April 1999 |
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April
1999
Tuesday 13th
April 1999, 8.00 am
A brief reminder: in 1924, for the third time in the history of British mountaineering, an expedition was organized to conquer Everest (the two previous expeditions had been in 1921 - to open up the way - and 1992, to get closer to the giant). As Nepal was at that time a country closed to foreigners (it was only opened up in 1950), the British took the route via Tibet. The expedition was directed by Lieutenant-Colonel E.F. Norton. In June, two men made an attempt on the summit: George H. Leigh Mallory and Andrew C. Irvine. They were to be glimpsed for the final time on 8th June by one Noel Odell, a geologist, whose job it was to climb as high as possible with the two men and then follow their progress through binoculars. That day, after the two leading men had left the day before on their final attempt, heavily weighed down by oxygen cylinders, Odell took advantage of a clear spell in the weather to glimpse two little black dots moving up the final ridge and appearing to make their way towards the summit. He followed them until the clouds closed in again and deduced - in fact sending a message to The Times in London to this effect - that Everest had been conquered. Mallory and Irvine were never to come down or be seen again. Since then, the story of this mysterious adventure has been the source for many stories, because we still don't know - even at the end of the century - whether they were the first men to reach the roof of the world. First, it was Odell himself who, nine years later, withdrew his statement in the light of discoveries made in 1933 by another British expedition about the configuration of the mountain close to the summit, and Irvine's ice-axe found by the expedition 250 metres below the "first step". When Tibet opened its borders again to foreigners and the approach to the summit could be examined more closely, all sorts of possible stories were spun about the use of oxygen and the possibility that the two climbers may have decided to separate so that at least one of them could reach the summit. Then, in 1973, a frozen body was found dressed in outdated climbing gear. In a word, this story has as many angles to it as the one about Edmund Leary at the North Pole, revisionists and others. Whatever happened then, this expedition with its ten Americans, two Britons, a German and a string of porters and sherpas, will be attempting now to uncover the truth behind this great mystery; and of course it hopes to find traces and evidence, such as the bodies of the two men or the camera used by Irvine. And as this year it has not snowed very much and Everest is virtually bare, it could very well be that this riddle will finally be solved.
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