Partial remains of Mallory’s companion “Sandy” Irvine found on Everest
This is about the discovery:
The partial remains of Andrew “Sandy” Irvine are believed to have been found on the slopes of Mount Everest, a century after he died alongside his fellow British climber George Mallory while attempting – or just possibly returning from – the first ascent of the mountain.
The two men, part of a British expedition to climb the north-east ridge, were last seen making a push for the summit on 8 June 1924. They never returned, leading to one of the most enduring mysteries in mountaineering – whether the two men died after reaching the summit, as members of their team believed.
Mallory’s remains were found in 1999, and last month, a team of climbers and film-makers discovered a foot encased in a climbing boot and sock – on which was sewn a label identifying it as Irvine’s.
If you go to the link and look at the photo of the label (it can’t be embedded here for copyright reasons), you’ll see something very much like what I use to sew into my clothing when I went to sleep-away camp. Of course, come to think of it, although that didn’t happen 100 years ago, it was – well, let’s just say a very long time ago.
The finding of the foot, sock, and boot doesn’t solve the mystery of whether the men reached the summit or not. I like to think they did, but my guess is that we’ll never know.
Prof Joe Smith, director of the Royal Geographical Society, said of the discovery: “Sandy was an exceptional figure and made a significant contribution to our understanding of Everest and the Himalaya. This discovery of his remains provides an element of closure for his relatives and the wider mountaineering community, and we are grateful to Jimmy and his team for enabling this and ensuring Sandy is in safe hands.”
RIP.
Did we just miss having Mallory Clinton?
Prof Joe Smith is full of blather. Dead men on Everest that long ago had no way to report observations, and dead men tell no tales.
Cicero, he had a camera, which hasn’t been found. Most likely it is on his body, which may never be found.
Is it known whether they enlisted the help of Sherpas?
The story of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine was a part of my teen age mountaineering reading. It was a mystery and a tale of adventure that was well known in those who climbed mountains.
Hillary and his sherpa, Tenzing Norgay, made it to the summit and back, but the question was still – had it been climbed by Mallory and Irvine? Well, we still don’t know.
The efforts to climb Everest were emblematic of we humans’ desire to explore places where no human has been before.
Everest was once considered unclimbable because of the lack of oxygen at 290,000 feet, and its savage weather. Now, the mountain has been climbed many times and some have succeeded without using supplemental oxygen. Better equipment, better training methods, better nutrition, better weather forecasting, and better understanding of human physiology have all combined to make climbing Everest a doable feat for many people. (6,664 so far.) https://haexpeditions.com/advice/list-of-mount-everest-climbers/
I had hopes of doing the climb at some point but was never able to wrangle two months off at a time when people I knew were heading out to do the climb. A good friend made it to the top in 1983. Wonderful pictures and tales from his trip to the top. I still envy him that experience.
RIP to all who have perished there.
ShireHome: Cameras do not communicate directly to a listening base station.
JJ: you gave Everest an extra zero in height! Your 290,000ft would make it about 54 miles high!
From what I’ve read, Everest is an extremely difficult walk whose environment will kill you. But the technical “climbing” is far more challenging on other peaks in the Himalayas. Kachenchunga (sp?) is supposed to be one, and several in the Alps.
With all that Everest throws at you, adding substantial time with axes, ropes, pitons, so forth would be superfluous.
Richard Aubrey: As I understand it, the most difficult climb by far is K2 in the Karakoram Range. Just getting to K2 is difficult, as it’s some 50 miles from the nearest village. K2 doesn’t just kill people, it murders them, especially in the area on the southeast slope known as “The Bottleneck”, where at random times it drops giant ice cubes from overhanging seracs that can sweep you right off the mountain.
Jeff. A certain degree of prudence is called for in the choice of places to expend energy and risk life. Paying various prices for, effectively, nothing is a bad idea. You’re useless when something important comes up.
I’d heard about K2.
Also, does the Matterhorn have different degrees of difficulty depending on which side the climber attempts? Seems I’ve heard that someplace. Might be. No reason to be uniform.
Since Mallory’s time, climbing Everest has become a commercial endeavor. If you’ve got the bucks, reasonable health and some climbing experience, you can take a crack at Mt. Everest with guides for a $50,000-160,000.
No guarantees, however. People are still dying to climb Everest.
Jon Krakeur’s “Into Thin Air,” his personal account of the disastrous 1996 Everest climbing season in which eight people died and many were stranded is absolutely riveting.
Not on my bucket list.
Richard Aubrey: Yes, a certain degree of prudence is called for. But if everyone exercised prudence all the time, people would still be living in caves in the Eastern Hemisphere. At some point, someone looked at a lobster and thought, “I wonder what that tastes like.” Christopher Columbus crossing the Atlantic was considered every bit as dangerous as climbing K2. At least. Humanity cannot advance without the spirit of adventure.
As I understand it, when George Leigh Mallory was asked he wanted to climb Everest, he answered, “Because it is there.” That captures the human spirit. To conquer the world around us. Turn the malarial swamp into farmland and piss off the envirofascists.
And it seems to be the consensus that Mallory and Irvine did top Everest. They were only 300 meters from the top and still climbing when they disappeared into a snowstorm. I believe they succeeded. But the conclusive proof that they topped Everest is simply not there, and even if it is, we then would have to decide if it should count if they didn’t make it back down again. The descent is usually the most dangerous part of any expedition because people unconsciously relax and lose some focus, which can be fatal in that “death zone” environment.
Yes, Cicero, I vastly overstated the elevation. My eyes ain’t what they used to be. Thanks for the correction.
The technical climbing on Everest is in the first third, going up the Khumbu ice fall. Lots of aluminum ladders, fixed ropes and step cutting. A camp is established at the top of the ice fall. The next section is a long slanting ascent across ice and snow fields to the South Col. A second camp is established there.
The final push is to the summit and back down to the South Col or lower depending on time, weather, and energy.
It’s a pretty well-known route now, but weather and lack of oxygen are still the main hazards. The ice fall has its dangers from falling ice, and good judgement is required to navigate that section safely.
More info, pictures, and videos here for anyone interested:
https://www.alanarnette.com/everest/everestsouthroutes.php
Sandy Irvine was a great friend of my great, great, great, great grandfather. Neither of them liked ballet, finding it a great great great great evil.
That mountain is one big graveyard. It’s too hard to get the bodies down because the air is so thin, the mountain so cold, and exertion darned near impossible.
FWIW, W.H. Auden and Stephen Spender were well-known poets in England between the world wars. What’s less known is that at about the same time their older brothers were surveyors, mountain climbers and explorers, a geologist and a geographer, who vied to be in expeditions to climb Everest.
“K2” (1991) with Micheal Biehn was IMO an underestimated film about climbing said peak.
I loved it for the adrenaline, though granted the plot was soap-operaish.
Glancing through it a bit tonight, I find the celebration of good old-fashioned male testosterone invigorating.
Not a film for these fragile woke times.
We have two friends who, together, took their teen children (one female, one male) to climb Everest a couple of years ago. I don’t know how far up they went, though I’m pretty sure they didn’t even try to summit.
But what an experience!
On a side note: The Guardian says, “while attempting – or just possibly returning from – the first ascent of the mountain.”
Barry asks, “Is it known whether they enlisted the help of Sherpas?”
Edmund Hillary’s companion has a most fascinating story. He was a very accomplished mountaineer before joining that expedition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenzing_Norgay
Additional interesting information on the mountaineering culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherpa_people
What I did NOT find out from either article was whether Sherpa people had ever summitted Everest (and the other major peaks) prior to the Europeans getting involved, or whether they thought there were more useful things to do lower on the mountains.
Sandy Irvine was a great friend of my great, great, great, great grandfather.
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I gather the generations in your family average one every 13 years or so. Impressive.
Jeff.
The expenditure of “because it’s there” guys today can be absorbed. There are a lot of us.
A quarter of a million years ago, the band couldn’t spare a guy capable of standing between them and a cave lion.
The “because it’s there” guys generally expect to survive the endeavor, although acknowledging the risks. The benefit to others is hardly part of the conversation.
Sky divers, for example, use parachutes. The thrill is the contrast between the terror of falling, an instinctive issue, and the rational knowledge that one is safe. See scary roller coasters.
When I was in jump school, we were surprised and how few of us were apprehensive. Then we figured that getting out of the airplane meant we didn’t get blown up on the run-in. What’s not to like? And I suppose we were self-selected for a degree of adrenalin deficiency. We would do what was necessary but “because it’s there” was not interesting.
The most technically challenging section of Everest was, reputedly, the Hillary Step. But no longer: it collapsed, due to an earthquake in the region, in 2015.
I used to trek 13-teeners in Colorado when I lived there. These are generally very much more challenging the 14-teeners. The latter are, for the most part, fairly simple walk-ups. You need real stamina to get to get to the top, they’re quite difficult in that respect, but there is no (or very negligible) technical challenge involved. The 13-teeners are a whole different story: rugged, jagged, sheer — and more fun for that reason. My favorite 13-teener was Apache Peak in the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area. (Well it used to be a bona-fide wilderness area in the early 70s when I did the Indian Peaks: virtually no one was there, I mostly had the whole place to myself. Now it’s swarming with tourists). The final third of Apache is pretty much straight up, and the top is just spacious enough to accommodate one person. I did it several times, without equipment, and always alone. I must have been crazy. It’s a miracle I survived.
I didn’t do 13-teeners “because they were there,” I did them because they were challenging in an interesting way and because I felt close to God at the top.
Closer than usual, that is. Like, transcendently closer.