This day in history: Washington team prepares to ascend world’s second-tallest mountain in Pakistan

From 1975: A climbing team from Washington, led by Jim Whittaker, of Seattle, was preparing an assault on K2 in Pakistan.

Whittaker said that the world’s second-tallest mountain “may prove more difficult to conquer than Mt. Everest.”

The team – which also included his wife, Diane Whittaker; his twin brother, Lou Whittaker; and Seattle lawyer James Wickwire – was in Pakistan preparing for the climb. They had been in training for two years.

A reporter asked Jim Whittaker if he expected to see the Abominable Snowman.

“We will be too busy laboring up glaciers to find the Yeti,” Whittaker replied. “But if we come across him we will certainly say hello.”

From 1925: Radio had entered a new era in Spokane, as evidenced by the launch of a twice-weekly feature in the Spokane Chronicle.

“No need to spend half an evening trying to find a radio program that sounds good to you,” the Chronicle wrote. “On Monday and Thursday each week the Chronicle publishes programs of the principal radio broadcasting stations heard in Spokane.”

The paper’s first radio calendar led with KFPY, a pioneer Spokane station, which scheduled “market and stock quotations,” an orchestral concert, and “a talk on accounting by Ellis LeMaster.”

The rest of the calendar detailed the schedules of stations from Los Angeles, Calgary, Denver, Missoula, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland and other far-flung cities. During this era, the appeal of radio included the ability to tune in signals from around the country.

Network radio was still in its infancy. NBC would form in 1926, and CBS in 1927.