May 16, 2026 • 52 mins
George Mallory was a member of the first three European expeditions to Everest, world’s tallest mountain. He wanted to summit it so badly, he gave his life trying. Since that fateful day in 1924, climbers have wondered – was Mallory the first to summit? Listen as Josh and Chuck explore that question and lots more in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, it's your old pal Josh and for this
WEEK'SYSK Select, I've chosen our twenty twenty two episode, Did
Mallory make it to the top of Everest First? It's
a clunky title, but an amazing episode. It talks about
George Mallory, an unsung climber who may have been the
first European to ever summ at Everest, a full three
(00:20):
decades before Sir Edmund Hillary definitely did. The reason we
don't know. The reason it's still a mystery is because
he was lost for years and even once he was found,
still didn't quite answer the question. This is an amazing
history mystery podcast that also has a lot of human
spirit in it, and I hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and this is Stuff you Should Know Lost down
the Mountain op edition, but not in Tennessee because this
has nothing to do with the Beverly Hillbillies at all.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Wow. I thought that was a roundabout funny intro.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I didn't even know what was coming thirty seconds ago.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
No, we are not talking about Tennessee. We are talking
about one of the heroes of mountaineering and mountain climbing, certainly,
mister George Mallory, and the great mystery to me, unsettled
mystery on whether or not he ever made it to
the top of Edvers Yes, Edvere.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
So boy, yeah, this is a tough start, Chuck, because
I just realized what I reference was the Davy Crockett theme,
not Beverly Hillbilly. So everybody save your emails. Okay, Oh
that's right, all of you Beverly Hillbilly's cose players, save
your save your emails. So, okay, we're talking about Mount Everest.
We're not talking about Davy Crockett or the Beverly Hillbilly.
(02:00):
We're talking about George Mallory, and to a lesser extent,
kind of unfairly but also kind of fairly his climbing companion,
Sandy Irvine. And George Mallory is extraordinarily famous, not just
in the climbing community. He's a legend in the climbing community, Chuck.
But you and I know about him. I knew about Mallory,
didn't you before all this? Yeah, at least heard his
(02:24):
name had a general idea about him, right, sure, named
two other climbers exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
The guy from that free solo documentary, and well all
the Sherpa, I mean, we Ed makes his great pains
to point out the Sherpa, But suffice to say, all
you have to do is go back and listen to
our episode Sherpa Warm Friendly Living, in which we dedicate
an entire episode to the usually nameless Sherpa, who are
(02:56):
usually standing just out of frame of some white dude saying, yeah,
I climbed Everest again, but here, go ahead and get
your picture taken.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Right, And they just kind of slowly shoved them to
the side. But yeah, but despite your best efforts, you
still managed to prove my point. Yeah, George Mallory is
extremely famous, and up to his thirties, it did not
look like it was going to go that way because
he started out this very famous mountain climber and mountaineer
(03:25):
and early mountain climber mountaineer too. That's something that I
feel as a beat will hit throughout this episode that
these guys that Mallory was climbing with were using like
they were making some of their own gear. They were
figuring out mountaineering techniques as they went along. It was
like a brand new thing that people were doing, and
George Mallory was among the earliest people doing that.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, there's that one. I don't know if it was
a journalist or somebody was talking about pictures of the
actual attempt to climb Everest and he said, these guys
look like they had gone out for a picnic and
were hit by a snowstorm, right, and just in how
they were dressed. You know, they were in like sweet
jackets and stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah, and hobnail boots, so just like some leather boots
with some spikes attached to him. Like just nothing you
would even climb a hill in these days, let alone
Mount Everest. But that's what they were wearing. So George
Mallory didn't start out as showing signs he was going
to be famous. He was a kind of a left leaning,
(04:26):
progressive intellectual school teacher. He did rub elbows with John
Maynard Keynes and Virginia Wolf from the Bloomsberry group. Bloomsberry
pretty cool, yeah, but that was probably the greatest brush
with fame that he had up until he started hitting
Mount Everest and making that basically his stated goal. In life.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, I mean he got into hiking and mountaineering when
he was in his late teens and really fell in
loved with it. But you know, as Ed Keenley points out,
it was, you know, it was such a new sport
that people didn't even really know, Like they haven't even
charted like the highest mountains in the world up into
(05:08):
a very i mean what I consider a pretty late
point when you think about like expeditions at Lewis and
Clark made it was in eighteen fifty two when they
finally finally figured out that Everest was the tallest peak.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, like up to eighteen fifty two, they were basically
at the point of that one's tall. Oh look at
that one. That's a tall one too.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah. I wish we could put him next to each other.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yeah, exactly. So there was actually a guy named Radan
Siktar who was an Indian surveyor who used data that
the English had produced during their occupation of India to
calculate just exactly how tall Mount Everest was, because they
really did settle on Everest just by sight, They're like,
(05:52):
that might be the tallest mountain we've ever seen, And
indeed it turned out at twenty nine thirty two feet.
Mount Everest was in the mid nineteenth century and still
is today the tallest mountain in the entire world. And
they named it Everest after the director of the survey
in India. Of course they did, Sir George Everest. But
(06:12):
if you asked a Tibetan what's the name of that
big old mountain over there, they would tell you Chomo Lungma,
which means mother goddess of the world in Tibetan. So
even the Tibetans were like, this is clearly the world's
tallest mountain.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, And of course they had their own names for it,
but we generally don't know those names because they would
come along later and just name it after just some dude.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Right, but we some Englishmen. I mean Chomlongma, that's definitely
one of them.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
No, I know, but ask ten people what Choe Malonga is.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Right, and name two other famous climbers.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yes, but the long and short of it is, I
guess the tall and short of it is. They realized
that Everest was the tallest thing in eighteen fifty two,
but big deal. They couldn't do anything about it. They
could just kind of gaze upon it. It would be
decades and decades before anyone even thought that they might
be able to climb Everest, because here's the deal. Getting
(07:10):
to Everest and climbing it is like ascending the peak
is one thing, but just getting to that point is
I don't know, ninety percent of the battle.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I would say easily. Most people think you look at
a mountain, you just climb up the base and go
up to the side and you're done. But no, you
have to basically traverse mountain ranges. Mountains just don't exist
on their own. They're part of ranges and you don't
really think about it, but you have to climb all
these other little mini mountains to get to the big
mountain in the first place. And this can be walks
(07:42):
of you know, dozens or scores of miles and not
walk it's not a straight walk over a plane. And
then you get to the edge of the mountain and
you go up like you're going up and up and up,
and you're existing at higher and higher altitudes, which the
English people who were doing this at first were not
used to, so they were doing this with basically altitude
(08:02):
sickness and all the stuff that comes with that.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
All right, so let's go to nineteen twenty and the
stages sort of set to where they feel like it
might be possible to actually accomplish something like this. And
the Royal Geographic Society got together with the Alpine Club
to form and they didn't like permanently come together, but
they worked together to form the Mount Everest Committee to say,
(08:26):
all right, let's give this a go, old boy, And
they got permissioned from Tibet in nineteen twenty one to
go on a scouting trip. And this was a trip
where they would just kind of figure out how to
climb Everest. Like it wasn't like they just said, all right,
let's give it a go and see if we can
get to the top. Like they had to take several
trips just to sort of map out what they thought
(08:50):
would be a feasible way to even try to get
to the top.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Right, Apparently no one from Europe had been within sixty
miles of Everest itself, so this was all new, uncharted
territory basically for these guys. And again it's really important
to say, like we're going to be telling the story
from the English point of view, and like you said,
the Sherpa rarely figure into that, with the big exception
(09:13):
of Tensing Norgay, who officially was the first to summ
at Everest with Edmund Hillary. But these guys weren't doing
this alone. They had, depending on the expedition and how
much money it had, scores to hundreds of sherpas like
attending them, helping them climb, moving their stuff, and just
basically making life much easier on these guys. That said,
(09:38):
I really don't want to undermine the amount of effort
and strenuousness that these guys, yeah, and talent that these
guys underwent in just figuring out how to get to
Everest to start on that first nineteen twenty one expedition.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Yeah, it's really cool to read contemporary, yes, contemporary accounts
of what modern climbers think of Mallory and his not
just tenaciousness, but his actual talent level and his climbing
style was apparently very unique and just revered today by
(10:16):
modern climbers. Is And you know, it's not to take
anything away from what anyone does today, because what people
can accomplish day is amazing. But they accomplish these things
based generally on you know, they can be taught by
other people and like this is how it's done, Like
Mallory and the King. We're figuring this out for the
first time. And by the way, I might have said
(10:36):
Hillary instead of Mallory. Yeah, because I'm just thinking of
climbing hills.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Right, and we should just go ahead and say just
to get any confusion out of the way. Edmund Hillary
summitted evereston I think nineteen fifty three. We're talking about
the first expeditions to ever again in nineteen twenty Mallory
and Hillary, I don't believe ever met. They were of
different generations of climbers, but Mallory was considered one of
the pioneers, as were the other men in his expeditions
(11:03):
that he went on.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
All right, So if I said Hillary, I meant Mallory.
Are we all good?
Speaker 1 (11:09):
I think we're good?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, okay, all right. So they got permission again for
this trip in nineteen twenty one, and Mallory was in
his early thirties. He was included in this first group
and I think was really chomping at the bit to
do so. He has a wife and three young kids
at home, but really nothing could stop him from going
(11:33):
on this first scouting trip.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
No, and he was thirty three on the nineteen twenty
one trip, and he says, basically, hey, dear, I'm going
to quit my job and leave you and the children
for I don't know, seven months at least to go
on this expedition see you. And that's where he went.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
But he did say to his wife, here's what I'll do.
I'll take this picture of you, babe, and I will
carry it with me always, and I will place you
at the top of Everest to live there forever, more
in case than ice when I get up there.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, and I'm sure he probably took it with him
on the first expedition, But the first expedition wasn't planning
on summoning Everest. But from what I gather from Mallory,
he would have been down to give it a shot
that first time out. Like that's how obsessed with Everest
that man became, right, and he actually was really successful.
(12:25):
The expedition was this was again the first expedition by
the English to map Everest, and they managed to do it.
They managed to find a way onto Everest what's called
the North Call, which is a ridge that connects one
mountain to another, and they found that North Call which
is the way still today. If you're coming from the
(12:46):
north from the Tibetan side up Everest, you still use
that route that these guys mapped in nineteen twenty one.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah, and it's important to point out which side that
they would have gone up then and what side you
go up now, because there is a route that China
kind of secured and basically has held that Americans can't go,
and that'll be a key sort of later on in
this mystery. So put it bin in that.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah, because China invaded Tibet in nineteen fifty and said
this side of the mountain is closed to Westerners. But
this happened. That happened to three decades after Mallory and
his expeditions, so they were using that north route, and
still to this day. The north route is considered technically
more difficult because it requires you to spend more time
(13:35):
at higher elevations with its attendant lower oxygen concentration, which
makes the whole thing way harder. And then secondly, the
way in through the north route requires twenty two miles
of walking just to get from base camp to the top,
whereas the south route, which is what Westerners use today
coming from the Nepalese side is about twelve and three
(13:57):
quarter miles of walking. Nothing to sneeze that still, but yeah,
it just kind of underscores the just how hard the
things that these guys were doing with zero equipment.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
All right, so I think it's a good time for
a break. Sure, I'm gonna finally sort out the difference
between Hillary and Mallory.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
It sounds like an eighties sitcom.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
No, all right, So I'm gonna work all that out
and we'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Stuff you should know.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Okay, we're back, and I want to go over a
little more about when you how you get to a mountain.
And we don't have to go in great detail, but
you're basically going up one mountain to get to that
ridge that connects that small mountain to Everest, the taller mountain, right,
But to get there requires hiking, mountain climbing, ice climbing,
rock climbing, every kind of climbing you can imagine. And
(15:12):
one of the first things you have to do, no
matter whether you come from the north route or the
south rout is cross a glacier and that is way
harder than it sounds.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, I mean, this thing is you know surrounded in
part by glaciers, and like you said, there are so
many different disciplines if you're going to do something like Everest,
and especially in nineteen twenty one twenty two, that I
just don't think we can overstate like the near impossibility
(15:41):
of this feet at the time.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, especially with the glacier. There's crevasses. They can be
really deep, you know, one hundred or more feet deep,
and you can fall into that and die. There can
be ice slides it's also known as avalanches. They can
come and bury you. There's something called I think seacres,
which are how size blocks of ice that you sometimes
have to climb that you could also topple and be
(16:05):
crushed by. Like that's just the glacier. That's like the
first obstacle to get toward the mountain. And again they
were doing this with zero equipment.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yeah, I mean we did. We did a whole episode
on ice climbing, right.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
We totally did.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
And I remember so we talked about sea coorse.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Okay, good, all right? Yeah, I thought it sounded familiar,
and I also was like, yeah, ice climbing is really hard.
I know that from experience and researching it.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, well I mean this one. The sharp episode was
really good. Ice climbing was good. I believe we did
one on dead bodies on Everest.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yeah, and a long time ago we did one on
altitude sickness too.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yeah. So this all comes together. Point is it's really
really hard and there are so many ways to die.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, what else wants to kill you up there, Chuck?
That they weren't aware of until that nineteen twenty one expedition.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
The yetti.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, that's where the YETI was introduced, or at least
the concept was introduced to Westerners who brought it back,
and then I believe on a later, like nineteen fifty
one expedition, a guy named Eric Shipton took some photos
of what were supposed to be Yetti tracks, and that's
when like the West really went wild for the Yetti.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
That's right, So let's catch ourselves up. It's September twenty fourth,
nineteen twenty one, when they reach the North Coal and
this is where they're like, all right, we think this
is it. We think we have found a path that
can actually get us. They didn't realize there would one
day be an easier path, probably, but they said, we
think this is the way to go. And it should
(17:42):
be noted that not only these expedition trips to sort
of map things out, but each subsequent attempt to ascend
Everest that ended up in I don't want to say failure,
but I guess it is failure if they didn't accomplish
it devastating. But each one of yet, each one of
those is really important too, because you know, every higher
(18:03):
peak that you get to, you're able to sort of
establish of course not everywhere, but you're able to establish
camps along the way, right, and these camps are then
used later on as you know, base camps like one, two, three, four, five, six,
et cetera. In fact, it maybe six might have been
the highest camp at the time, right.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
And then so but it's super important to establish that
for like all the hikers to come. Just because it
was a failed attempt doesn't mean a lot of great
stuff wasn't accomplished.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, because if you are hiking or you're climbing up
a mountain and there's a higher camp that you're coming
up to, you can make your way over the day
to that camp and then just stay there for the night.
If there's not a higher camp you have to turn
around at some point and make your way to that
next lower camp to survive. Yeah, you cannot be caught
(18:54):
overnight on Everest anywhere at these elevations that these guys
are hiking at without tent and or a sleeping bag,
or you're going to die. That's all there is to it.
A human being can't survive on the you know, the
higher altitudes of Everest without that kind of stuff. So, yes,
establishing a camp is an enormous thing. But also they're
learning stuff firsthand about how humans respond to low oxygen concentrations,
(19:19):
what the weather conditions are, like, what time of year
you can hike, Like every detail is a brand new
novel detail that is really crucial in understanding how to
get to the top eventually.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah, like what time of day you have to start
out in order to get up there and safely get
back down. Because some people, including Hillary, Yes, Hillary, and
it's a thorny subject, but some people, as far as
the Mystery of Mallory goes, some people don't consider it
a successful ascent unless you come back down. And that's
(19:52):
kind of the thing. And I think Hillary was one
of those, and his family also said, Hey, listen, not
to slag anyone, but we kind of only consider it
a success if you go up and you're able to
come back down and live to tell about it, essentially. Yeah,
And I think that was which is an interesting point.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah, but I think that point was made by Hillary himself,
which is kind of saying yeah, he's yeah, He's like, well,
I mean, even if you've made it to the top,
it doesn't count.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Like I'm doing this interview right now.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Right I'm sitting here. So there's one thing I want
to point out that I don't know has become clear yet.
It's clear to me because we did this research and
I found out what the deal was. But you might
be asking yourself why was mountain climbing so big at
this time? Why were these people doing this? And there's
a really good explanation for that. Ever, itself was considered
(20:40):
the third Pole because people had already made it to
the South Pole and the North Pole. We didn't yet
have the technology to explore the deep ocean or space,
and we had been almost everywhere else on Earth. So
this was like the last place for humans to I
guess basically conquer or pit their endurance against. And that's
why it was so attractive to people.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yes, and that was a very eloquent way to say that.
I think we should mention that Mallory himself is the
very person who very famously coined the term because it's
there when asked why they would try to do something
like this, Yeah, why climb mountains because it's there?
Speaker 1 (21:19):
That alone makes him just worth remembering. You know what
a cool response.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Absolutely, why are you going to eat big mac because
it's there?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Everything that's ever come since then where somebody says because
it's there, you're actually quoting George Mallory, that's right.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
All right. So let's talk for a second about oxygen.
Low oxygen is no good for the human body. And
we've mentioned several times that your oxygen levels are very
low when you're ascending Everest. And these days they make
it really easy on you, it's all. You know, the
kind of oxygen and they take is very easy to take.
(22:02):
They make it very user friendly. But back then they
had like glassed bottles of oxygen that were carried in
like wooden crates, and it was a real pain to
get there. It was super super heavy. But they knew
at the time, you know, well, they learned that they
would absolutely need this stuff, but Mallory was sort of,
(22:24):
I don't think indifferent. I think he was sort of
annoyed by the whole thing that you actually had to
take this stuff, to the point where he didn't even
use them, I believe in the nineteen twenty one test run, right.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
No, I don't believe.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
So.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I don't think he did either in the nineteen twenty
two expedition that followed where they actually did try to
make summit, and it wasn't for years before he was like, Okay,
maybe oxygen's a good idea. Some of them even thought
it was like a hindrance in general because it was
an extra thirty pounds that you had to carry, yeah,
up this mountain. And if you watch, if you watch
(22:59):
video of people climbing Everest today, especially as they get
closer and closer to the top and there's less and
less oxygen, yeah, they do even they seem to like
have regret for being where they are. But even with
oxygen on, if you watch them, they'll take a step
so one foot and then they'll bring the other foot
(23:20):
up and maybe they've traversed a foot of Everest right then,
and then they have to wait like fifteen thirty seconds
before they make the next one because they're that tired
because there's that little oxygen. And that's with oxygen on.
So these guys were trying these kind of a sense
without oxygen, I can't imagine, like, you know, how you
(23:42):
would even do that. And it's actually it's not clear
whether you really could some everest without oxygen, although I
think people have tried to maybe even been successful, so
I guess it would be clear.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Yeah, So in twenty two, I believe Mallory and a
couple of other climbers hit twenty six eight hundred feet,
which is remarkable, before they decided to turn back. And
again this is without using oxygen on that twenty two try.
And then this is the part where I was a
little bit confused. Maybe you can clear it up. When
(24:14):
did the avalanche happen? Was that in twenty one where
seven people were killed? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
So no, in twenty one there was an avalanche that
wiped out some of the camps they'd established, but didn't
hurt anybody. Okay, twenty two they weren't as lucky, and
seven Sherpa died in an avalanche, all right, And Mallory
kind of considered himself that at least partially responsible. Even
though he wasn't the only person who pushed for this
last attempt for the summit, he was one of them.
(24:45):
And an avalanche was triggered by that third attempt and
killed some of the people further down on the mountain
when they were covered up by it.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Yeah, and there are people you know who have looked
back in kind of poop pooed Mallories poo poot his carelessness.
And I don't know if it was carelessness. I don't
think it was carelessness just because he was a careless person.
I think it was a little more his tenacious attitude
sort of overrode good sense sometimes. Is the way I
(25:16):
took it? Is that how you took it? I think
that was part of it.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
But I also get the impression that he was like
just downright flighty, Oh was he? Yeah? Like there was
a he was in charge of the camera for the
nineteen twenty two expedition and apparently he put the film
in backwards but was taking pictures the whole time and
they didn't turn out because he didn't have the film incorrectly,
Like that's a classico sure, but if you do that
(25:41):
things like that over and over again, you start to
develop a reputation as being flighty.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I guess. So the thing I think is cameras, Like
operating a camera wasn't second nature at this point in history,
and it's like, just give this guy a camera. I
don't know. I could see him just being like I
don't even know what this thing is or how to
really operate it, Like, don't give it to me. They're like, well,
you kind of have to take it, and he's like,
all right, I'll do my best.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
I can't.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
I mean, I kind of created that narrative, but but
it was a good one. He was good at mountain climbing.
He may not have been a good photographer.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Okay, fair enough. But there's a very famous quote by
a doctor, Tom Longstaff, who was the doctor on the
expedition in nineteen twenty two, said Mallory was quite unfit
to be placed in charge of anything, including himself. So,
I mean people definitely thought of him. I'm going to
say flighty, and I'm not judging. I'm pretty flighty myself.
(26:35):
You me would certainly tell you that. But so I
think I recognize it when I see it. Maybe that's what.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
It is, as you me your doctor long Staff.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Yep, I'm gonna start calling her that now.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
I should be like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (26:51):
I look that up too, Remember our surname's episode. I
was like, oh, is that a dirty last name?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
No, that's what I thought.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
It turns out if you were a bailiff or somebody
involved in law enforcement, you would have carried like a
long stick, oh okay, to probably beat people with. And
that's where they got that name. So his ancestor was
involved in law enforcement. I looked it up. I went
long Staff, surname Penis and doctor Longstaff.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Definiteast sounds like a born name.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
It definitely does.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
All right, So now let's go to nineteen twenty four.
The test runs had happened, the real attempts had happened,
and then finally nineteen twenty four rolls around. They didn't
just take the year off in nineteen twenty three because
they were tired. They didn't get funding, like it costs
a lot of money and these people aren't like bankrolling themselves.
(27:39):
So the Mount Everest Company could not raise the money
in twenty three, so they waited until nineteen twenty four.
When Mallory jumped up in class and said me, me, me, me,
me again. Yeah, and almost didn't go though, because one
of his mates, George Finch, a fellow climber, was I
believe left off the list, and Mallory was like, if
(28:00):
he's not going to go, I'm not there gonna go
And they said okay, and then he went, well, I
still want to go.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
He put on a fake mustache and put himself down
as George Hallery exactly. So there was a guy who
went who was kind of a surprise selection. His name
was Andrew Sandy Irving Irvine. Sorry, and Sandy Irvine was
a student still. He was an engineering student. That's actually
one of the reasons they brought him along. He wasn't
(28:27):
a schlub as far as mountaineering goes. He just was
not nearly as experienced as most of the people on
that nineteen twenty four expedition. But being an engineering student,
he could fiddle and fuss with the oxygen apparatus which.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Had in the cameras.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Maybe yeah, probably he knew how to put the film
in the right direction. But since I get the impression
that since the nineteen twenty one and twenty two expeditions,
it had become clear to these these these people on
these expeditions, on the nineteen twenty four expedition that oxygen
wasn't like really important and to have somebody who could
(29:03):
make these these rigs more efficient would be really, really valuable.
So they brought Sandy Irvine along.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah. I also saw that Irvine was, you know, despite
his fiddler's reputation, was strong as an ox.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, he's another nice thing.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
If you see there's a famous picture of he and
him and Mallory next to each other facing the camera
like posing for a picture. And he's easily a full
head taller than Mallory was, and about his wide too,
so he was a big, big boy.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Yeah. And Mallory was very handsome too, if we should note, yes,
good looking dude.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
He really was very pretty. I think you could.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Say pretty mad.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
And then one other note about Mallory on this to
start off this nineteen twenty four expedition. Again, this is
the third expedition to Everest, and he was the only
member of this entire expedition who had been on all
three expeditions, which again really underscores Mallory was obsessed with
summiting Everest.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
That's right, So to June first, now, I think, so, man,
all right, Mallory and George Bruce make this first attempt.
This one didn't work out when basically the sherpass said
all right, we're not going any further. It's too dangerous,
and they basically dropped their stuff and turned back. So again,
(30:28):
this one didn't work out. But one of the positives
is they established a camp at twenty five thousand feet,
which I believe was the tallest camp at the time
or the highest camp.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Okay, yeah, so that's again that's a huge success for
a summit attempt, right, even more groundwork. The following day,
another couple climbers, Edward Norton and t Howard Somerville, made
their own attempt on the summit. Norton kept going beyond Summerville,
and he made it within a thousand feet of the
(31:00):
summit of Everest, which, depending on your perspective, sounds really
close but actually isn't or is actually super close even
though it sounds far away.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
I think it's pretty close.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
It is. But if you look at a map and
see where twenty eight thousand feet is and then where
twenty nine thousand feet is she had a way to go,
but far and away. That was the record, and it
was a record that stood, at least officially until Hillary
and Norgay summitted Everest in nineteen fifty three. So it
was a big deal. But Norton in Somerville really paid
(31:34):
for their attempt Somerville. He almost suffocated from a high
altitude cough. And then Norton developed snow blindness because they
would wear goggles that were like basically sunglass goggles, and
you had to wear them during the day, not just
from the wind, but because the UV was really really
(31:57):
abundant because of the thin air up there, so you
would get what's called snow blindness. You would get Caro
Titus on your corneas, and that's what happened to Norton.
He burned his corneas from the reflected sunlight because he
didn't keep his goggles on long enough. And on the
way back down from twenty five thousand feet back down,
(32:19):
he had to be helped. Every footstep had to be
placed by shurpas and the doctor on the trip. Every foot,
every footstep he made all the way back down out
of the Everest area.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
That's amazing it really is all right. So on this
third attempt, Mallory brought Irving. Sorry, why do you keep
saying that? I said? Because you said it?
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Sorry?
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Brought Irvine along, and they were sending notes down. You know,
they're sending messages back down with Shurpas along the way,
basically saying yeah, I love you. They were sending notes
back down to the other camps, basically giving reports on
what's going on, saying things are going well, the weather
(33:04):
looks like we should be able to do it. We're gonna,
we're gonna, you know, we're gonna try and do this
like tomorrow or whatever. And so all the notes that
were coming down were pretty positive, and basically everything we
know about this comes from a gentleman, a gentleman geologist
named Noel O'Dell. It was actually a pretty big hero
(33:27):
in this story too.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Yeah. He was pretty awesome actually, and he lived to
be a ripe old man, sorry ripe old age.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
He spelled really bad.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah, and there's a really cool interview with him from
a Nova episode. I can't remember what it's called, but
it's from like the eighties, and they interviewed Noel Odell
about this. So he factors in big time in a minute.
But Odell was He went up to one of the
high camps. He wanted to look for fossils. Being a geologist,
he also brought up supplies of food and water to
those higher camps to help the climbers on their way
(33:59):
back down. And this was the third attempt. Remember, the
first attempt didn't work, second attempt didn't work. It kind
of resulted in disaster. And then this third attempt was
going to be the last one. And Mallory said, hey, Irvine,
why don't you come with me. We're going to try
to make the summit of Everest. And there's something that
you need to know about this third attempt. Mallory was
(34:20):
I think thirty seven maybe by this time, and as
far as mountaineers and climbers go, especially back then, he
was old. This was probably going to be his last
expedition to Everest, and this attempt for the summit was
the last attempt on this expedition ergo. This was Mallory's
last shot at summiting Everest, and he was setting out
(34:42):
from the highest camp that had ever been established. Basically,
I believe it's the highest camp still today on that
north route.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
All right. It sounds like a great cliffhanger, no pun intended.
So let's take our final break here and we'll wrap
up the story right after.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
This stuff you should know, all right.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
So Mallory is on his last attempt as a human
to do the thing that he was obsessed with since
he was, you know, a young late teenager. Beautiful, beautiful.
So so handsome geologist Noel Odell is up there again.
He is. He is doing sort of the cool, groovy
Appalachian trail hangout dude thing that is still for people. Yeah,
(35:47):
he's doing some trail magic up there. And at twelve
fifty he sees Mallory and Irvine on the northeast ridge.
But there are a few hours and this is really key,
there are a few hours behind schedule from where they
should be, and there's a very narrow window again for
like what time of day you can pull this off
(36:09):
and then safely get back down. So to be a
few hours behind schedule is a big deal on whether
or not you're gonna survive basically. So what he says,
and we'll just go ahead and read the quote. What
he says he saw is the following the entire Summit Ridge,
and final peak of Everest were unveiled. My eyes became
fixed on one tiny black spot beneath a rock step
(36:32):
in the ridge. The black spot moved. Another black spot
became apparent and moved up the snow to join the
other on the crest. The first then approached the great
rock step and shortly emerged at the top. The second
did likewise.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
So right after that, Chuck apparently the clouds came back,
and those two black spots that were he took to
be Irvine and Mallory disappeared from view. And that was,
if that was Irvine and Mallory, the last time anybody
saw them, and Odell would have been the last to
see them, which will become a crucial thing later on,
as we'll see. But Odell kind of waited for them
(37:10):
to come back down to the camps. Remember he was
in the high camps, and he waited and he waited
and he waited, and then he started to get really worried.
And here's where he became a hero, like you were
saying earlier.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Yeah, so Odell is again he's not down there at
sea level. He is hanging out up there trying to
do the trail magic thing. He's all of a sudden worried,
and he basically from Camp six starts hiking around trying
to find these guys and doesn't leave. He just keeps staying,
(37:44):
and he keeps making these a cents, And I believe,
like two days in a row, made an assent over
what like twenty six thousand feet.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Yeah, a couple of them, and he'd go back to
camp because he had to again to survive, but then
he would strike out like as soon as he could
the next day to look for them.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
I mean, that's why he's one of the heroes.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yeah, exactly, And like again, I don't even know if
he had oxygen at that point. So he spent a
couple of days way up there looking for them, and
finally from the high camp he signaled back down to
the lower camps, the base camp, and there was apparently
a pre arranged signal that they had come up with
for this third summit attempt, and Odell laid it out.
(38:30):
It was six sleeping bags laid out in a cross,
which meant death, that they had died, that they hadn't
made it. And so in reply, the guy who led
the expedition had a return signal saying like, give up, hope,
come back down, and very sadly, Odell did as he
was instructed and came back down without Irvine, without Mallory,
(38:51):
who remained up on the mountain as far as anyone knew.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Yeah, and at this point he had been up there
for and this is over twenty three thousand feet. He
had been up there for eleven days. And that's I mean,
surely no, uh, I don't think that had been done before.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Right, That's no picnic caught in a snowstorm. That's some
serious stuff.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Yeah, And there's no way that these guys, I mean,
they were up there for two nights and you're not
going to survive one night. So it was pretty clear
those sleeping bags had to come out at that point.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
Yeah, and so they said, you know, they were really
kind of unhappy on that way back down, which again
I don't think we said if you're coming up a mountain,
you have to acclimate over weeks, little by little, and
I believe you have to do roughly the same thing
coming back down. So these guys had to basically have
this party where two people had been lost on their
summit attempt, and they were glowmed but at the same time,
(39:44):
they realized, like, you know, Mallory and Irvine had kind
of embodied this spirit of adventure and just trying and
even risking your life for you know, this this noble
attempt that at something no one else had ever done.
So it was kind of a bitter sweet thing. Their
loss was. It wasn't entirely nothing but tragic. There was
(40:04):
some silver lining to it in the way that Mallory
was remembered and thought of.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yeah, absolutely, and from that moment forward there you know
ed kind of makes it sound like the consensuses that
they never reached the top, And after reading all this
stuff and a lot of other opinions, I don't think
I don't think that's true at all. I think there
is still debate on whether or not they actually made
it to the top. And there are a bunch of
(40:30):
cool little clues that kind of lead you down one
way or the other along the way.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Yeah, one of them, Chuck, was Odell and what he saw.
And there's a couple of things you need to know
about Odell. Number one, he was a geologist, and a
lot of people say he just mistook some rocks for
Irvine and Mallory. The little tiny dots he thought he
saw moving. He's a geologist, making him very unlikely to
mistake rocks for people. And then secondly, he was well
(40:56):
known to have really good eyesight. Apparently he didn't need
glass until he was in his nineties. So those two
things combined make it seem like he was probably the
best possible eyewitness around. And Odell went to his grave saying,
I saw them. They were moving. It was them, But
exactly where he saw them kind of came up for grabs.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Yeah, so there are these three cliffs sort of you know,
if you go this route, there are three cliffs to
get to the top, and they called them steps step one,
step two, step three. They didn't know about these steps
until they got there, obviously, because no one had done
this yet. And from what he was talking about, he
saw them on the second step, But there are a
(41:41):
lot of people today that said no. I think he
probably saw them on the first step. At one point
in his life he said that it was the first step,
but then he went back and said no. And I
don't know if he was just sort of a victim
of kind of listening to what other people had to say.
But apparently later in life. He went back and was
adamant that it was the second step that he saw
(42:02):
them on.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Oh really, okay, cool. So here's the thing. If you
were in the climbing community and you believe that at
the very least Mallory, if not Mallory and Irvine made
it to the top of Everest on that nineteen twenty
four expedition on that third attempt. The reason you think
that is because you believe that Odell did see them
climb up that second step, Because that second step was
(42:24):
the last great obstacle to the top, and had they
made it up the second step, nothing would have stopped
Mallory from continuing on to hit the summit. Knowing that
he probably would not ever make it down alive, he
still would have kept going on. So that's what a
lot of people think, and the people who think that
he actually did make it kind of point to Odell's
(42:46):
eyewitness statements.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Yeah, and that's in that interview when he was what
he was ninety seven years old, Odell himself says that
you know, there would have been nothing that would have
stopped Mallory and Irvine. He believes even though dusk was
approaching and they probably knew it was, I guess a
suicide mission at that point. His feeling was that there's
no way they would have stopped too.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Yeah, because we didn't say when those clouds came around,
they brought with them a blizzard too, so it was
really terrible conditions. They were way late in the day.
There was basically no chance if they submitted that they
could get back to that highest camp in time for
surviving the night. But that would not have stopped them,
because they would They just would have kept going. That's
just what Mallory would have done. Pretty much everybody agrees
(43:31):
on that. The distinction is whether he was on the
first step or the second step, because if he was
just on the first step, he still had that second
step ahead of him, he might not have made it.
If he made the second step, he definitely summitted. That
seems to be what the consensus is.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
All right, so you've got that. We can park that
to the side. In the subsequent years, on different expeditions,
there have been little bits and pieces of evidence found
along the way. One in nineteen thirty three, when Irvine's acts,
his ice axe was found, and you know you're not
(44:06):
gonna just leave your ice ax behind r So basically
they concluded that something happened that made Irvine drop this
ice axe, but they recovered it in thirty three. And
then in nineteen seventy five there were some Chinese Chinese
climbers who made a successful summit all the way to
the top, and they were the only ones that could
(44:28):
have gone this way because, like we said earlier, the
Chinese route was shut down basically to Americans, and so
it's not like that people before the nineteen seventy five
would have been taking this route. I think there was
one American group that snuck in and did so illegally.
But one of the Chinese climbers said I found an
(44:49):
English dead to another climber. China has always denied this
and said that that's not true and that it was
a misunderstanding, and that climber, actually his name was Wang
Hungboo died the next day in an avalanche, so there
was never like any follow up with him.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
In a really interesting ironic twist, Chuck hungbo translate to
so long staff in English. No, really, I thought I'd
get a bigger laugh out of that.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
We'll just say that, well, it was believable enough to
where I couldn't quite do it.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
So yeah, so there's all this intrigue that's kind of
gathering around this this idea that the Chinese had found
at least one dead Englishman on their side of the mountain,
the north side of the Tibetan side, where they shouldn't
have been, which means that, yeah, it had to have
been Irvine or Mallory. So there was an expedition that
(45:45):
came well, there's a nineteen ninety one expedition that found
an old oxygen bottle that was almost certainly Mallory or Irvines,
and then all of that information kind of came together
to support a nineteen ninety nine GEO expedition to actually
find Irvine or Mallory, and they actually did. They found
one of them, and at first they thought it was Irvine.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Right, yeah, they did, But they found Mallory. He was frozen,
he was sun bleached, his body was very well preserved,
the items on him were very well preserved. They found
him severely injured. Well, they found a couple of things.
They found that he had a severely broken leg and
(46:27):
some rope trauma like ligature stuff around his waist. But
what they really found that was severe was the cause
of death, which was a golf ball size hole in
his forehead.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yeah, they and it was a puncture wound. So they
think it's possible as he was falling that his ice
axe bounced off of a rock and into his head,
which that'd be pretty merciful on the way down if
you think about it, if that killed him instantly, Because
they said that his foot was almost broken off. That
break was so bad trauma too. Imagine a rope yanking
(47:02):
on you, because they found the rope still tied around
his waist.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
But I had that happen, Actually, I can't imagine.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
I mean, it's awful, right, It's like falling on your tailbone,
but times a million. And the other end of the
rope was snapped off, and I saw a climber say
because of that snap, it must have been tied to
something really immobile, like a rock, rather than Irvine. So
that suggested that Mallory had sent Irvine back and tried
to make the summit himself, which a lot of people
(47:28):
kind of give to his credit that he wasn't willing
to risk Irvine's life, only his own.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
I found it very strange that I said that that
happened to me, and you didn't even ask what that
was about.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
I was on a roll. It's very strange what happened.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
I'm not even gonna I'm not gonna tell you now
what happened. No one gets to know, all right, that
would be the great mystery of this episode. Okay, So
the two big clues here as to whether or not
he made it are well. One big clue was he
didn't have that picture of his wife on him. This
is the picture that he took with them everywhere that
he vowed to place at the top of the mountain,
(48:05):
and it wasn't on him. So a lot of people
look at that and say, well, it's not on them,
because he actually did, maybe by himself or maybe with Irvine,
make it to the summit and place that picture there.
And it's not like you would have necessarily found that
picture years later. It very probably would have blown away
or been destroyed by the elements over time. And you know,
(48:27):
I don't know how I feel about that clue. I
think it's considering everything was found really in good condition
on him, and that he didn't have it is pretty
interesting to think about.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
I'll just say that I like that clue too. There's
also a missing camera. They took a camera with them
for that third attempt, Kodak vest pocket camera VPK, and
it's like one of those old cameras with the accordion
that you pull out, but it is a really small,
like pocket sized version. And had they made it to
(48:59):
the summit, they absolutely would have taken a photograph from
the summit. And if you could just find that camera,
then you could conceivably, because it had been in deep
freeze conditions for all these years, it's possible using modern
techniques that you could develop that film and solve this
mystery once and for all. But the problem is this Chuck.
The camera's missing, and so is Irvine. Because there was
(49:22):
an expedition not too long ago, a few years back
that set out to look for Irvine, this other guy.
Because where the Chinese expedition said that they found the
dead English that is nowhere near where Mallory was found,
so they figure that they found Irvine. But when they
went when this expedition, I think a couple of years ago,
went back to find Irvine, there was nothing there. His
(49:43):
body was not exactly where it should be. Nothing there,
And so this rumor has kind of come up over
the years that the Chinese actually found him and brought
him back down the mountain without telling anybody.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
That's right, That is the rumor, and that they got
that camera and they they kind of botched the film
trying to get it developed and process those pictures, and
that was a big embarrassment. And so they will take
that secret to their graves.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Yeah. And another explanation is that the nineteen sixty Chinese
expedition to the top of the North Face was the
first to summit the North Face and that they were
protecting national pride because they found evidence on that camera,
on that film when they did develop it that Mallory
had made it to the top. Who knows? The thing is,
(50:31):
we'll never know right ever. The thing that we will know,
I think eventually, though, Chuck, hopefully, is what happened with
your rope trauma?
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Ah, that will go to the grave with me.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
Oh man, I really botched that, like the Chinese mountain
climbers botched processing that film.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
Okay, long staff.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Long wind, It's more like it you got anything else?
Speaker 2 (50:54):
I got nothing else?
Speaker 1 (50:56):
All right, everybody? Well, since Chuck refuses to tell us
about his rope traumas story. I guess we have nothing
left but listener mail.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
This is from the Silly String up. This is myth busted. Hey, guys,
just wanted to point out that Josh repeated a widely
spread myth about telegrams in the Silly String episode that
stop was used because punctuation cost extra. This myth has
been busted. The real story is Morse code originally had
only capital letters and no punctuation. It's generally not much
(51:28):
of a problem, but during the First World War, when
the telegrams were widely used in the military, a misunderstood
Messa message could be disastrous, So the custom arose of
using the word stop between sentences and military telegrams so
that any ambiguous phrases could not be misinterpreted called on
with the public. Even after punctuation was introduced, people continued
(51:49):
fashionably using stop between sentences even though they didn't have to.
I thought this was kind of interesting. Thanks for the
great show. And that is from Dave.
Speaker 1 (51:59):
It is very interesting. I like both stories.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Okay, they're both great.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
Yeah, everyone wins. And also I'm going to posit that
you have mentioned before that you've gone repelling as a
boy scout and that it happened somewhere on Stone Mountain.
Speaker 2 (52:16):
Not true. The mystery continues.
Speaker 1 (52:18):
Whatever. If you want to get in touch with us
like Dave did and maybe take a crack at what
happened with Chuck in the Rope and the trauma, you
can send us an email to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio
dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (52:35):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, everybody, it's your old pal Josh and for this
WEEK'SYSK Select, I've chosen our twenty twenty two episode, Did
Mallory make it to the top of Everest First? It's
a clunky title, but an amazing episode. It talks about
George Mallory, an unsung climber who may have been the
first European to ever summ at Everest, a full three
(00:20):
decades before Sir Edmund Hillary definitely did. The reason we
don't know. The reason it's still a mystery is because
he was lost for years and even once he was found,
still didn't quite answer the question. This is an amazing
history mystery podcast that also has a lot of human
spirit in it, and I hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and this is Stuff you Should Know Lost down
the Mountain op edition, but not in Tennessee because this
has nothing to do with the Beverly Hillbillies at all.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Wow. I thought that was a roundabout funny intro.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I didn't even know what was coming thirty seconds ago.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
No, we are not talking about Tennessee. We are talking
about one of the heroes of mountaineering and mountain climbing, certainly,
mister George Mallory, and the great mystery to me, unsettled
mystery on whether or not he ever made it to
the top of Edvers Yes, Edvere.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
So boy, yeah, this is a tough start, Chuck, because
I just realized what I reference was the Davy Crockett theme,
not Beverly Hillbilly. So everybody save your emails. Okay, Oh
that's right, all of you Beverly Hillbilly's cose players, save
your save your emails. So, okay, we're talking about Mount Everest.
We're not talking about Davy Crockett or the Beverly Hillbilly.
(02:00):
We're talking about George Mallory, and to a lesser extent,
kind of unfairly but also kind of fairly his climbing companion,
Sandy Irvine. And George Mallory is extraordinarily famous, not just
in the climbing community. He's a legend in the climbing community, Chuck.
But you and I know about him. I knew about Mallory,
didn't you before all this? Yeah, at least heard his
(02:24):
name had a general idea about him, right, sure, named
two other climbers exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
The guy from that free solo documentary, and well all
the Sherpa, I mean, we Ed makes his great pains
to point out the Sherpa, But suffice to say, all
you have to do is go back and listen to
our episode Sherpa Warm Friendly Living, in which we dedicate
an entire episode to the usually nameless Sherpa, who are
(02:56):
usually standing just out of frame of some white dude saying, yeah,
I climbed Everest again, but here, go ahead and get
your picture taken.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Right, And they just kind of slowly shoved them to
the side. But yeah, but despite your best efforts, you
still managed to prove my point. Yeah, George Mallory is
extremely famous, and up to his thirties, it did not
look like it was going to go that way because
he started out this very famous mountain climber and mountaineer
(03:25):
and early mountain climber mountaineer too. That's something that I
feel as a beat will hit throughout this episode that
these guys that Mallory was climbing with were using like
they were making some of their own gear. They were
figuring out mountaineering techniques as they went along. It was
like a brand new thing that people were doing, and
George Mallory was among the earliest people doing that.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, there's that one. I don't know if it was
a journalist or somebody was talking about pictures of the
actual attempt to climb Everest and he said, these guys
look like they had gone out for a picnic and
were hit by a snowstorm, right, and just in how
they were dressed. You know, they were in like sweet
jackets and stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah, and hobnail boots, so just like some leather boots
with some spikes attached to him. Like just nothing you
would even climb a hill in these days, let alone
Mount Everest. But that's what they were wearing. So George
Mallory didn't start out as showing signs he was going
to be famous. He was a kind of a left leaning,
(04:26):
progressive intellectual school teacher. He did rub elbows with John
Maynard Keynes and Virginia Wolf from the Bloomsberry group. Bloomsberry
pretty cool, yeah, but that was probably the greatest brush
with fame that he had up until he started hitting
Mount Everest and making that basically his stated goal. In life.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, I mean he got into hiking and mountaineering when
he was in his late teens and really fell in
loved with it. But you know, as Ed Keenley points out,
it was, you know, it was such a new sport
that people didn't even really know, Like they haven't even
charted like the highest mountains in the world up into
(05:08):
a very i mean what I consider a pretty late
point when you think about like expeditions at Lewis and
Clark made it was in eighteen fifty two when they
finally finally figured out that Everest was the tallest peak.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, like up to eighteen fifty two, they were basically
at the point of that one's tall. Oh look at
that one. That's a tall one too.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah. I wish we could put him next to each other.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yeah, exactly. So there was actually a guy named Radan
Siktar who was an Indian surveyor who used data that
the English had produced during their occupation of India to
calculate just exactly how tall Mount Everest was, because they
really did settle on Everest just by sight, They're like,
(05:52):
that might be the tallest mountain we've ever seen, And
indeed it turned out at twenty nine thirty two feet.
Mount Everest was in the mid nineteenth century and still
is today the tallest mountain in the entire world. And
they named it Everest after the director of the survey
in India. Of course they did, Sir George Everest. But
(06:12):
if you asked a Tibetan what's the name of that
big old mountain over there, they would tell you Chomo Lungma,
which means mother goddess of the world in Tibetan. So
even the Tibetans were like, this is clearly the world's
tallest mountain.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, And of course they had their own names for it,
but we generally don't know those names because they would
come along later and just name it after just some dude.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Right, but we some Englishmen. I mean Chomlongma, that's definitely
one of them.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
No, I know, but ask ten people what Choe Malonga is.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Right, and name two other famous climbers.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yes, but the long and short of it is, I
guess the tall and short of it is. They realized
that Everest was the tallest thing in eighteen fifty two,
but big deal. They couldn't do anything about it. They
could just kind of gaze upon it. It would be
decades and decades before anyone even thought that they might
be able to climb Everest, because here's the deal. Getting
(07:10):
to Everest and climbing it is like ascending the peak
is one thing, but just getting to that point is
I don't know, ninety percent of the battle.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I would say easily. Most people think you look at
a mountain, you just climb up the base and go
up to the side and you're done. But no, you
have to basically traverse mountain ranges. Mountains just don't exist
on their own. They're part of ranges and you don't
really think about it, but you have to climb all
these other little mini mountains to get to the big
mountain in the first place. And this can be walks
(07:42):
of you know, dozens or scores of miles and not
walk it's not a straight walk over a plane. And
then you get to the edge of the mountain and
you go up like you're going up and up and up,
and you're existing at higher and higher altitudes, which the
English people who were doing this at first were not
used to, so they were doing this with basically altitude
(08:02):
sickness and all the stuff that comes with that.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
All right, so let's go to nineteen twenty and the
stages sort of set to where they feel like it
might be possible to actually accomplish something like this. And
the Royal Geographic Society got together with the Alpine Club
to form and they didn't like permanently come together, but
they worked together to form the Mount Everest Committee to say,
(08:26):
all right, let's give this a go, old boy, And
they got permissioned from Tibet in nineteen twenty one to
go on a scouting trip. And this was a trip
where they would just kind of figure out how to
climb Everest. Like it wasn't like they just said, all right,
let's give it a go and see if we can
get to the top. Like they had to take several
trips just to sort of map out what they thought
(08:50):
would be a feasible way to even try to get
to the top.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Right, Apparently no one from Europe had been within sixty
miles of Everest itself, so this was all new, uncharted
territory basically for these guys. And again it's really important
to say, like we're going to be telling the story
from the English point of view, and like you said,
the Sherpa rarely figure into that, with the big exception
(09:13):
of Tensing Norgay, who officially was the first to summ
at Everest with Edmund Hillary. But these guys weren't doing
this alone. They had, depending on the expedition and how
much money it had, scores to hundreds of sherpas like
attending them, helping them climb, moving their stuff, and just
basically making life much easier on these guys. That said,
(09:38):
I really don't want to undermine the amount of effort
and strenuousness that these guys, yeah, and talent that these
guys underwent in just figuring out how to get to
Everest to start on that first nineteen twenty one expedition.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Yeah, it's really cool to read contemporary, yes, contemporary accounts
of what modern climbers think of Mallory and his not
just tenaciousness, but his actual talent level and his climbing
style was apparently very unique and just revered today by
(10:16):
modern climbers. Is And you know, it's not to take
anything away from what anyone does today, because what people
can accomplish day is amazing. But they accomplish these things
based generally on you know, they can be taught by
other people and like this is how it's done, Like
Mallory and the King. We're figuring this out for the
first time. And by the way, I might have said
(10:36):
Hillary instead of Mallory. Yeah, because I'm just thinking of
climbing hills.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Right, and we should just go ahead and say just
to get any confusion out of the way. Edmund Hillary
summitted evereston I think nineteen fifty three. We're talking about
the first expeditions to ever again in nineteen twenty Mallory
and Hillary, I don't believe ever met. They were of
different generations of climbers, but Mallory was considered one of
the pioneers, as were the other men in his expeditions
(11:03):
that he went on.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
All right, So if I said Hillary, I meant Mallory.
Are we all good?
Speaker 1 (11:09):
I think we're good?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, okay, all right. So they got permission again for
this trip in nineteen twenty one, and Mallory was in
his early thirties. He was included in this first group
and I think was really chomping at the bit to
do so. He has a wife and three young kids
at home, but really nothing could stop him from going
(11:33):
on this first scouting trip.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
No, and he was thirty three on the nineteen twenty
one trip, and he says, basically, hey, dear, I'm going
to quit my job and leave you and the children
for I don't know, seven months at least to go
on this expedition see you. And that's where he went.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
But he did say to his wife, here's what I'll do.
I'll take this picture of you, babe, and I will
carry it with me always, and I will place you
at the top of Everest to live there forever, more
in case than ice when I get up there.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, and I'm sure he probably took it with him
on the first expedition, But the first expedition wasn't planning
on summoning Everest. But from what I gather from Mallory,
he would have been down to give it a shot
that first time out. Like that's how obsessed with Everest
that man became, right, and he actually was really successful.
(12:25):
The expedition was this was again the first expedition by
the English to map Everest, and they managed to do it.
They managed to find a way onto Everest what's called
the North Call, which is a ridge that connects one
mountain to another, and they found that North Call which
is the way still today. If you're coming from the
(12:46):
north from the Tibetan side up Everest, you still use
that route that these guys mapped in nineteen twenty one.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah, and it's important to point out which side that
they would have gone up then and what side you
go up now, because there is a route that China
kind of secured and basically has held that Americans can't go,
and that'll be a key sort of later on in
this mystery. So put it bin in that.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah, because China invaded Tibet in nineteen fifty and said
this side of the mountain is closed to Westerners. But
this happened. That happened to three decades after Mallory and
his expeditions, so they were using that north route, and
still to this day. The north route is considered technically
more difficult because it requires you to spend more time
(13:35):
at higher elevations with its attendant lower oxygen concentration, which
makes the whole thing way harder. And then secondly, the
way in through the north route requires twenty two miles
of walking just to get from base camp to the top,
whereas the south route, which is what Westerners use today
coming from the Nepalese side is about twelve and three
(13:57):
quarter miles of walking. Nothing to sneeze that still, but yeah,
it just kind of underscores the just how hard the
things that these guys were doing with zero equipment.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
All right, so I think it's a good time for
a break. Sure, I'm gonna finally sort out the difference
between Hillary and Mallory.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
It sounds like an eighties sitcom.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
No, all right, So I'm gonna work all that out
and we'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Stuff you should know.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Okay, we're back, and I want to go over a
little more about when you how you get to a mountain.
And we don't have to go in great detail, but
you're basically going up one mountain to get to that
ridge that connects that small mountain to Everest, the taller mountain, right,
But to get there requires hiking, mountain climbing, ice climbing,
rock climbing, every kind of climbing you can imagine. And
(15:12):
one of the first things you have to do, no
matter whether you come from the north route or the
south rout is cross a glacier and that is way
harder than it sounds.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, I mean, this thing is you know surrounded in
part by glaciers, and like you said, there are so
many different disciplines if you're going to do something like Everest,
and especially in nineteen twenty one twenty two, that I
just don't think we can overstate like the near impossibility
(15:41):
of this feet at the time.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, especially with the glacier. There's crevasses. They can be
really deep, you know, one hundred or more feet deep,
and you can fall into that and die. There can
be ice slides it's also known as avalanches. They can
come and bury you. There's something called I think seacres,
which are how size blocks of ice that you sometimes
have to climb that you could also topple and be
(16:05):
crushed by. Like that's just the glacier. That's like the
first obstacle to get toward the mountain. And again they
were doing this with zero equipment.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yeah, I mean we did. We did a whole episode
on ice climbing, right.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
We totally did.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
And I remember so we talked about sea coorse.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Okay, good, all right? Yeah, I thought it sounded familiar,
and I also was like, yeah, ice climbing is really hard.
I know that from experience and researching it.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, well I mean this one. The sharp episode was
really good. Ice climbing was good. I believe we did
one on dead bodies on Everest.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yeah, and a long time ago we did one on
altitude sickness too.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yeah. So this all comes together. Point is it's really
really hard and there are so many ways to die.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, what else wants to kill you up there, Chuck?
That they weren't aware of until that nineteen twenty one expedition.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
The yetti.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, that's where the YETI was introduced, or at least
the concept was introduced to Westerners who brought it back,
and then I believe on a later, like nineteen fifty
one expedition, a guy named Eric Shipton took some photos
of what were supposed to be Yetti tracks, and that's
when like the West really went wild for the Yetti.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
That's right, So let's catch ourselves up. It's September twenty fourth,
nineteen twenty one, when they reach the North Coal and
this is where they're like, all right, we think this
is it. We think we have found a path that
can actually get us. They didn't realize there would one
day be an easier path, probably, but they said, we
think this is the way to go. And it should
(17:42):
be noted that not only these expedition trips to sort
of map things out, but each subsequent attempt to ascend
Everest that ended up in I don't want to say failure,
but I guess it is failure if they didn't accomplish
it devastating. But each one of yet, each one of
those is really important too, because you know, every higher
(18:03):
peak that you get to, you're able to sort of
establish of course not everywhere, but you're able to establish
camps along the way, right, and these camps are then
used later on as you know, base camps like one, two, three, four, five, six,
et cetera. In fact, it maybe six might have been
the highest camp at the time, right.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
And then so but it's super important to establish that
for like all the hikers to come. Just because it
was a failed attempt doesn't mean a lot of great
stuff wasn't accomplished.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, because if you are hiking or you're climbing up
a mountain and there's a higher camp that you're coming
up to, you can make your way over the day
to that camp and then just stay there for the night.
If there's not a higher camp you have to turn
around at some point and make your way to that
next lower camp to survive. Yeah, you cannot be caught
(18:54):
overnight on Everest anywhere at these elevations that these guys
are hiking at without tent and or a sleeping bag,
or you're going to die. That's all there is to it.
A human being can't survive on the you know, the
higher altitudes of Everest without that kind of stuff. So, yes,
establishing a camp is an enormous thing. But also they're
learning stuff firsthand about how humans respond to low oxygen concentrations,
(19:19):
what the weather conditions are, like, what time of year
you can hike, Like every detail is a brand new
novel detail that is really crucial in understanding how to
get to the top eventually.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah, like what time of day you have to start
out in order to get up there and safely get
back down. Because some people, including Hillary, Yes, Hillary, and
it's a thorny subject, but some people, as far as
the Mystery of Mallory goes, some people don't consider it
a successful ascent unless you come back down. And that's
(19:52):
kind of the thing. And I think Hillary was one
of those, and his family also said, Hey, listen, not
to slag anyone, but we kind of only consider it
a success if you go up and you're able to
come back down and live to tell about it, essentially. Yeah,
And I think that was which is an interesting point.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah, but I think that point was made by Hillary himself,
which is kind of saying yeah, he's yeah, He's like, well,
I mean, even if you've made it to the top,
it doesn't count.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Like I'm doing this interview right now.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Right I'm sitting here. So there's one thing I want
to point out that I don't know has become clear yet.
It's clear to me because we did this research and
I found out what the deal was. But you might
be asking yourself why was mountain climbing so big at
this time? Why were these people doing this? And there's
a really good explanation for that. Ever, itself was considered
(20:40):
the third Pole because people had already made it to
the South Pole and the North Pole. We didn't yet
have the technology to explore the deep ocean or space,
and we had been almost everywhere else on Earth. So
this was like the last place for humans to I
guess basically conquer or pit their endurance against. And that's
why it was so attractive to people.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yes, and that was a very eloquent way to say that.
I think we should mention that Mallory himself is the
very person who very famously coined the term because it's
there when asked why they would try to do something
like this, Yeah, why climb mountains because it's there?
Speaker 1 (21:19):
That alone makes him just worth remembering. You know what
a cool response.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Absolutely, why are you going to eat big mac because
it's there?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Everything that's ever come since then where somebody says because
it's there, you're actually quoting George Mallory, that's right.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
All right. So let's talk for a second about oxygen.
Low oxygen is no good for the human body. And
we've mentioned several times that your oxygen levels are very
low when you're ascending Everest. And these days they make
it really easy on you, it's all. You know, the
kind of oxygen and they take is very easy to take.
(22:02):
They make it very user friendly. But back then they
had like glassed bottles of oxygen that were carried in
like wooden crates, and it was a real pain to
get there. It was super super heavy. But they knew
at the time, you know, well, they learned that they
would absolutely need this stuff, but Mallory was sort of,
(22:24):
I don't think indifferent. I think he was sort of
annoyed by the whole thing that you actually had to
take this stuff, to the point where he didn't even
use them, I believe in the nineteen twenty one test run, right.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
No, I don't believe.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
So.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I don't think he did either in the nineteen twenty
two expedition that followed where they actually did try to
make summit, and it wasn't for years before he was like, Okay,
maybe oxygen's a good idea. Some of them even thought
it was like a hindrance in general because it was
an extra thirty pounds that you had to carry, yeah,
up this mountain. And if you watch, if you watch
(22:59):
video of people climbing Everest today, especially as they get
closer and closer to the top and there's less and
less oxygen, yeah, they do even they seem to like
have regret for being where they are. But even with
oxygen on, if you watch them, they'll take a step
so one foot and then they'll bring the other foot
(23:20):
up and maybe they've traversed a foot of Everest right then,
and then they have to wait like fifteen thirty seconds
before they make the next one because they're that tired
because there's that little oxygen. And that's with oxygen on.
So these guys were trying these kind of a sense
without oxygen, I can't imagine, like, you know, how you
(23:42):
would even do that. And it's actually it's not clear
whether you really could some everest without oxygen, although I
think people have tried to maybe even been successful, so
I guess it would be clear.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Yeah, So in twenty two, I believe Mallory and a
couple of other climbers hit twenty six eight hundred feet,
which is remarkable, before they decided to turn back. And
again this is without using oxygen on that twenty two try.
And then this is the part where I was a
little bit confused. Maybe you can clear it up. When
(24:14):
did the avalanche happen? Was that in twenty one where
seven people were killed? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
So no, in twenty one there was an avalanche that
wiped out some of the camps they'd established, but didn't
hurt anybody. Okay, twenty two they weren't as lucky, and
seven Sherpa died in an avalanche, all right, And Mallory
kind of considered himself that at least partially responsible. Even
though he wasn't the only person who pushed for this
last attempt for the summit, he was one of them.
(24:45):
And an avalanche was triggered by that third attempt and
killed some of the people further down on the mountain
when they were covered up by it.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Yeah, and there are people you know who have looked
back in kind of poop pooed Mallories poo poot his carelessness.
And I don't know if it was carelessness. I don't
think it was carelessness just because he was a careless person.
I think it was a little more his tenacious attitude
sort of overrode good sense sometimes. Is the way I
(25:16):
took it? Is that how you took it? I think
that was part of it.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
But I also get the impression that he was like
just downright flighty, Oh was he? Yeah? Like there was
a he was in charge of the camera for the
nineteen twenty two expedition and apparently he put the film
in backwards but was taking pictures the whole time and
they didn't turn out because he didn't have the film incorrectly,
Like that's a classico sure, but if you do that
(25:41):
things like that over and over again, you start to
develop a reputation as being flighty.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I guess. So the thing I think is cameras, Like
operating a camera wasn't second nature at this point in history,
and it's like, just give this guy a camera. I
don't know. I could see him just being like I
don't even know what this thing is or how to
really operate it, Like, don't give it to me. They're like, well,
you kind of have to take it, and he's like,
all right, I'll do my best.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
I can't.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
I mean, I kind of created that narrative, but but
it was a good one. He was good at mountain climbing.
He may not have been a good photographer.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Okay, fair enough. But there's a very famous quote by
a doctor, Tom Longstaff, who was the doctor on the
expedition in nineteen twenty two, said Mallory was quite unfit
to be placed in charge of anything, including himself. So,
I mean people definitely thought of him. I'm going to
say flighty, and I'm not judging. I'm pretty flighty myself.
(26:35):
You me would certainly tell you that. But so I
think I recognize it when I see it. Maybe that's what.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
It is, as you me your doctor long Staff.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Yep, I'm gonna start calling her that now.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
I should be like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (26:51):
I look that up too, Remember our surname's episode. I
was like, oh, is that a dirty last name?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
No, that's what I thought.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
It turns out if you were a bailiff or somebody
involved in law enforcement, you would have carried like a
long stick, oh okay, to probably beat people with. And
that's where they got that name. So his ancestor was
involved in law enforcement. I looked it up. I went
long Staff, surname Penis and doctor Longstaff.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Definiteast sounds like a born name.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
It definitely does.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
All right, So now let's go to nineteen twenty four.
The test runs had happened, the real attempts had happened,
and then finally nineteen twenty four rolls around. They didn't
just take the year off in nineteen twenty three because
they were tired. They didn't get funding, like it costs
a lot of money and these people aren't like bankrolling themselves.
(27:39):
So the Mount Everest Company could not raise the money
in twenty three, so they waited until nineteen twenty four.
When Mallory jumped up in class and said me, me, me, me,
me again. Yeah, and almost didn't go though, because one
of his mates, George Finch, a fellow climber, was I
believe left off the list, and Mallory was like, if
(28:00):
he's not going to go, I'm not there gonna go
And they said okay, and then he went, well, I
still want to go.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
He put on a fake mustache and put himself down
as George Hallery exactly. So there was a guy who
went who was kind of a surprise selection. His name
was Andrew Sandy Irving Irvine. Sorry, and Sandy Irvine was
a student still. He was an engineering student. That's actually
one of the reasons they brought him along. He wasn't
(28:27):
a schlub as far as mountaineering goes. He just was
not nearly as experienced as most of the people on
that nineteen twenty four expedition. But being an engineering student,
he could fiddle and fuss with the oxygen apparatus which.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Had in the cameras.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Maybe yeah, probably he knew how to put the film
in the right direction. But since I get the impression
that since the nineteen twenty one and twenty two expeditions,
it had become clear to these these these people on
these expeditions, on the nineteen twenty four expedition that oxygen
wasn't like really important and to have somebody who could
(29:03):
make these these rigs more efficient would be really, really valuable.
So they brought Sandy Irvine along.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah. I also saw that Irvine was, you know, despite
his fiddler's reputation, was strong as an ox.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, he's another nice thing.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
If you see there's a famous picture of he and
him and Mallory next to each other facing the camera
like posing for a picture. And he's easily a full
head taller than Mallory was, and about his wide too,
so he was a big, big boy.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Yeah. And Mallory was very handsome too, if we should note, yes,
good looking dude.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
He really was very pretty. I think you could.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Say pretty mad.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
And then one other note about Mallory on this to
start off this nineteen twenty four expedition. Again, this is
the third expedition to Everest, and he was the only
member of this entire expedition who had been on all
three expeditions, which again really underscores Mallory was obsessed with
summiting Everest.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
That's right, So to June first, now, I think, so, man,
all right, Mallory and George Bruce make this first attempt.
This one didn't work out when basically the sherpass said
all right, we're not going any further. It's too dangerous,
and they basically dropped their stuff and turned back. So again,
(30:28):
this one didn't work out. But one of the positives
is they established a camp at twenty five thousand feet,
which I believe was the tallest camp at the time
or the highest camp.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Okay, yeah, so that's again that's a huge success for
a summit attempt, right, even more groundwork. The following day,
another couple climbers, Edward Norton and t Howard Somerville, made
their own attempt on the summit. Norton kept going beyond Summerville,
and he made it within a thousand feet of the
(31:00):
summit of Everest, which, depending on your perspective, sounds really
close but actually isn't or is actually super close even
though it sounds far away.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
I think it's pretty close.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
It is. But if you look at a map and
see where twenty eight thousand feet is and then where
twenty nine thousand feet is she had a way to go,
but far and away. That was the record, and it
was a record that stood, at least officially until Hillary
and Norgay summitted Everest in nineteen fifty three. So it
was a big deal. But Norton in Somerville really paid
(31:34):
for their attempt Somerville. He almost suffocated from a high
altitude cough. And then Norton developed snow blindness because they
would wear goggles that were like basically sunglass goggles, and
you had to wear them during the day, not just
from the wind, but because the UV was really really
(31:57):
abundant because of the thin air up there, so you
would get what's called snow blindness. You would get Caro
Titus on your corneas, and that's what happened to Norton.
He burned his corneas from the reflected sunlight because he
didn't keep his goggles on long enough. And on the
way back down from twenty five thousand feet back down,
(32:19):
he had to be helped. Every footstep had to be
placed by shurpas and the doctor on the trip. Every foot,
every footstep he made all the way back down out
of the Everest area.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
That's amazing it really is all right. So on this
third attempt, Mallory brought Irving. Sorry, why do you keep
saying that? I said? Because you said it?
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Sorry?
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Brought Irvine along, and they were sending notes down. You know,
they're sending messages back down with Shurpas along the way,
basically saying yeah, I love you. They were sending notes
back down to the other camps, basically giving reports on
what's going on, saying things are going well, the weather
(33:04):
looks like we should be able to do it. We're gonna,
we're gonna, you know, we're gonna try and do this
like tomorrow or whatever. And so all the notes that
were coming down were pretty positive, and basically everything we
know about this comes from a gentleman, a gentleman geologist
named Noel O'Dell. It was actually a pretty big hero
(33:27):
in this story too.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Yeah. He was pretty awesome actually, and he lived to
be a ripe old man, sorry ripe old age.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
He spelled really bad.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah, and there's a really cool interview with him from
a Nova episode. I can't remember what it's called, but
it's from like the eighties, and they interviewed Noel Odell
about this. So he factors in big time in a minute.
But Odell was He went up to one of the
high camps. He wanted to look for fossils. Being a geologist,
he also brought up supplies of food and water to
those higher camps to help the climbers on their way
(33:59):
back down. And this was the third attempt. Remember, the
first attempt didn't work, second attempt didn't work. It kind
of resulted in disaster. And then this third attempt was
going to be the last one. And Mallory said, hey, Irvine,
why don't you come with me. We're going to try
to make the summit of Everest. And there's something that
you need to know about this third attempt. Mallory was
(34:20):
I think thirty seven maybe by this time, and as
far as mountaineers and climbers go, especially back then, he
was old. This was probably going to be his last
expedition to Everest, and this attempt for the summit was
the last attempt on this expedition ergo. This was Mallory's
last shot at summiting Everest, and he was setting out
(34:42):
from the highest camp that had ever been established. Basically,
I believe it's the highest camp still today on that
north route.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
All right. It sounds like a great cliffhanger, no pun intended.
So let's take our final break here and we'll wrap
up the story right after.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
This stuff you should know, all right.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
So Mallory is on his last attempt as a human
to do the thing that he was obsessed with since
he was, you know, a young late teenager. Beautiful, beautiful.
So so handsome geologist Noel Odell is up there again.
He is. He is doing sort of the cool, groovy
Appalachian trail hangout dude thing that is still for people. Yeah,
(35:47):
he's doing some trail magic up there. And at twelve
fifty he sees Mallory and Irvine on the northeast ridge.
But there are a few hours and this is really key,
there are a few hours behind schedule from where they
should be, and there's a very narrow window again for
like what time of day you can pull this off
(36:09):
and then safely get back down. So to be a
few hours behind schedule is a big deal on whether
or not you're gonna survive basically. So what he says,
and we'll just go ahead and read the quote. What
he says he saw is the following the entire Summit Ridge,
and final peak of Everest were unveiled. My eyes became
fixed on one tiny black spot beneath a rock step
(36:32):
in the ridge. The black spot moved. Another black spot
became apparent and moved up the snow to join the
other on the crest. The first then approached the great
rock step and shortly emerged at the top. The second
did likewise.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
So right after that, Chuck apparently the clouds came back,
and those two black spots that were he took to
be Irvine and Mallory disappeared from view. And that was,
if that was Irvine and Mallory, the last time anybody
saw them, and Odell would have been the last to
see them, which will become a crucial thing later on,
as we'll see. But Odell kind of waited for them
(37:10):
to come back down to the camps. Remember he was
in the high camps, and he waited and he waited
and he waited, and then he started to get really worried.
And here's where he became a hero, like you were
saying earlier.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Yeah, so Odell is again he's not down there at
sea level. He is hanging out up there trying to
do the trail magic thing. He's all of a sudden worried,
and he basically from Camp six starts hiking around trying
to find these guys and doesn't leave. He just keeps staying,
(37:44):
and he keeps making these a cents, And I believe,
like two days in a row, made an assent over
what like twenty six thousand feet.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Yeah, a couple of them, and he'd go back to
camp because he had to again to survive, but then
he would strike out like as soon as he could
the next day to look for them.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
I mean, that's why he's one of the heroes.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yeah, exactly, And like again, I don't even know if
he had oxygen at that point. So he spent a
couple of days way up there looking for them, and
finally from the high camp he signaled back down to
the lower camps, the base camp, and there was apparently
a pre arranged signal that they had come up with
for this third summit attempt, and Odell laid it out.
(38:30):
It was six sleeping bags laid out in a cross,
which meant death, that they had died, that they hadn't
made it. And so in reply, the guy who led
the expedition had a return signal saying like, give up, hope,
come back down, and very sadly, Odell did as he
was instructed and came back down without Irvine, without Mallory,
(38:51):
who remained up on the mountain as far as anyone knew.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Yeah, and at this point he had been up there
for and this is over twenty three thousand feet. He
had been up there for eleven days. And that's I mean,
surely no, uh, I don't think that had been done before.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Right, That's no picnic caught in a snowstorm. That's some
serious stuff.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Yeah, And there's no way that these guys, I mean,
they were up there for two nights and you're not
going to survive one night. So it was pretty clear
those sleeping bags had to come out at that point.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
Yeah, and so they said, you know, they were really
kind of unhappy on that way back down, which again
I don't think we said if you're coming up a mountain,
you have to acclimate over weeks, little by little, and
I believe you have to do roughly the same thing
coming back down. So these guys had to basically have
this party where two people had been lost on their
summit attempt, and they were glowmed but at the same time,
(39:44):
they realized, like, you know, Mallory and Irvine had kind
of embodied this spirit of adventure and just trying and
even risking your life for you know, this this noble
attempt that at something no one else had ever done.
So it was kind of a bitter sweet thing. Their
loss was. It wasn't entirely nothing but tragic. There was
(40:04):
some silver lining to it in the way that Mallory
was remembered and thought of.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yeah, absolutely, and from that moment forward there you know
ed kind of makes it sound like the consensuses that
they never reached the top, And after reading all this
stuff and a lot of other opinions, I don't think
I don't think that's true at all. I think there
is still debate on whether or not they actually made
it to the top. And there are a bunch of
(40:30):
cool little clues that kind of lead you down one
way or the other along the way.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Yeah, one of them, Chuck, was Odell and what he saw.
And there's a couple of things you need to know
about Odell. Number one, he was a geologist, and a
lot of people say he just mistook some rocks for
Irvine and Mallory. The little tiny dots he thought he
saw moving. He's a geologist, making him very unlikely to
mistake rocks for people. And then secondly, he was well
(40:56):
known to have really good eyesight. Apparently he didn't need
glass until he was in his nineties. So those two
things combined make it seem like he was probably the
best possible eyewitness around. And Odell went to his grave saying,
I saw them. They were moving. It was them, But
exactly where he saw them kind of came up for grabs.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Yeah, so there are these three cliffs sort of you know,
if you go this route, there are three cliffs to
get to the top, and they called them steps step one,
step two, step three. They didn't know about these steps
until they got there, obviously, because no one had done
this yet. And from what he was talking about, he
saw them on the second step, But there are a
(41:41):
lot of people today that said no. I think he
probably saw them on the first step. At one point
in his life he said that it was the first step,
but then he went back and said no. And I
don't know if he was just sort of a victim
of kind of listening to what other people had to say.
But apparently later in life. He went back and was
adamant that it was the second step that he saw
(42:02):
them on.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Oh really, okay, cool. So here's the thing. If you
were in the climbing community and you believe that at
the very least Mallory, if not Mallory and Irvine made
it to the top of Everest on that nineteen twenty
four expedition on that third attempt. The reason you think
that is because you believe that Odell did see them
climb up that second step, Because that second step was
(42:24):
the last great obstacle to the top, and had they
made it up the second step, nothing would have stopped
Mallory from continuing on to hit the summit. Knowing that
he probably would not ever make it down alive, he
still would have kept going on. So that's what a
lot of people think, and the people who think that
he actually did make it kind of point to Odell's
(42:46):
eyewitness statements.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Yeah, and that's in that interview when he was what
he was ninety seven years old, Odell himself says that
you know, there would have been nothing that would have
stopped Mallory and Irvine. He believes even though dusk was
approaching and they probably knew it was, I guess a
suicide mission at that point. His feeling was that there's
no way they would have stopped too.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Yeah, because we didn't say when those clouds came around,
they brought with them a blizzard too, so it was
really terrible conditions. They were way late in the day.
There was basically no chance if they submitted that they
could get back to that highest camp in time for
surviving the night. But that would not have stopped them,
because they would They just would have kept going. That's
just what Mallory would have done. Pretty much everybody agrees
(43:31):
on that. The distinction is whether he was on the
first step or the second step, because if he was
just on the first step, he still had that second
step ahead of him, he might not have made it.
If he made the second step, he definitely summitted. That
seems to be what the consensus is.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
All right, so you've got that. We can park that
to the side. In the subsequent years, on different expeditions,
there have been little bits and pieces of evidence found
along the way. One in nineteen thirty three, when Irvine's acts,
his ice axe was found, and you know you're not
(44:06):
gonna just leave your ice ax behind r So basically
they concluded that something happened that made Irvine drop this
ice axe, but they recovered it in thirty three. And
then in nineteen seventy five there were some Chinese Chinese
climbers who made a successful summit all the way to
the top, and they were the only ones that could
(44:28):
have gone this way because, like we said earlier, the
Chinese route was shut down basically to Americans, and so
it's not like that people before the nineteen seventy five
would have been taking this route. I think there was
one American group that snuck in and did so illegally.
But one of the Chinese climbers said I found an
(44:49):
English dead to another climber. China has always denied this
and said that that's not true and that it was
a misunderstanding, and that climber, actually his name was Wang
Hungboo died the next day in an avalanche, so there
was never like any follow up with him.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
In a really interesting ironic twist, Chuck hungbo translate to
so long staff in English. No, really, I thought I'd
get a bigger laugh out of that.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
We'll just say that, well, it was believable enough to
where I couldn't quite do it.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
So yeah, so there's all this intrigue that's kind of
gathering around this this idea that the Chinese had found
at least one dead Englishman on their side of the mountain,
the north side of the Tibetan side, where they shouldn't
have been, which means that, yeah, it had to have
been Irvine or Mallory. So there was an expedition that
(45:45):
came well, there's a nineteen ninety one expedition that found
an old oxygen bottle that was almost certainly Mallory or Irvines,
and then all of that information kind of came together
to support a nineteen ninety nine GEO expedition to actually
find Irvine or Mallory, and they actually did. They found
one of them, and at first they thought it was Irvine.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Right, yeah, they did, But they found Mallory. He was frozen,
he was sun bleached, his body was very well preserved,
the items on him were very well preserved. They found
him severely injured. Well, they found a couple of things.
They found that he had a severely broken leg and
(46:27):
some rope trauma like ligature stuff around his waist. But
what they really found that was severe was the cause
of death, which was a golf ball size hole in
his forehead.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yeah, they and it was a puncture wound. So they
think it's possible as he was falling that his ice
axe bounced off of a rock and into his head,
which that'd be pretty merciful on the way down if
you think about it, if that killed him instantly, Because
they said that his foot was almost broken off. That
break was so bad trauma too. Imagine a rope yanking
(47:02):
on you, because they found the rope still tied around
his waist.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
But I had that happen, Actually, I can't imagine.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
I mean, it's awful, right, It's like falling on your tailbone,
but times a million. And the other end of the
rope was snapped off, and I saw a climber say
because of that snap, it must have been tied to
something really immobile, like a rock, rather than Irvine. So
that suggested that Mallory had sent Irvine back and tried
to make the summit himself, which a lot of people
(47:28):
kind of give to his credit that he wasn't willing
to risk Irvine's life, only his own.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
I found it very strange that I said that that
happened to me, and you didn't even ask what that
was about.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
I was on a roll. It's very strange what happened.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
I'm not even gonna I'm not gonna tell you now
what happened. No one gets to know, all right, that
would be the great mystery of this episode. Okay, So
the two big clues here as to whether or not
he made it are well. One big clue was he
didn't have that picture of his wife on him. This
is the picture that he took with them everywhere that
he vowed to place at the top of the mountain,
(48:05):
and it wasn't on him. So a lot of people
look at that and say, well, it's not on them,
because he actually did, maybe by himself or maybe with Irvine,
make it to the summit and place that picture there.
And it's not like you would have necessarily found that
picture years later. It very probably would have blown away
or been destroyed by the elements over time. And you know,
(48:27):
I don't know how I feel about that clue. I
think it's considering everything was found really in good condition
on him, and that he didn't have it is pretty
interesting to think about.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
I'll just say that I like that clue too. There's
also a missing camera. They took a camera with them
for that third attempt, Kodak vest pocket camera VPK, and
it's like one of those old cameras with the accordion
that you pull out, but it is a really small,
like pocket sized version. And had they made it to
(48:59):
the summit, they absolutely would have taken a photograph from
the summit. And if you could just find that camera,
then you could conceivably, because it had been in deep
freeze conditions for all these years, it's possible using modern
techniques that you could develop that film and solve this
mystery once and for all. But the problem is this Chuck.
The camera's missing, and so is Irvine. Because there was
(49:22):
an expedition not too long ago, a few years back
that set out to look for Irvine, this other guy.
Because where the Chinese expedition said that they found the
dead English that is nowhere near where Mallory was found,
so they figure that they found Irvine. But when they
went when this expedition, I think a couple of years ago,
went back to find Irvine, there was nothing there. His
(49:43):
body was not exactly where it should be. Nothing there,
And so this rumor has kind of come up over
the years that the Chinese actually found him and brought
him back down the mountain without telling anybody.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
That's right, That is the rumor, and that they got
that camera and they they kind of botched the film
trying to get it developed and process those pictures, and
that was a big embarrassment. And so they will take
that secret to their graves.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Yeah. And another explanation is that the nineteen sixty Chinese
expedition to the top of the North Face was the
first to summit the North Face and that they were
protecting national pride because they found evidence on that camera,
on that film when they did develop it that Mallory
had made it to the top. Who knows? The thing is,
(50:31):
we'll never know right ever. The thing that we will know,
I think eventually, though, Chuck, hopefully, is what happened with
your rope trauma?
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Ah, that will go to the grave with me.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
Oh man, I really botched that, like the Chinese mountain
climbers botched processing that film.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
Okay, long staff.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Long wind, It's more like it you got anything else?
Speaker 2 (50:54):
I got nothing else?
Speaker 1 (50:56):
All right, everybody? Well, since Chuck refuses to tell us
about his rope traumas story. I guess we have nothing
left but listener mail.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
This is from the Silly String up. This is myth busted. Hey, guys,
just wanted to point out that Josh repeated a widely
spread myth about telegrams in the Silly String episode that
stop was used because punctuation cost extra. This myth has
been busted. The real story is Morse code originally had
only capital letters and no punctuation. It's generally not much
(51:28):
of a problem, but during the First World War, when
the telegrams were widely used in the military, a misunderstood
Messa message could be disastrous, So the custom arose of
using the word stop between sentences and military telegrams so
that any ambiguous phrases could not be misinterpreted called on
with the public. Even after punctuation was introduced, people continued
(51:49):
fashionably using stop between sentences even though they didn't have to.
I thought this was kind of interesting. Thanks for the
great show. And that is from Dave.
Speaker 1 (51:59):
It is very interesting. I like both stories.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Okay, they're both great.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
Yeah, everyone wins. And also I'm going to posit that
you have mentioned before that you've gone repelling as a
boy scout and that it happened somewhere on Stone Mountain.
Speaker 2 (52:16):
Not true. The mystery continues.
Speaker 1 (52:18):
Whatever. If you want to get in touch with us
like Dave did and maybe take a crack at what
happened with Chuck in the Rope and the trauma, you
can send us an email to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio
dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (52:35):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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