George Mallory and Andrew Irvine may have been the first people to summit Everest in 1924. Sadly they both vanished after making an attempt. Missing presumed dead, George Mallory’s body was found in 1999. c.f. George Mallory - Wikipedia
At this point the rest of his body has not been found but it is possible it may emerge over the coming months. Will it be found? Will the camera he was meant to be carrying be found? Will there be a picture of Mallory and Irvine at the summit? It would be quite something for such evidence to be found in what is the 100th anniversary of their deaths.
Knowing how primitive their equipment and techniques were, I’ve always thought it remarkable that they got as far as the second step, even if they didn’t make it to the summit. I’ve climbed some of Mallories routes so I know how fine a climber he was - even today when those routes have been long stripped of vegetation and loose rock, they still make you think! Despite that, the strain of step cutting with a basic axe at such an altitude and keeping steady footing with just heavy nail-studded boots made the attempt unjustifiable in my opinion. If the camera is found and shows they failed to summit I won’t feel disappointed.
As an ex-Wirralite I was never aware of their connection to where I spent may years so I was pleased to see that article John.
Did they reach the top? Does it matter if they did or didn’t? Not to me, the guys will always be revered.
Well I’m a hill walker not a mountain climber and I’ve really only done it a lot in the modern age with modern fabrics, modern boots, GPS navigation etc. I did some hill walking in Snowdonia with my school in the 70s and I remember how bloody awful the equipment was then. Seeing modern Everest expeditions and looking at pictures of what they had, I too am amazed at what was achieved.
It would just be cool fairy-tale stuff if the mythical camera turns up. I would like to think that any teams searching for the rest of Irvine’s remains have spoken to what’s left of Kodak and other film companies on how to handle the camera and film should it be found. It will have been dry and cold so maybe a monochrome film may be still viable for processing. 100 years in a glacier may have preserved it.
And Tenzing and Hillary? Having seen both interviewed, they strike me as the kind of proper gentlemen who would have willingly given up their claims as the first to summit had they still been with us and it’s shown it was Mallory and Irvine.
One last thing, I’m not religious but I felt better seeing the film of when Mallory’s body was found and they gave him a proper burial. It was the right thing to do. I hope they do find Irvine’s remains and do the same for him. Although at present one of his feet is with the Chinese authorities. I’d like to think that when they find Irvine and bury him, they are able to return his foot to be buried with him.
I’ve never really understood that. They were like other romantic heroes, such as for instance Captain Scott, they bit off more than they could chew, and pushing too hard they paid the penalty. For some perverse reason their failure is valued as highly as the success of other people, but really they were just a bad example. Did the victims of the meat grinding North Wall of the Eiger push on to their deaths because they revered the death or glory ethos of Mallory and Irvine? “To suffer woes which hope thinks infinite…” Shelley nailed the attitude.
I’m with Willans, “the mountain will be there tomorrow, make sure you are”. The retractable neck gets another chance.
It is a coincidence that another boot is currently making headlines. It was discovered on the wreck of the Endurance, which has been lying at a depth of 3’000 m near Antarctica for over 100 years.
They dared to do something others had not yet achieved. Some survived, some did not. It’s safe to say that those whose knees started to knock together violently when trying to ascend a British HVS/E1/E2 with poor protection would never have attempted to ascend the Eiger North face. Stick with what you actually know, Brian.
Well, Rob, I perhaps know more about this than you think. The first two attempts led to the deaths of all members of the parties, a total of six. In all there have been at least 64 deaths on the original route. The big risk is stonefall, the route is ridiculously exposed to falling rock and ice being funnelled onto it, and has a well-earned reputation of attracting bad weather. It has had many successful ascents but to my mind it is still a prolonged game of Russian Roulette.
Incidentally, I used to enjoy snow and ice climbing more than rock climbing, though due to our climate I did more of the latter. I was the first in our club to start ice climbing with two axes, courtesy of Hamish Mcinnes terrordactyls. I’ve dodged stonefall in the Cuillin and had falling ice smash my spectacles in the Coe, the Alpine risks are not confined to the Alps. I don’t claim to be an expert on the Alpine scene, it was too expensive in my day to spend much time there, you had to be single minded to save up enough for a decent season - but I am not ignorant.
Which you have decided is not for you. What is also not for you is to opine on the actions of others with a different mind-set, let alone skill-set. Tend to your rhododendrons and let the climbers climb.
Mountaineering, like any other adventurous pastime is about attitude to risk.
Rambling > Fellwalking > hillwalking > winter hill walking > scrambling > rock climbing > winter hillwalking > winter climbing > new routing > alpinism > moutaineering the great ranges… etc
Everyone gets off the bus at their own level. Their choice. Shouldn’t do anything but admire those that aspire to greater things. If they survive they get to write a book eg Joe Simpson, or a movie, like Alex Honnold.
Atitude to risk or controlling risk? As a climber myself (note that, Rob) I was continually assessing the risk, move by move, and if the margin of safety got too small I was always prepared to abseil off. Push too far and the mountain rescue guys had the nasty job of scraping up and bagging the wreckage, once you have seen such wreckage you realise that the “death or glory” attitude is just plain inconsiderate to your fellow mountaineers. That is my stance and I make no apology for it.
I have been well aware of your climbing history for several years, Brian. Like so many older people who no longer climb, you make far too much of it, and that far too often. It’s nice that you had your day on the hill, but right now, nobody cares - have a cup of tea, man, and calm down.
The same could be said for motor-car racing at the cutting edge, and yet those crazy b*****ds keep on doing it. Somebody should do something, right Brian?!
They did, Rob, they did. Self sealing fuel tanks, monocoque shells and so on, making full speed collisions survivable, just as in my days on the crag there were immense strides in protection. Its OK pushing the boundary if you have a bomb proof runner two metres below you and an attentive second more than five metres below you, but you needed discretion in the days when all you had to rely on was a boot-axe belay and the Lords of Mischance were shooting tons of rock at you from on high!
Look, Rob, I doubt that we will ever agree on this so I will leave it to you to pop in a few more insults for me to ignore, but I am done. 73.
It takes two to tango. They’re not insults, you just see them as such.
When I was a climber, I and all my climbing buddies were clear on one thing - if we had to die, we’d like it to happen on the hill. That’s where we were happiest, where life made most sense to us, and going out like a light didn’t seem so bad, to any of us. And we knew that the mountain rescue people were of much the same mind - they were/are also climbers, we knew them well, and they understood/understand what makes climbers - real climbers - tick. So, pontificating about the dreadful dangers basically falls on deaf ears because … we lived with them every time we took to the rock or the ice. Yes, Brian, I myself was a climber for 15 years, and I know what I’m talking about.
If it’s insults you’re looking for, how about this one: the MT surely chose the right person when they gave you the job of forum moderator.
Thanks for the heads up. I have a book given to me in 1954 titled “Men against Everest”. The short chapter on Mallory and Irvine`s last climb caught my imagination. It sat on a shelf until Mallory was found and again until a year ago. I have reread that chapter many times.
Something happened to put them where last seen instead of further up, unless they were actually descending from a successful climb.
The engineer/ scientist in me will only accept proof and facts but my inner harbours a hope that they did summit and died on a fall on the descent.
(i have had most of my falls descending from an activation, so maybe that produces a bias. For a change I had a fall on Monday when trying to retrieve my antenna. I’ll need a bribe to reveal the details.)
The weather, politics and WW2 disrupted the following Everest efforts until Hilary and Tensing made it.
It was a book for youngsters but well enough written and stuck to the facts.
I hope more of Irving’s remains are recovered but a foot in a boot is much more than almost a century of searching has found. Perhaps next summer?
Coming down off big hills/mountains/climbs results in more accidents than ascending.
Its simply riskier. Abseiling down, you can’t see the rope anchor as one example, you are often in a little hurry to get down to ‘safer’, ground and base, you are often knackered/tired, its easier to knock stuff down onto your partners, as your feet go first instead of your hands and head!!!