Mallory's Clothes Pass the Test

My arm arched over my head and the old wooden ice ax bit into the snow of Everest's North Ridge. Splinters of ice showered bright in the intense glare of the sun. I stepped up and felt my silk underclothes sliding smoothly beneath my Burberry jacket and plus-fours. Eighty-years-old, and yet brand-new, the clothes were performing perfectly.

This trip for Discovery means that I've been to Mount Everest eight times now. Why? Well, I've been trying to prove something. I've been on a 30-year mission to prove that Everest was conquered in 1924, by George Mallory, before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit in 1953.

Many armchair pundits claim that Mallory could not have survived the cold of the summit in the clothing he appeared to be wearing in photos, and therefore he couldn't have been there.

During the 2006 Everest climbing season I set out to prove that the clothes he was wearing would not have been an obstacle to his summit bid. And so, on a couple of days off from filming for our Discovery series, I found myself opening an aluminum flight case at Advanced Base Camp and taking out Mallory's new clothes.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Why this obsession with Mallory? Let me explain.

Next: Mallory's Lost Camera