Two British Climbers

On June 8th, 1924, two British climbers -- Mallory and Irvine -- were spotted from below, clambering over one of the major remaining obstacles of their route. The summit of Mt. Everest was only a few hours away. Swirling mists closed in and they were never seen again. Their disappearance left unanswered a question that has haunted mountaineers ever since: Had they reached the top? Even Sir Edmund Hillary -- the first to certainly reach the top (and to return) -- looked for signs of any possible predecessors.EarlyEveresters didn't think so. Subsequent pre- WWII expeditions during better weather and with greater resources were thwarted by the immensity of the challenge. But one thing was left out of the early pessimistic assessments -- the effect of the controversial use by the two climbers of "artificial" breathing oxygen. Many contemporaries felt its use was unsporting, and angrily discounted evidence to show that climbing speeds easily doubled with its use. The next expedition, that of 1933, retraced Mallory and Irvine's steps and discovered one of their ice axes some 250 yards from the First Step obstacle. For decades, that was the only other clue as to their fate. In the early 1970's I studied the best available topographic maps of Mt. Everest, and noticed that the site of the ice axe lay above a large snow terrace. Would a falling climber come to rest on the "8200 m Snow Terrace"? If so, would the cameras each of them was known to be carrying still hold the answer of how high they got? After extensive tests, Eastman Kodak thought "fully printable images" could be obtained if the camera was found intact.