14 Comments

Fascinating read. Love the connections you make to writers and literature, and the insights into what motivates these climbers in their lives on and off the mountains, and what we might do in their place.

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Thanks PJ! Nice for me that the follow-up requires a full rereading of A Room with a View - EM Forster is funnier than I remembered!

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That IS nice. Have not read Forster since college. At which time I took it all very seriously, so yes it'd be fun to rediscover the funny Forster. 😊

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Very stimulating account of this story, Ronald!

Mark

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In my opinion, whether they climbed or not, their work was important, the discovery of the east and west Rangboj glacier, the sufferings and hardships they endured, can it be compared with the 1953 climb of Hilary and Tensing?

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Hi Ronald, I liked your article. Mallory Irwin's name is associated with Mount Everest. The team of 1921, 1922 and 1924 are the real heroes of Everest because they were not only explorers but also worthy climbers.

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Yes indeed. Mallory with Howard Somervell and Edward Norton in particular, climbing without oxygen to well over 8000m on unexplored ground with very basic equipment.

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Very clear account of what we know about the sequence of events. Without more evidence, we can never be certain, and that of course is a big part of the fascination of this story.

Most of us who climb/have climbed will have sometimes pushed on a little past the point at which it wuld be prudent to turn around. There are plenty of other cases where we know this happened on the highest peaks: Buhl on Nanga Parbat for example. He got away with it; others didn't. If Scott and Haston hadn't already found the site for a snow cave and begun digging earlier, would they have survived the night? (Possibly.)

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Scott Haston were lucky to find a snow hole site. Mallory and Irvine didn't have snowhole technique and given their natural fibre clothing would have vanishingly small chance of surviving the night. Did they even have a lamp? No moon that night until after midnight.

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Beautiful even for mountain nerds like me. Now, after reaching the boot, what’s your point?

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My point about Irvine's boot (and foot) is that it ended up just where one would have expected. Further speculation on whether they made it thus remains bootless.

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Till they find the camera (cool for me as a photographer)

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Kodak thinks they MIGHT be able to develop the film after 100 years. And I'll be delighted if they did make it up there as most people think they didn't. Shame though retrospectively for the French on Annapurna no longer the first 8000er.

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I think they can, making that notion of "frozen time" realized in this case (the camera was very probably frozen for 100 years). No way in this response to show you a photograph taken with a 50 y.o. b&w roll, but came out pretty well.

Also comes to mind a kind of speculative story about that camera, the photos it could have taken, its discovery, roll development etc

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