The Clothing Project

The one clue I felt that I hadn't examined was the clothing. Many armchair pundits claimed that, as they were wearing only tweeds, Mallory and Irvine could not have survived the cold of the summit, and therefore they couldn't have been there.

And yet the clothing recovered from Mallory's body didn't look like tweed. What was it? Because one of the 1924 group pictures showed the expedition members at Base Camp wearing casual clothes, it was assumed that this is what they wore to the top.

Far from it. In an extraordinary project funded by the Mountain Heritage Trust (MHT), two enthusiasts re-created every stitch of Mallory's clothing by using the fragments recovered from the body.

With forensic techniques they replicated two suits, one to Mallory's measurements and one to mine. This project cost around $60,000. The plan was to put one suit on exhibition and for me to test the other suit on Everest this year to see if the clothing was adequate for a successful summit attempt.

Which brings us to the aluminum flight case holding Mallory's new clothes.

My first impressions were of beautiful natural materials: silk shirts in wonderful muted colors, hand-knitted socks and cardigans, and a jacket and plus-fours made of gabardine. This is a tightly woven cotton fabric, proofed against wind and rain, and in this case, a shiny green. There were something like eight layers of material around my waist and yet it all felt warm, light and comfortable.

Put to the Test

I asked Russell Brice, the expedition leader, to put on the clothes that he wears to the summit, and he came out of his tent looking like a polar bear.

He had fleece underwear and a huge hooded down suit, several inches thick. As he said: "The main problem with climbing Everest nowadays is pissing through a six-inch suit with a three-inch penis."

We climbed up on to the glacier and did some tests. First, I cut some steps with the 1920s ice ax. I immediately found that the layers of silk I was wearing slid easily against the wool layers, giving me great freedom of movement.

Then I reached up to take a hold on the ice above my head. The patented pivot sleeve of the Burberry jacket allowed me a full reach without dragging the shirttails out of the breeches. Before too long I was feeling almost too hot. Not for nothing was this gear developed for polar expeditions.

After extensive testing of this sort I was very confident that Mallory and Irvine could have reached the summit comfortably wearing this clothing. And I am eternally grateful to the MHT, Professor Mary Rose and Mike Parsons for dedicating so much care to their project. They have given me more evidence to support my belief that Everest was climbed in 1924.

Whither Irvine?

Having tested the clothing, I have a feeling I might know what happened to the missing Sandy Irvine. Appalled by the sudden death of his hero, he may have wandered along the route, calling his name. It gets darker. He decides to try to survive the night by squeezing into a crevice among the rocks. As a last thought, perhaps he tucks the camera securely into an inside pocket, thinking that someone one day might discover what they had achieved.

Death by cold is a kind friend. Sandy Irvine may have hallucinated for a few hours, then slipped away. I know now that his clothes, although good enough for going to the summit, could never have kept him alive during the night. A friend of mine barely survived this ordeal wearing modern down clothing. He lost all his toes.

A couple of years ago I interviewed an old Chinese climber in Beijing who claimed that he had seen Sandy's body in 1975, crouched in a crack in the rocks. We searched for three expeditions, but never found him. I am still looking for him — and the camera he may still be carrying.