again.

(John Cottrell, “The Madman of Everest,” Sports Illustrated, April 30, 1973.)