The Fabled Mallory-Irvine Mount Everest Climb Tragedy

"This was a monumental and emotional moment for us and our entire team on the ground, and we just hope this can finally bring peace of mind to his relatives and the climbing world at large."

"I lifted up the sock and saw a red label with ‘AC Irvine’ stitched into it."

Jimmy Chin, National Geographic explorer climb team member

"I have lived with this story since I was a seven-year-old when my father told us about the mystery of Uncle Sandy on Everest"

"When Jimmy told me that he saw the name AC Irvine on the label on the sock inside the boot, I found myself moved to tears."

Great-niece, biographer, Julie Summers

 

"Lo and behold, there was the name plate ‘A.C Irvine,’ perfectly legible, stamped on the sock." 

"And when that happened, it was just full freak-out, you know, F bombs and people were like, ‘Oh my god’."

Mark Fisher, expedition filmmaker

A sock embroidered with "A.C. Irvine" and a boot were discovered on Mount Everest by a team led by Jimmy Chin.  Jimmy Chin / National Geographic via AP

It's taken a century, but finally one of the greatest and most enduring mysteries of the failure to return from their Mount Everest ascent by George Mallory  and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine, may be on the cusp of revealing their fate as they descended the mountain. The question always hovered; had they made it to the top, the first two mountaineers ever to have mastered the climb to the top of the world's highest mountain? The descent of such a mountain is as fraught with danger as is the ascent; climbers having expended enormous energy are not at their best at the descent; weather, time of day all play into a safe return. One wrong turn at the wrong point and fate could send an alpinist hurtling to death below.

Now, according to an expedition led by National Geographic, it is highly likely that part of that mystery has been revealed and that further examination of the extraordinary find might lead to another find, one that has long been sought and to the present has evaded search; the camera that would have been used to document the successful arrival at the Everest mount, that holy grail for so many people since that time who have aspired to reach its summit, many succeeding, many failing and among them the misfortune of deaths delivered to some. 

A documentary film set to be released illustrating the search was momentarily eclipsed with the announcement that a foot encased in a sock and boot embroidered with 'AC Irvine' could be that of Andrew Irvine who at age 22 disappeared, along with co-climber George Mallory on June 8, 1924, close to the mountain's peak. Aspiring to become the first people to mount Everest, the pair was seen last at the 800 foot mark from the summit prior to their disappearance. Historians and other climbers ruminated on the mystery they represented, some among them with the belief the pair had managed to reach the top of Everest, then headed down to a base camp.

George Mallory and Andrew Irvine in the last known photo of them on their fatal Everest climb in June 1924 (Alamy)

 George Mallory's body was found in 1999 with no clues that might have interpreted whether the two climbing companions might have reached the summit of the world's highest mountain, at 29,032 feet. With this latest discovery of the hundred-year-old evidence represented by a boot, a sock, and a preserved foot which will render proof of identity when a family member's DNA is used for genetic recognition, part of the mystery with respect to whether the pair summited still will not be clarified.

That would change should the Kodak Vest Pocket camera  that accompanied the climbers be discovered, to render proof through a photographic memento of their summit. Predating the celebrated summit of 1953 when Sir Edmund Hillary and Nepal's Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first documented summiteers of Mount Everest. The find of the sock and boot was discovered at an altitude lower than was Mallory's remains -- below the North Face of Mount Everest on the Central Rongbuk glacier.

The Royal Geographical Society based in London received report of the find. That old respected institution had organized Mallory's and Irvine's expedition jointly with the Alpine Club.

Mark Fisher, one of the filmmakers who found the shoe, said the nameplate stamped on the sock was "perfectly legible."   Jimmy Chin / National Geographic via AP

"And then we started surmising like, ‘Oh, could it be?’ Because there’s so many theories about what happened to Irvine, right?"

"And we did start joking with each other, saying, ‘Oh, we’re gonna find Irvine, and we’re gonna find his camera’."

 "There was a lot of excitement about what we just found, because it was undeniable. We haven’t done DNA tests yet, so we can’t 100% say with certainty that this is indeed Irvine’s boot, but like I said, the nameplate is perfectly stitched on there. It’s perfectly legible. It’s the exact match of Mallory’s boot."

Mark Fisher

Photographer and filmmaker Jimmy Chin was leading a National Geographic team below the north face of Mount Everest in September when they discovered a boot and sock embroidered with “A.C. Irvine,” believed to belong to the lost mountaineer Andrew Comyn Irvine.  Photograph by National Geographic/Erich Roepke