Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Did George Mallory lead the first successful attempt on the summit of Everest?

It’s a primitive attempt, to do a huge undertaking. He had to rely on human spirit alone not on technology. He just had only his heart and soul.
He was born in 1886. He married Ruth Turner in 1914.

He was invited to Everest expeditions on 1921, 1922 and 1924. He was the only climber who was being on all three expeditions.
it was his last chance to have an attempt on Everest, he knew that  since at the age of 38 he would not have high chance of getting selected to another expedition. He was in for an all-out effort on that final day. He was in the mindset that it’s all or nothing in that day.
He chose Andrew Irvine who was the youngest member of the expedition to join him on final attempt on the summit. Irvine had little experience as a climber but he was skilled with maintaining oxygen equipment’s.

Noel Odell was last person who saw Mallory and Irvine alive, he saw them shortly after mid-day on 8th of June 1924, just a few hundred feet from the summit at 28400 Ft and still going strong for the top. Clouds then rolled in and they were never seen again.

Mallory’s body was found during an expedition in 1999, 75 years after they lost. Surprisingly most of the belongings were well preserved and intact. They found his goggles in his pocket that meant he was climbing down after the sun. So they are assuming from that they are coming down when they fell.  One very significant item was missing the photo of his wife Ruth which he had promised to leave on the summit as ultimate tribute to his love of Ruth. Was the photo missing that the Mallory had reached the summit and placed it there. This really tells that might have fallen during the descent.


Mountaineers believe that Mallory could have climbed even with the standards of mountain climbing during 1924 are very primitive. Just enough of wild man that he might just had a good day and pulled it off. 

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