Did Mallory and Irvine Summit Mt. Everest in 1924?
Mallory’s last written words to his wife reveal a man torn by doubts, but still determined to make one last attempt on the summit of Mt Everest before his strength and the good weather ran out. On his third and last expedition to the mountain, Mallory and his partner Andrew Comyn Irvine climbed up to their last camp at 26,700 feet high up on the North Ridge of Everest. On the next day – June 8, 1924 – they were briefly seen by fellow expedition member Noel Odell about 1000 feet below the summit, before the monsoon clouds moved in and they disappeared forever. Few clues as to the fate of the pair were uncovered in the 75 years between their disappearance and the discovery of Mallory’s body by members of the 1999 Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition. In 1933 an ice ax later shown to belong to Sandy Irvine was found at the base of the First Step. Nothing else was discovered until Tom Holzel reported that in 1975, a Chinese climber named Wang Hongbao, had discovered the body of an ancien
