[4][13] During this period Noyce wrote that he suffered three serious accidents: The first was a fall of 200 feet with a damp ledge that came away on the Mickledore Grooves of Scafell in 1937, when I was nineteen years old.

The last, in 1946, found me blown bodily by a gust off an easy rib of Great Gable, onto my leg, which crumpled and broke under me [...] When I returned to the Alps and fells, it was often to introduce boys or to explore new corners.

According to the expedition's leader John Hunt, in the section of his The Ascent of Everest in which he outlined the qualities of his team members: Wilfred Noyce is a schoolmaster and author, built on the same model as Lowe.

Aged 34, he was, at the outbreak of the war in 1939, one of our foremost young mountaineers, with a very fine record of difficult routes in the Alps and on our own crags to his credit [...] He had climbed in Garhwal, and had made the ascent of one high peak in Sikkim, Paunhiri, 23,000 feet.Edmund Hillary, meeting Noyce for the first time as the expedition assembled in Nepal, echoed Hunt's praise: "Wilf Noyce was a tough and experienced mountaineer with an impressive record of difficult and dangerous climbs.

"[17] At the initial meeting of the Everest team at the premises of the Royal Geographical Society on 17 November 1952, Noyce was designated as being charge of writing (meaning the dispatches that were to be sent home from the mountain) and "volunteered to help with the packing" (he aided Stuart Bain with this).

[19] Noyce was also in charge of mountaineering equipment on the ascent itself, having been instructed in the repair of high-altitude boots ("I had worked for three days with Robert Lawrie's bootmakers, learning chiefly how to stick on micro-cellular rubber soles and heels").

On 20 May he radioed to Hunt that many of the oxygen bottles (the training or Utility model, not the type that were to be used on the summit attempt) that had been ferried up to Camp VII were leaking.

"[24] Several hours later they reached the highest point attained by the British expedition to date: "an aluminium piton with a great coil of thick rope" left by George Lowe and party.

[25] The climbers in the camps below, according to Hunt, were watching their progress on this vital part of the climb; by early afternoon "their speed had noticeably increased and our excitement soon grew to amazement when it dawned on us that Noyce and Annullu were heading for the South Col itself".

But the eye wandered hungry and fascinated over the plateau between; a space of boulders and bare ice perhaps four hundred yards square, absurdly solid and comforting at first glance in contrast with the sweeping ridges around, or the blank mist that masked the Tibetan hills beyond.

From a mountaineering perspective, as Everest veteran Chris Bonington wrote, "[Noyce] had fulfilled his role in John Hunt's master plan, had established one vital stepping-stone for others to achieve the final goal.

"[31] Pasang, George Lowe and Noyce met the successful summit team of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay at the Col, giving the tired climbers drinks and congratulations.

It was another foul night with strong wind and very cold temperatures ..."[32] Noyce descended the following day with Hillary, Tenzing, Lowe and Pasang Phutar, reaching Camp IV on 30 May.

On 20 May 1957, together with A. D. M. Cox, Noyce made the effective first ascent of Machapuchare (6,993 m) in the Annapurna Himal, reaching to within 50 m of the summit before turning back at that point out of respect for local religious beliefs.

[35] On 5 August 1959 Noyce, together with C. J. Mortlock and Jack Sadler, made the first British ascent of the Welzenbach route on the north face of the Dent d'Hérens.

[38] On the descent of Mount Garmo, either Smith or Noyce slipped on a layer of soft snow over ice, pulling the other, and they both fell 4,000 feet (1,200 metres).