The season is monsoon, the hour is uncertain, the time is the middle of the night, the emotions are mixed, the spirits are high and drained at the same time, and the body is exhausted, cold, and shivering in the dark.

The date is the beginning of June, the 8th to be precise.

The year is 1924, and the man is George Mallory.

He’s back from the summit of Mount Everest, he’s on the descent.

Today marks the 100th commemorative year that he and Irvine went up to set a record. Today’s also the date to see their achievement recognized and acknowledged as such.

George Mallory and Sandy Irvine exhausted beyond belief are taking a slightly different route than the ascent route, mainly because having had a higher viewpoint, Mallory was able to devise a shorter path to reach camp VI at 26,800 ft, which he is certain to reach soon with Sandy Irvine. But soon, they would be separated for good, taking a fall under the waxing moon that would see him lose his life, face down on the mountain.

Earlier, the rope tied around their waist had abruptly snapped on a rock, thus inflicting severe bruising on George’s skin and probably hurting the muscles, already painful with the continuous strain endured since their departure in the morning. Sandy must have sustained similar wounds, even an open injury of some sort, which would explain the blood splatters on Mallory’s jacket. At some point, maybe during the rope incident, Mallory’s wristwatch crystal was knocked off and got dislodged. The lack of damage on the bezel indicates that the watch never directly sustained a hit or brutal blow. Antique watch connoisseur and engineer David Boettcher (www.vintagewatchstraps.com) thinks that the slightest of impacts at a particular angle could have resulted in the crystal falling off. With the loss of the crystal, the clear consequence was for Mallory to take his beloved Borgel 1915-16 model off his wrist to put it in his pocket to preserve it from further damage. To take off one watch at this altitude must have taken effort, pulling off the gloves, in the cold air, and placing it in his pocket, where it was found. In the night, under a feeble moonlight, it would have been so difficult, it would have been better to leave it on the wrist.

George and Sandy had left the camp a little late, equipped with the oxygen cylinders that had tremendously helped to restore their strength and to increase their velocity, a fact that every climber had noticed with great joy, albeit for a little disappointment of not being able to go without oxygen all the way up.

The modern climber, when summitting from the North face, uses a specific route, the ridge, and starts the usage of oxygen much lower on the mountain. modern equipment and gear, supposedly superior to the 1924 clothing do not make the climber immune to frostbite, cold, or exposure. An article in BBC on 13th June 2006 about the replication of their clothing and its use on a similar climb states the opposite, i.e. that their flannel, silk, wool, and cashmere clothing is much more efficient and suited for such activities against the cold and the altitude than modern plastic fibers).

The modern mindset of Everest climbers as a matter of being the eldest or the first of this type of jam eater, or another type of label is appallingly divorced from the mindset of those types of pure truth reality seekers. The mentality of “look at me on top of Everest through my selfie” becomes a vain endeavor, where the overcoming of one’s ego and physical limits were once the driving force and strength of spirit over matter. Modern gear also does not make up for lack of preparation or being accustomed to high altitude and producing tremendous efforts to achieve very little physical progression.

The “summit fever”, the adrenaline rush familiar to almost all Everest summiteers (and all mountaineers climbing a mountain to reach its top, must experience this, no matter the mountain) had given him a quasi-supernatural strength to achieve the climb.

Galahad, as his friend Winthrop Young had nicknamed him during one of their expeditions in the Alps, alongside Sandy Irvine, the young (22 years old) Oxford oxygen apparatus genius, diligently, dutifully climbed the formidable rocky fortress one last time for his country, to claim the conquest for England. NO doubt summit fever had washed over him powerfully, as he knew this climb would be the last try. Little did he know it would be a forever last. And so he marched on, soldiered on with the quiet and strong, focused Irvine as his companion. Whatever the regrets he may have had that Finch was not with him to climb that day, Mallory soldiered on with the less experimented Irvine. They had a mission. Mallory had left a note for Oddell before leaving, and the last sentence reads: “Perfect weather for the job”…

2,000ft below, Noel Oddell, a superb climber himself, the geologist of the team, watched their progression closely, carefully recording his observations in a notebook, and in his diary. As the day progressed, the mountain clouded over and Mallory and Irvine were lost from sight. Then, as Odell surmounted a short cliff just below the top camp, the weather cleared. Noel Oddell wrote in a dispatch for the Times :

‘The entire summit ridge and final peak of Everest were unveiled,’ Odell wrote in a dispatch for the Times. ‘My eyes became fixed on one tiny black spot silhouetted on a small snow crest beneath a rock step 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. Then the whole fascinating vision vanished, enveloped in cloud once more. There was but one explanation. It was Mallory and his companion, moving, as I could see even at that great distance, with considerable alacrity… The place on the ridge mentioned is a prominent rock step at a very short distance from the base of the final pyramid.” (final pyramid -also known as Summit pyramid-altitude is: 28,540-28,870 ft.) What is a very short distance? Well, in this case, it is safe to say probably less than 30 ft)

This fact, put on paper almost instantly upon its occurrence, bears all the indications of a victorious climb. Later, Noel Oddell would water down his statement, to the point that in public, he would seem to doubt his own words and his fresh memory of his observation. In private, however, he remained strongly convinced that the majestic mountain had been conquered that day.

One can say that he was pressured to doubt the reality of a successful climb on June 8th and to doubt his own eyes, his own witness account.

Consecutive dispatches from Edward Norton – some contradicting themselves- were issues over a short period. With each passing day, following the stupor tinged with the sadness of the loss of two fine men, and team members, the doubt of Mallory and Irvine reaching the summit was implicitly suggested, then induced and eventually stated, with a careful choice of wording. It became more or less subtext in every news article, mind, and opinion. The two empty seats at the makeshift dining table carving the absence of their companions did not affect Norton’s overall goal of minimizing the tremendous accomplishment of his lost subordinates. Back at the Mount Everest Committee, A.R. Hinks still instructed Norton how to think and steered his views and opinion on the “failed attempt”. Hinks was seemingly the humble joint secretary on paper but in reality a master manipulator ( PR anyone?) and orchestrator of finances – with whom Mallory had several brushes, particularly regarding expenses. Hinks, who didn’t hesitate to write directly to Ruth Mallory, to obtain, by ruse, information that her husband George was not willing to provide him with, Hinks, clashed with Mallory, Hinks emerged as the ferocious fighter for all rights, photographs, lectures, publications, and related financial gain being controlled and collected solely by the Committee, or the RGS.

Hinks, lastly, had refused to enroll George Finch, a fine climber and excellent friend of Mallory, this time around for the 1924 Expedition, although Finch had proven to be a reliable team player and a remarkable climber. Hinks had a lot to gain in minimizing Mallory’s role, especially as the climbing leader.

Was it jealousy? Hicks and Mallory were Cambridge alumni, Hinks from Trinity College (1546) , and Mallory from Magdelene College (1428). According to everyone who had met him, George Mallory was a very charismatic man, Hinks has never been described as charismatic.

Was it that the Committee understood that if no one could claim the summit as their own, then they would not have to share the rewards, and financial deals following this formidable feat, especially with the widow of a dead hero? If no one had summitted, then there was just another expedition to put up to finally get a conqueror.

Was it the sheer joy of being at his desk, in London, yet being the most powerful man of the Expedition, thanks to his web of connections and as the finance man, responsible for the “marketing and communication”, to use a modern concept, of the Committee? Hinks’ controversial role in the Committee has never seized to puzzle most believers in Mallory’s conquest of Everest. Particularly the bitter fight that opposed him to Ficnh regarding lectures he was invited to give in Switzerland. One also can wonder how the doctors selected by the committee to determine the fitness of the climbers could deem Finch “poorly or unfit “to partake in the expedition. [please see ‘The Controversy regarding G I Finch as published in the Alpine Journal of Sept 2003] (The man had only been climbing just about any mountains in the Alps since his teenage, even scaling Notre Dame under the moonlight at night when he was 14. Just a reminder: George Finch was a very outspoken, unconventional man his teaching methods were at odds with those of Oxbridge scholars. Similarly, Mallory was also an unconventional teacher at Charterhouse, a progressist in a way. His methods of interacting with his students in a less formal manner puzzled said pupils, for instance, No wonder both men had developed a close friendship based on their similar views on education, their love of climbing and probably similar climbs done in the Alps, as well as sharing many other opinions on various aspects of life.) I would analyze this move from the Committee *ahem * cough cough *Hinks* as a way to further assert control on Mallory by depriving him of a loyal friend who would be his best ally, especially when negotiating aspects of the expeditions with Edward Norton, the

Yet, despite all the campaigns to distance Irvine and Mallory from their legitimate outstanding achievement – being the highest climber in the history of Mount Everest mountaineering, beating Norton’s highest point of 28,000 ft, as per Odell’s sight of the men. Even by the modern and now standardized labeling of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd steps and the final pyramid, the final pyramid was already called that in 1924. It’s also interesting to note that the official expedition account published by Edward Norton several months later, in 1925, quoted a different statement by Odell, making that visual evidence to become uncertain. So there appeared the campaign to suppress the exact account of Noel Oddell of what he saw, namely his friends just below the summit, going up there rapidly, showing no sign of weakness nor slowing their pace (=summit fever seen precisely while it was occurring). Therefore the disappearance of their amazing feat into the limbo of the absence of “real” proof, was deemed acceptable by those who would be enraged if their own summit was called into question. A real proof is, of course, pictures of the long lost camera, the VPK or Vest Pocket Kodak. Or perhaps, Sandy Irvine’s ghost or his body suddenly materialising, or some of their belongings were found on the tiny triangle of the summit.

We can only join the dots of what happened after the clouds engulfed the two brave climbers. We join the dots with what we know and what the later discoveries gave us to add to our understanding of this whole situation, the legend that followed, and the scam that developed around it.

Sadly, Sandy Irvine and George Mallory didn’t return alive to tell their comrades about their climb. Victorious climb, in my opinion, when I factor in all the elements pointing in that direction. Many clues speak of a truly successful summit conquest. The discovery of Mallory’s body in May 1999 brought several answers while leaving others to our sleuthing and logical deduction based on facts to fill in the gaps. Many believers in their victory point out the indisputable elements and facts: the statistic that death on Mount Everest in a higher proportion occurs on the descent, the state of Mallory’s body and equipment, the injuries, the objects retrieved high up the mountain after a successful summit, Mallory’s choice of route known since 1921, their oxygen equipment, the objects found on Mallory’s body, and more incontestably: the objects missing on Mallory’s body. More on that later.

Firstly, we must ask ourselves, why would Oddell record something different than what he saw?

Secondly, why would Norton change the exact record of what Oddell saw? Once again, let’s have a look at what Noel Oddell wrote in his diary, after at 12:50, the mists suddenly cleared, “saw M & I on the ridge, nearing the base of the final pyramid”. The first account, is documented on the spot. Fresh from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Michael Tracy confirms this in his meticulously researched videos and on his blog: Odell sent a mountain dispatch down to Norton at Advanced Base Camp stating they were seen at the Final Step (Third), just below the pyramid at 12:50. He also informs us that Norton destroys this dispatch and then falsifies the altitude and time in a report to The Times. Again, why? Because there is a narrative to be sold, a story to be told, a place in the history of mountaineering, and a world record to hold. With Mallory and Irvine dead, no one can challenge Norton’s place on the highest mountain. Ego trumps the reality of true facts.

The image below shows what the final pyramid encompasses. Can one be closer to summitting? In green is the route Mallory had said all along he would choose, as written in letters, particularly his last letter to Ruth his wife, even as his route plan shared with the team. In yellow, the modern route, on the arete of the ridge, above the North Col.

Thirdly, it bears reminding that George Mallory was no ordinary climber. From an early age, he showed fearlessness, a sense of daredevil, an energy that made him akin to a “young tiger” and above all, the unshaken belief in his own capabilities and that he could achieve anything climbing-wise.

Maybe not at a conscious level, yet this following incident speaks volumes about his supreme disdain for danger, as told by his friend, the poet Rupert Graves: “My friend George Mallory,… who later disappeared close to the summit of Mount Everest, once did an inexplicable climb on Snowdon. He had left his pipe on a ledge, halfway down one of the Lliwedd precipices, and scrambled back by a short-cut to retrieve it, then up again by the same route. No one saw what route he took, but when they came to examine it the next day for the official record, they found an overhang nearly all the way. By a rule of the Climbers’ Club climbs are never named in honor of their inventors, but only describe natural features. An exception was made here. The climb was recorded as follows: ‘Mallory’s Pipe: a variation on Route 2… This climb is totally impossible. It has been performed once, in failing light, by Mr GHL Mallory.’

A new route, dangerous, but opened by Mallory because he wanted to retrieve his beloved pipe. Shows determination, and respect for his belongings, and how much he loved his pipe.

Percy Wyn-Harris, a member of the 1933 expedition found Irvine (because of the 3 notches found on it, attributed to be Irvins’s habit, yet it was common practice) or possibly Mallory’s ice axe at 27,920 ft (but the location keeps changing, according to the speaker and his agenda, alas). He also picked up Mallory’s mitten a little higher up on the ridge. Who in their right mind would take off their mitten in such a cold temperature? Was it blown down onto the ridge from a higher point? BTW, the mitten’s exact location keeps changing too, according to who is talking about it. Same question again: if Percy Wyn-Harris had made it up, then why? He had nothing to gain unless the mitten and the axe were found higher than he said he found them and felt the competition was tough, but he was the one finding them and lived to tell about it. But then again, the artifacts were still higher than Norton’s final point in what was later dubbed the “Norton Couloir”.

Noel Oddell offered that this axe was probably left on purpose to be picked up on the descent, as this portion of the mountain is not a snow field, but rocks.

Wang Hogbao, a Chinese climber with the Chinese Expedition, reported seeing the body of an “English Dead” (because the sitting dead Caucasian man had suspenders and was wearing old-fashioned clothing) at 8,200 meters in 1975, close to the Chinese highest camp. This puts the high point of the Irvine, and Mallory certainly too, higher than Norton’s and Somervell’s.

When Mallory’s body was found by Mr Anker on May 1st, 1999, a climber from the Team set out to search for Mallory and Irvine, three notable objects were missing, among all the things that were retrieved from his pockets.

To conclude, and in addition to all the previous evidence, here are the last ones, the missing objects he was known to have, and was seen with. George was meticulous, he had kept a set of letters from his brother, and friends tightly tied in one of his monogrammed handkerchiefs, in a pocket close to his hearts.

1* The photographs :

Firstly, the photograph of Ruth, his beloved wife, that he was known to leave on the top of the mountain. His daughter Clare recalled his saying he would do this. No photograph of Ruth has been found on him in 1999. Where is the photograph?

Secondly, the photograph of his children that Ruth had sent him, upon his request, and that had arrived in a previous letter, in Nepal, and for which he thanked her in one of his last letters. This documented photograph of the children has not been found on Mallory, in any of his pockets that have been thoroughly searched (the other letters have been found and brought back to Base Camp and have found their way to the Royal Geographical Society Archives, along with his hobnail boot and several other artifacts. Where is this photograph?

2* Ruth’s letters and Marjorie Holmes’ Letters. Mallory had developed an epistolary relatiooonship with a young teacher, probably following one of his lectures, when she wrote him first. Her letters to him don’t seem to have survived. [The letters he wrote have been later donated by her grandson to the RGS, they show a similar approach to education, and she as a young teacher was certainly interested in his opinion on the subject of education, and Mallory is clearly happy to have someone to discuss his views too, someone with an intellectual interest for the matter, albeit the occasional flirtatious tone. I have had the pleasure of seeing them and holding them during a trip to the RGS while I was researching Mallory in June 2014. I happened to be consulting them (and many other documents related to the British Everest Expeditions), on the same day George Mallory’s family came to have a look at the artifacts the Irvine and Mallory Research team in 1999 had brought back. So I had the tremendous honor to see the handkerchief, the letters, his hobnail boot, and the altimeter being brought to me for consultation in the archives boxes. It was a very solemn moment, very poignant, emotional bordering on overwhelming. Beyond the decades, the distance, and death, I had between my hands Mallory’s letters. It was as if we shook hands beyond time and space. In June 2013, I wrote and published a short story featuring a younger Mallory, I went several times back to consult the Mallory papers at the RGS, and in 2017, I even went to Cambridge to do more research, I even went to Oxford to consult Sandy Irvine’s diary. It’s a special kind of emotion and feeling to be able to hold those precious papers of deceased people that we admire that are not of our family.]

Where are those letters? None was found on his body, and his bundle of letters neatly protected by his hankie shows how attached he had become to such mundane things as letters, during his long absence from home, in a landscape so arid and desolated, he could not help but long for the”English countryside”.

And 3* His beloved Pipe. This is the most crucial, and the never talked about item by any Mallory researcher and believer in his successful climb, and yet it is probably the most definitive proof. Mallory loved to smoke his pipe, he took on smoking at an early age. He was so dearly attached to his pipe that he even one day braved tiredness and a dangerous climb alone to retrieve this pipe he had forgotten on a ledge of rock (as aforementioned). His pipe was not among George’s belongings that were brought back to Ruth. It was not found on his body, it was not in his tent at Camp VI or Camp V or even at Base Camp, because Noel Oddell would have brought them back with him after June 9th, and it would have been given back to Ruth, as a precious souvenir to treasure for years to come, even maybe pass on to John his son, later. Where is the Pipe?

Those missing elements converge into established irrefutable proof that Mount Everest was conquered that day, 100 years ago by this man, with Sandy Irvine. And to leave a trace behind him, George “Galahad” Herbert Leigh Mallory left his most treasured possessions he had brought with him, as one presents one’s offering to a God one has deference for, and that one respects and honors.

The absence of those most intimate and close to his heart objects, his beloved precious belongings he could only part with upon accomplishing something greater than flattering is ego, something he was missioned to do and a task he did superbly, humbly, dutifully, even at the cost of his life.

It is easy then for another summiteer to claim that a successful conquest of an unvanquished summit it to come back alive. Well, these words have always had a strange echo, and the wording had always seemed bizarre. It’s also easy to say that no artifacts were found, well, no one was there with him to confirm or infirm that, and letters, pipes, and photographs surely can be blown easily away by strong winds. I would also be possible, to complete the offering of personal belongings, that Mallory could have put his wollen mitten on top of those objects, only for it to be blown down on the ridge at a later time, and be found by Wyn-Harris 9 years later, seemingly out of nowhere.

One can be the first to summit via the North Face, and not live to tell the story. But the truth still is what it is, and history revisionists and crooks cannot rewrite facts when evidence is so compelling. Not withstanding the goggles found in his pocket, further proof that he was on the descent when the fatal fall occurred, leading to his death. Seen at 12:550 pm within a short distance from the final pyramid, with a sun setting at around 7pm,

Can we agree evidence of a victorious climb is more than 98% likely to have happened? The 2% remaining are encapsulated in the missing objects Mallory was known to have with him, and even some everybody knows he would leave on top of the mountain?

It’s time Sandy Irvine and George Mallory are given back what belongs to them: the definitive badge of honor of being the first summiteers of Mount Everest via the North Route and the North Face.

Today’s the day to dust off any misconstrued reality and to reveal the truth.

The Assault on Mount Everest (1922) is a fantastic read.

The Assault on Mallory and Irvine’s Feat, that’s started in 1924 has to come to an end. This is the day.

Mount Everest, via the North Ridge route, North Face was most certainly conquered for the first time on June 8th, 1924, by George Mallory and Sandy Irvine.