The Ice Ax:
the fate of Mallory & Irvine were scarce. Up until 1980,
the only ones were Noel Odell’s sighting of the two
surmounting one of the remaining major obstacles (The
First or Second Step) “going strong for the top,” and—in
1933—the discovery of an ice ax on their route.
Climbers never abandon their ice axes which are major
survival tools; so it had to mark the point of an
accident. What seemed odd was that the ax was found on
level ground. This suggested that the lead climber
slipped while his second stood on safe terrain providing
a “gentleman’s belay,” i.e., an unprotected metering out
of the rope.
But who’s ice ax was it? Three
nicks on the shaft are similar to those Sandy Irvine put on other belongings
of his—so it must have been Irvine belaying Mallory. When Mallory, leading,
slipped, Irvine presumably tossed his ice ax aside and grabbed the rope with
both hands. But the jerk of the falling leader was too great, and both men
tumbled to their deaths still roped together.
Critics of this simple scenario
seize on the fact that back-tracing the fall-line of Mallory’s body puts the
fall about 100 yards farther east of where the ax was supposedly found—“250
yards east of the First Step.” This creates an opening for complex multiple
fall scenarios, all designed to somehow show that Mallory could indeed have
summited. But the simplest answer is that the original estimates of the ice
axe’s location was probably underestimated, which is so typical of guessing
distances in the mountains in the absence of know-size landmarks.
Mystery of Mallory and Irvine
An exploration of mountaineering's greatest mystery. On
June 8, 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine set off from Camp-VI at
26,700 feet, bound for the summit of Mount Everest. In a brief moment when
the clouds parted, they were spotted by Noel Odell on the summit ridge
“going strong for the top.” They disappeared into the clouds, never to be
seen alive again. Offering a detailed history of the 1924
expedition, the authors also describe the 1986 Everest expedition which
they launched to search for clues. The fate of the two pioneer climbers is
finally revealed with the discovery of Mallory a few meters from where Holzel predicted he might be found.
The Mystery of Mallory and
Irvine is a thorough exploration of mountaineering's greatest
mystery. Offering a complete history of the all three of Mallory’s Everest
expeditions, Holzel and Salkeld delve into Mallory’s family life, his
Bloomsbury connection, his WW-I duty and the fairy-tale marriage to his
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author and motivational
speaker. To book Tom