To the top of Everest in the footsteps of Mallory
Friday, 15 June 2007
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A team of mountaineers who have been ascending Mount Everest in an attempt to retrace the steps of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine in 1924 made it to the top yesterday, claiming their achievement added weight to the theory that the ill-fated British climbers may also have done so.
The Altitude Everest expedition, which has tested 1920s-style clothing and replicas of the equipment originally used, reached the summit of the 29,198ft peak at 10.45am, four hours after they removed a ladder bolted to the notoriously difficult "Second Step" and "free-climbed" the 100ft rock wall.
The climber leading the six-man expedition, Conrad Anker, whose discovery of Mallory's body in 1999 inspired him to undertake the mission, gave an understated response to reaching the summit. "That was hard," he said.
But Anker's radio call to base camp after reaching the top was more euphoric than anything the quintessentially English gentlemen Mallory or Irvine were likely to have uttered, if they really did go all the way to the top after they were last seen on 8 June 1924. "Man, oh man, we've pulled the ladder up," said Anker. "Looking through the telescope [the conditions] were a bit more difficult than I expected."
The organisers of the US-British expedition said in a statement: "Their [achievement], without the use of the ladder, adds weight to the theory that George Mallory and Sandy Irvine may have made it to the summit in 1924, 29 years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay." The achievement also makes Anker and his climbing partner, Britain's Leo Houlding, the first people to free-climb the north-east ridge of Everest. All previous confirmed ascents of the route have used a ladder bolted in 1975 to the Second Step, a 100ft rock wall just beneath Everest's summit.
But unlike the current team, Mallory and Irvine trudged up Everest with four oxygen bottles apiece, which each weighed 33lb. It was so heavy that on their last push, Mallory and Irvine carried only two bottles apiece. In a message left behind after their last night in a tent at 26,800ft, Mallory remarked: "The oxygen is a bloody load for climbing [but we have] perfect weather for the job." The latest expedition is part of a record-breaking season on Everest which has seen more than 520 people reach the summit. The team had waited until the end of the spring climbing season to ensure that modern climbers would not appear in their documentary footage. They are expected to complete their descent early next week.
Sir Edmund Hillary has already played down the importance of the mystery of whether Mallory and Irvine made it to the top, which may only ever be resolved if the camera they carried is found. He has said that what matters is not reaching the top first - but making it down alive to tell the tale.
