What Step Did Odell See Mallory & Irvine Surmount?
Advocates of Mallorys summit success insist that Odell did see them surmount the Second Step as he stubbornly claimed or possibly even the Third!. (A. note: Odell was beat-up by the RGS members to bring his thinking in line with theirs, that he must have seen them surmounting the First Step. He reluctantly yielded for a while, in hopes of being selected for the next expedition. But after he was rejected for being too old, he returned to his original belief. Twelve years later (1936) Odell reached the summit of Nanda Devi with Bill Tilman which at the time, and until 1950, was the highest mountain climbed.) Other critics eagerly seize on the cantankerous oxygen systems for their great delay. But if that had been the case, what would Mallory possibly have been thinking? Tinkering with a recalcitrant oxygen system for five hours on a summit day to then set off with only 3 hours of ascent time left is unthinkable. With plenty of oxygen available to them at C-6, any long delay would have ca
