The MountainWorld™ Blog

George Leigh Mallory - June 18, 1886

It was 122 years ago today that George Herbert Leigh Mallory was born.

His story is too long to recount here - especially since I've got to run out the door and pick up my daughter! But, I have a longer post dealing with Mallory & Irvine's final climb and eventual disappearance, which I will post tomorrow.

For today, though, a remembrance of Mallory through his own words - eloquent, determined, nuanced, and timeless:

I suppose we go to Mount Everest, granted the opportunity, because—in a word—we can't help it. Or, to state the matter rather differently, because we are mountaineers.... To refuse the adventure is to run the risk of drying up like a pea in its shell.

How to get the best of it all? One must conquer, achieve, get to the top; one must know the end to be convinced that one can win the end -- to know there's no dream that musn't be dared...Is this the summit, crowning the day? How cool and quiet! We're not exultant; but delighted, joyful, soberly astonished. Have we vanquished an enemy? None but ourselves. Have we gained success? That word means nothing here. Have we won a kingdom? No...and yes. We have achieved an ultimate satisfaction...fulfilled a destiny. To struggle and to understand -- never this last without the other; such is the law.

And in this series of partial glimpses we had seen a whole; we were able to piece together the fragments, to interpret the dream…

For the stone from the top for geologists, the knowledge of the limits of endurance for the doctors, but above all for the spirit of adventure to keep alive the soul of man.

The highest of the world's mountains, it seems, has to make but a single gesture of magnificence to be the lord of all, vast in unchallenged and isolated supremacy.

The first question which you will ask and which I must try to answer is this, "What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?" and my answer must at once be, "It is no use." There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behavior of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron. We shall not find a single foot of earth that can be planted with crops to raise food. It's no use. So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for.

And, finally, "Lines to an Indian Air"  - Mallory's favorite poem - by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

I arise from dreams of thee
 In the first sweet sleep of night,
 When the winds are breathing low,
 And the stars are shining bright:
 I arise from dreams of thee,
 And a spirit in my feet
 Has led me - who knows how?
 To thy chamber window, Sweet!

 The wandering airs they faint
 On the dark, the silent stream -
 The Champak  odours fail
 Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
 The nightingale's complaint,
 It dies upon her heart; -
 As I must on thine,
 O belovèd as thou art!

 Oh lift me from the grass!
 I die! I faint! I fail!
 Let thy love in kisses rain
 On my lips and eyelids pale.
 My cheek is cold and white, alas!
 My heart beats loud and fast; -
 Oh! press it to thine own again,
 Where it will break at last.

- Jake Norton is an Everest climber, guide, photographer, writer, and motivational speaker from Colorado.

New video of 1938 high camp and views from the Northeast Shoulder of Everest

Nearly a year ago, I posted a video showing my May 20, 2004, discovery of the 1938 high camp on the Northeast Shoulder of Everest (see the post here). It was an exciting day - my friend, Dave Hahn, was en route to his 5th summit of Everest (he now has 10!) with our amazing Sherpas, Danuru and Tashi.

I had the option of going for the top again, but, having been there twice already, and being far more interested in the history of Everest and the artifacts I knew were still strewn about the upper North Face, I decided to forego another summit attempt and instead do some high-altitude exploring.

On previous expeditions in 1999 and 2001, I had been able to discover and unearth the 1924 and 1933 high camps. The remaining one that I hadn't visited, however, was from the 1938 expedition, a camp perched in one of the most inhospitable, wind-blown areas of the North Face - atop the North Ridge, just below the Pinnacles and the Yellow Band, on the crest of the Northeast Shoulder.

It took some looking and scouring - especially, as you'll see in the video, since it was a nasty day with high winds, snow, and poor visibility - but eventually the effort paid off. At the fringe of the Northeast Shoulder, just before the grand drop down the Rongbuk Face some 6000 feet to Advanced Basecamp, I saw a bit of wood sticking out of the rubble.

Wood had surprised me before, and led to neat discoveries, like in 1999 with the 1933 high camp, and in 2001 when the wooden tent pole of the 1924 high camp signaled to me that Brent Okita and I had found Mallory & Irvine's final camp. This time, however, I knew the wind was playing tricks on me. No matter how tough (and possibly crazy!) the climbers were in 1938, perching their pup tent on the Shoulder, I knew they would not have placed it where I found the bit of wood, which turned out to be a 2-section tent pole that now sits in my office. It was far too rugged, jagged, and not a flat place to be found.

No, the wind - the ferocious, jetstream wind of the upper reaches of Everest - had carried the pole away from its tent. Nonetheless, it was a clue, and i knew all I had to do was walk back, into the wind, and I'd be led by the prevailing wind direction to the rough site of the camp.

Another 45 minutes of searching, scouring, and being battered by the wind finally led me to the remains - small, sad, and beaten - of the 1938 High Camp.

The video posted last year was pretty poor in quality, and my voice barely audible. So, I took the time this week to edit a new cut of the same, this time adding in some more footage showing the view up to the Pinnacles - where Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker disappeared in 1982 - and the view up into the Yellow Band from the Shoulder along the route most likely taken by George Mallory & Andrew Irvine on their final, fateful summit bid on June 8, 1924.

It's a fun video - enjoy! The YouTube version is posted below, but feel free to check out the same video on DailyMotion, perhaps in a bit better quality.



- Jake Norton is an Everest climber, guide, photographer, writer, and motivational speaker from Colorado.

Bentley Beetham Photo Collection Online, including rare 1924 Everest images!

The 1924 Everest expedition - which I have written extensively about here - was made most famous by the mystery shrouded disappearance of George Mallory & Andrew Irvine on June 8th, 1924.

There were, of course, other expedition members, most of whom have fallen into relative obscurity; they made it back alive and continued their lives, which is not nearly as sexy as disappearing high on the mountain!

But, they were an incredible group, from Doctor T. Howard Somervell to geologist Noel Odell, eccentric John Baptist Lucius Noel to larger-than-life Brigadier General Charles Granville Bruce.

Bentley Beetham, another member of the 1924 expedition, was a gifted photographer and schoolmaster at Barnard Castle School. Sir Francis Younghusband described Beetham in The Epic of Mount Everest:

He had not exactly the concentrated fire of Mallory, but he was perpetually boiling and bursting and bubbling over with keenness and enthusiasm – the kind of man that nothing less than a ton of bricks could keep down: nineteen hundredweight would have been of no use.

And quite a climber he was. Beetham and Somervell made a 6 week foray into the Alps in 1923, during which time they climbed an astonishing 35 peaks!

However, as with all members of those early expeditions, Beetham was far from mono-dimensional. Climber, teacher, ornithologist, photographer, and cultural enthusiast, Beetham devoured the experiences on the approach to and climbing on Everest in 1924, and brought back the images to share.

It is exciting that now, through the efforts of the Bentley Beetham Trust in partnership with Durham University and The Heritage Lottery Fund, nearly the entire collection of Beetham's photographs and documents are accessible online through the Bentley Beetham Collection website.

The collection is extensive and impressive, offering rarely seen glimpses into the world of pre-World War II Tibet, of early Everest climbing, and also Beetham's images of natural history, culture, Northeast England, and climbing and mountaineering in the Tatra Mountains of Czechoslovakia, the Atlas of Morocco, and elsewhere.

Take an adventure back in time and visit the Bentley Beetham Collection online. It is quite a journey into the life and explorations of a remarkable man!

- Jake Norton is an Everest climber, guide, photographer, writer, and motivational speaker from Colorado.

Video Tribute to Mallory & Irvine

I came across this video the other day on YouTube. Quite a nice tribute to Mallory & Irvine, and including some fascinating archival footage from the 1920's and 1930's.

Also in the mix are clips from a modern reenactment of elements of the Mallory & Irvine story...not sure where they came from, but they are interesting as well.

The creator of the video, Escalador78, has also put together a nice video montage paying tribute to Hillary and Tenzing. Enjoy!

- Jake Norton is an Everest climber, guide, photographer, writer, and motivational speaker from Colorado.

Did Mallory & Irvine make it to the summit of Everest?

I've posted quite a bit on this blog about the enduring mystery of Everest pioneers George Mallory & Andrew Irvine, and have been fortunate enough to take an active role in the story, going to Everest in 1999, 2001, and 2004 to search for clues and answers to this greatest of mountaineering mysteries.

On that first expedition - the 1999 Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition - one of our team members was Graham Hoyland, the grand-nephew of Howard Somervell who was on the fateful 1924 Everest expedition. (Somervell reached nearly 28,000 feet without oxygen climbing with Teddy Norton on June 4, 1924, and also loaned Mallory his Kodak Vestpocket (VPK) camera for the final summit bid as Mallory had forgotten his at Basecamp.)

Unfortunately, in 1999, Graham fell ill with altitude sickness and was not able to take part directly in our discovery of Mallory's remains on May 1. But, since then, he has taken a very active role in putting the pieces of the story together, including developing clothing replicas and returning to the mountain on several occasions.

Just this week, Graham has unveiled a new theory on Mallory & Irvine's final summit bid and generated much media attention in the process in conjunction with a presentation to the Royal Geographic Society in London.

The crux of this theory, which puts Mallory & Irvine on the top of the world some 29 years before Hillary and Tenzin, hangs on Noel Odell's final sighting of the pair high on the Northeast Ridge and conjecture that Mallory would have chosen to forgo the difficulties of the Second Step and climb instead below to the Third Step.

While I, like Graham, believe Mallory & Irvine could have reached the summit in 1924 (and I like to believe they did reach the top, a theory for which I have no proof), I doubt Graham's new theory really breaks any ground.

If you take a good look at the interactive Zoomify panorama of the Northeast Ridge I put up on my website a while back - which shows the First, Second and Third Steps as well as the Summit Pyramid - you can see that bypassing the Second Step by traversing below it (which is the crux of Graham's new theory) is not really a possibility. The daunting band of gray rock which forms the Second Step continues all the way to the Great Couloir with only a small gully breaking through just above the Second Step. And, given that this couloir is composed of down-sloping, rotten rock - characteristic of the upper North Face of Everest - I doubt this would be more feasible than the Second Step itself.

Indeed Teddy Norton, on his attempt on June 4, 1924 with Howard Somervell, traversed below the Northeast Ridge crest trying to find an alternate way to the summit. He found no viable break in the rock bands bypassing the Second Step, and was eventually turned around at 28,165 feet in the Great (Norton) Couloir.

Likewise, in 1933, Percy Wyn-Harris and Lawrence Wager eventually followed Norton's traverse line after backing away from the Second Step and, as with Norton, found no viable passage through the gray band and onto the ridge crest. They turned around at nearly the same spot as Norton 9 years before. Days later, Eric Shipton and Frank Smythe tried the same route with the same results.

George Mallory was a great climber, skilled, insightful, and clever. But, Norton, Wyn-Harris, Wager, Shipton, and Smythe were no slouches and if they could not find a route through the gray band, I doubt Mallory & Irvine could have fared better.

So, while Graham's theory is intriguing and brings this fascinating mystery back into the limelight, I unfortunately think it is but another theory. It unfortunately sheds no more true light on the story than Conrad Anker's assertion that they could not have reached the top given the route challenges.

As I have maintained since 1999, we now know far more about their final days and hours than ever before, but we still have no proof...No proof that they did summit, and likewise no proof that they did not summit.

Anything proclaiming otherwise is simply conjecture.

What do you think?

Did Mallory & Irvine reach the top in 1924?

Does it matter?

- Jake Norton is an Everest climber, guide, photographer, writer, and motivational speaker from Colorado. 

Noel Odell's final view of Mallory & Irvine, June 8th, 1924

As many of you know, the mystery of Mallory & Irvine has been a major part of my life and passion over the years. I've written about it extensively here on The MountainWorld Blog, put together a Squidoo Lens on the story, and been fortunate enough to take part in the 1999, 2001, and 2004 Mallory & Irvine Research Expeditions.

A few days ago I was chatting with some friends about Noel Odell's famous final sighting of Mallory & Irvine on June 8, 1924. If you are not familiar with the story, Noel Odell was a strong climber and Himalayan veteran who was also a member of the 1924 Expedition. While he was not deemed "fit enough" to accompany Mallory on his final, fateful summit bid, Odell did climb up to Camp VI on Mallory & Irvine's summit day to support them.

Unbeknownst to him at the time, Odell's sighting of the duo going strong for the top would be the final sighting of them alive. Odell later wrote of the sighting:

At 12.50, just after I had emerged from a state of jubilation at finding the first definite fossils on Everest, there was a sudden clearing of the atmosphere, and the entire summit ridge and final peak of Everest were unveiled. My eyes became fixed on one tiny black spot silhouetted on a small snow-crest beneath a rock-step in the ridge; the black spot moved. Another black spot became apparent and moved up the snow to join the other on the crest. The first then approached the great rock-step and shortly emerged at the top; the second did likewise. Then the whole fascinating vision vanished, enveloped in cloud once more.
[From Gareth Thomas' excellent website]

This final view, the last sighting of Mallory & Irvine alive, has forever been a source of great debate: Did Odell see them reach the top of the First or Second Step? If the former at 12:50 PM, it is doubtful at best that they reached the top. But, if they were atop the Second Step at that time, it is almost unthinkable that they did NOT reach the summit.

I won't give my full opinion here and now, but rather would like to share a couple of images with those who are interested.

I took these shots from roughly Noel Odell's vantage point on the North Ridge while Dave Hahn and I were climbing in 2004. They were taken 2 minutes apart, one zoomed out to roughly the level of the human eye, and the second image zoomed in showing people quite clearly on the ridgecrest.

Take a look, zoom in, pan around, and enjoy the images.

Do they spark any thoughts or theories? Please feel free to comment and share your views.

- Jake Norton is an Everest climber, guide, photographer, writer, and motivational speaker from Colorado.

1938 High Camp Discovery on Mount Everest

Back in 2004 on the third Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition, Dave Hahn and I scoured the upper mountain looking for traces of Mallory & Irvine from 80 years before. I have posted videos from this expedition in the past, here and here.

After a couple days of searching on our second round working about 27,000 feet, Dave and I decided it was time for him to make a summit bid. Having reached the top the two previous years, I had little interest in climbing to the summit again and chose to let Dave go with our stellar Sherpa team of Danuru and Tashi. I would remain high on the mountain in support and do some additional searching.

My target for the day was multi-fold. I wanted to head to the Northeast Shoulder of Everest, due north of our high camp at 27,300 feet, and:

• get a look at the famed Pinnacles where Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker disappeared in 1982
• check out the Longland Traverse used by the British in the pre-World War II climbs
• see firsthand what the Yellow Band would have looked like for Mallory & Irvine back in 1924 approaching it from their high camp on the North Ridge
• and see if I could locate the remains of the 1938 Camp VI

The day was far from perfect - the wind howled, blowing frigid snow into my down suit and knocking me over as I left our tents.

As I moved across the terrain of the North Face, my excitement built. Ever since I was a little kid, I've always had a fascination with history, with finding bits of the past long forgotten. Although the weather was not ideal, I had a good feeling about the day and was happy to be off route, away from the fixed lines, going where very few venture.

The climbing to the NE Shoulder is not tough - scree slopes and snow gullies wind up a 35 degree angle. The hard part is simply the reality of scree climbing: one step forward lands you two steps back. Not a fun thing anywhere, but especially not at 27,300 feet! But, my excitement for the day propelled me forward.

Eventually I gained the NE Shoulder...and the full force of the wind as it howled across the North Face and out onto the Tibetan Plateau. I scrambled around trying to think of where I would pitch a glorified pup-tent back in 1938. No place made sense at all, but I finally saw a small wind-break in the rock and moved toward it. As I did, I got distracted by something long and thin in the rubble to the west and, upon investigation, found a full length wooden tent pole.

Bingo. It had to be from 1938, the camp must be nearby. Since I had walked downwind to get to the tent pole, I figured the pole must have blown there and thus the tent site would be upwind. Heading back, I b-lined to the rocky windbreak I saw before, and, sure enough, lying under a dusting of snow were the remains of the 1938 Camp VI.

After scouring through the meager remains of the camp, I took a more thorough look around - the mighty Pinnacles loomed above and the Longland Traverse, obvious as an interstate cutting through the Yellow Band, headed off diagonally some 200 meters away.

I could just envision Mallory & Irvine here 80 years before climbing upward toward the as-yet-unclimbed summit of Everest. The adventure and trepidation they must have felt was almost palpable. The mountain may yet yield their mysteries...but not that day.

It had already been 4 hours for my outing on the ridge, and I knew from radio conversations that Dave, Danuru, and Tashi were coming down from a successful - but windy - summit day.

As I always do, I knelt down and said my private words of thanks to Chomolungma, Sagarmatha, the mountain deities, for sharing the terrain, the experience, the adventure with me, and I walked happily back to camp.

(See the Youtube video of the day here, or watch it on Google Video.)

- Jake Norton is an Everest climber, guide, photographer, writer, and motivational speaker from Colorado.

More video from the Search for Andrew Irvine 2004

Each year I present the story of Mallory & Irvine to many audiences around the country. It is one of my favorite presentations to share, for I feel the story of Mallory, Irvine, and the pioneer climbers of the early Everest attempts (1921-1938) is an enthralling one which touches everyone's heart and imagination.

Often people ask me what the terrain is like on the upper mountain. My presentation, of course, features my photography from my four expeditions to the North Side of Everest. While still images have great power and convey a sense of place and drama, sometimes video images tell a different side of the story.

It was with this in mind - sharing more of the high Everest experience - that I posted a video on the search for Irvine in 2004 and my subsequent "discovery" of a mystery camp at the base of the First Step on the Northeast Ridge.

To give people more of a feel for the terrain we searched in 2004 and the overall look and feel of life above 27,000 feet on Everest's North Side, I put together another video. This footage was shot by my friend and climbing/searching companion on the 2004 Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition, Dave Hahn. (If you don't know Dave, he is an amazing guy - 9 summits of Everest [yup, NINE!] and countless other peaks around the world. Read his astounding resume here.)

Anyway, the video takes you through one of our search days in 2004, from the start up in the climbers' gullies at the base of the Yellow Band to the traverse from the 1933 Camp VI and off the beaten track, onto the Norton Traverse from 1924, and finally back down via the Longland Traverse. Fun stuff!

Enjoy!

(If the video does not play, you can view it directly either on YouTube or on Google Video.)

Mallory's Insights on the Mountains

George Mallory has always been known not only for his climbing prowess and mysterious disappearance on Everest with Irvine in 1924, but also for his deep, often philosophical, insights on mountains and mountaineering. I came across this quote by Mallory, one of my favorites, on The Saunterer blog this morning:

Sunrises and sunsets and clouds and thunder are not incidental to mountaineering, but a vital and inseparable part of it; they are not ornamental, but structural. (Quoted from The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 339.)

Here are a few additional quotes from Mallory, Gallahad of the Hills:

A great mountain is always greater than we know; it has mysteries, surprises, hidden purposes; it holds always something in store for us.

        - 1919, writing after climbing the Mont Blanc

And in this series of partial glimpses we had seen a whole; we were able to piece together the fragments, to interpret the dream…
- 1921 upon first sighting of Everest's massive Kangshung (East) Face

The highest of the world's mountains, it seems, has to make but a single gesture of magnificence to be the lord of all, vast in unchallenged and isolated supremacy.
- 1924, journal entry

   

Is this the summit, crowning the day? How cool and astonished... Have we vanquished an enemy? None but ourselves. Have we gained success? The word means nothing here. Have we won a kingdom? No... and yes... We have achieved an ultimate satisfaction...fulfilled a destiny.... To struggle and to understand-never this last without the other; such is the law....
- writing of "the Kuffner," the Frontier Ridge of Mount Maudit in France (1911)

The first question which you will ask and which I must try to answer is this, "What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?" and my answer must at once be, "It is no use." There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behavior of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron. We shall not find a single foot of earth that can be planted with crops to raise food. It's no use. So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for.
- 1923, New York City

To read more about George Mallory and his disappearance on Everest with Andrew Irvine in 1924, please visit my Lost on Everest page on jakenorton.com and visit my Squidoo lens on the mystery of Mallory & Irvine.

The Search for Irvine, 2004

Each year, I have the opportunity to re-tell the story of famed Everest pioneers Mallory & Irvine to audiences around the world. I was fortunate enough to be a part of the discovery of George Mallory's remains in 1999, and returned to the mountain in 2001 and 2004 to search for more clues. While we still have not found Irvine or the elusive camera (which might yield conclusive evidence as to whether or not the duo reached the summit on June 8, 1924), we made some amazing discoveries of old camps, artifacts, and bots and pieces from the pre-World War II expeditions.

Certain questions always seem to arise after presentating my Lost on Everest: The Enduring Mystery of Mallory & Irvine show is: What are the artifacts on the mountain like? Are they scattered around for anyone to find? What is the terrain like? Is it dangerous?

Well, for those who are interested, I have a video showing the "mystery" camp I found on the First Step in 2004. If you are not familiar with it, the First Step sits at about 27,600 feet on Everest's Northeast Ridge, and is the first major obstacle encountered on summit day.

In 2004, I decided to climb the prow of the Step rather than skirt the Western edge as the current route does. My reasoning was twofold: First, I had a hunch this was the way Mallory & Irvine would have gone, as it seems more logical from below. Second, I was lured up onto the prow by an oxygen bottle which looked enticingly similar to the Mallory & Irvine bottle Tap Richards and I found in 1999. 

Enjoy the video, and let me know if you have any questions!