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South Face of Everest

May 19, 2003 — As the world readies to celebrate the anniversary of the conquest of Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa 50 years ago on May 29, the question endures: were they really first to the top?

A claim out of the blue last month by a Chinese climber that he knows where to find the body of one of two men — Andrew "Sandy" Irvine — who may have beaten the Hillary-Tenzing pair to the world's highest post, has again thrown open the debate.

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Irvine and the lead climber of a 1924 British expedition, George Mallory, made an assault on the 8,884 meter (29,029 feet) summit equipped with oxygen tanks on June 8 of that year.

They failed to return, but because a team-member had seen them moving "with alacrity" towards the summit, speculation continues to this day that they may have been first to the highest point on the planet.

During a 1933 expedition, Irvine's ice axe was found at a height of about 8,440 meters (27,690 feet).

Then, during a special expedition in 1999 led by U.S. alpinist Eric Simonson aimed at unravelling the mystery of what had become of the British adventurers, Mallory's frozen body was found at 8,150 meters (26,750 feet). An oxygen bottle was found nearby, but there was no trace of Irvine's remains.

Mallory still had a rope tied around him, but it had clearly broken and he had taken a heavy fall — his right elbow was either dislocated or broken, while his right leg was badly broken in a number of places.

"He lay face down, head uphill, frozen into the slope," wrote alpinist Conrad Anker, who found the body.

"A tuft of hair stuck out from the leather pilot's cap he had on his head. His arms were raised and his fingers were planted in the scree, as if he'd tried to self-arrest with them. It seemed likely that he was still alive when he came to rest in that position."

The camera which either Mallory or Irvine had been carrying, and which could have offered proof of their making it to the summit, was not found, however.

Mallory's route to the top followed a difficult rocky outcrop known as the Second Step, which these days is ascended by means of ropes and ladders — not available to Mallory and Irvine.

The route was eventually completed by a Chinese expedition in 1960, with the climbers reportedly having to stand on each other's shoulders with their boots off, resulting in frostbite and loss of toes.

Faced with this knowledge, few believe that poorly equipped climbers in 1924 could, after all, have found a way up the Second Step.

In 1975, a body was found 227 meters (750 feet) directly below where Irvine's ice axe had been found.

The discovery was made by a Chinese mountaineer who reported in broken English that the climber was an "English dead" who, by the state of his clothes, had clearly been there for many years. However, the Chinese climber fell to his own death the next day and the "English dead" has yet to be located.

The mystery has now deepened, with a member of the 1960 Chinese expedition, Xu Jing, claiming last month he had found Irvine's body at 8,272 meters (27,300 feet) on the northeast ridge of the mountain, above the scree slope where Mallory's body was discovered.

According to London's Sunday Times, Xu now 77, said he had been alone during the 1960 expedition when he discovered Irvine's body.

"I found his body in a crack one meter (yard) wide, with steep cliffs on both sides. He was in a sleeping bag, as if he was taking shelter, fell asleep and never woke. His body was intact and his skin blackened."

He said only recently did he do some historical research and realized the body must be that of Irvine's. Asked why he had failed to make public the discovery earlier, he replied: "I just didn't register that that was something significant."

His revelations raise the possibility that while ascending — or descending after having summited — the rope between the climbers broke, sending Mallory plummeting off the rock face and leaving Irvine to snuggle into his sleeping bag in the crack of a rock.

Should Xu's claims prove accurate and Irvine's body be discovered, along with the missing camera, it could once and for all settle the matter.

Hillary, however, has long shrugged off the controversy. "The point of climbing Everest should not be just to reach the summit," he said. "I'm rather inclined to think that maybe it's quite important, the getting down."

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