Finding the remains last May of British explorer George Leigh Mallory–which had lain for 75 years on Mt. Everest–is Simonson’s latest adventure. A mountain guide since 1973, the 44-year-old bachelor has reached the summit of Mt. Rainier 260 times, Mt. McKinley 16 times, and led more than 70 high-altitude expeditions on seven continents. He has climbed Mt. Everest seven times, coming just a few hundred feet short of the top several times before finally summiting in 1991. He lives in Ashford, Wash.
Q: Mt. Everest has been a cultural icon ever since British mountaineers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine vanished within a cloud at 28,000 feet a few hundred feet from the top on a June night in 1924. Could they have made it 29 years before legendary climbers Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay?
A: As with any great mystery, that remains unsolved. We’ve added to the evidence showing that they might have made it, but we didn’t prove it. We want to go back and look for Irvine’s body in hopes of finding his Kodak vest-pocket camera. If he took any photos of them achieving the summit they may have been preserved in the cold. It sounds incredible but Kodak says there’s a chance. That would be final proof and settle the question once and for all.
On the other hand, what constitutes a successful ascent? Getting down in one piece is certainly a component. I would defend to the end that Hillary and Norgay made a successful round-trip, and there’s no question in my mind that their accomplishment in 1953 was incredible. They were first to make it up and get back down. That’s really important.
Q: But familiarity with the mountain hasn’t made it safer. Hundreds of people have climbed to the summit. But even on the lesser-used North Face climbing route, you counted 17 bodies between 27,000 feet and the summit. Even today, for every five people who make it to the top of the world one person dies. Why do they keep flocking to Everest?
A: Mallory said `because it is there,’ and I think romance is at the heart. With the tragedies and the deaths in 1996, there was a huge focus on that, which I found to be disturbing. I’ve been to Mt. Everest seven times and it’s been an incredible influence on my life. The experience is unforgettable, the history’s fantastic–I just think the whole thing is really neat. The attention now being paid to what the British were doing 75 years ago has taken away the focus on deaths. I think that’s good
Q: With the traffic jams of scores of yearly expeditions and more than a dozen prescribed routes with fixed ropes and ladders across the deadly ice falls, why is it as difficult as it ever was to climb Everest?
A: It’s difficult and dangerous, and you need to be a little bit lucky. You can be the best climber in the world and if you’re out of luck, that’s it. The standard routes have been climbed a number of times, but there’s a number of routes that have been climbed rarely–the East Face, the Southwest Face, the West Ridge, the North Face, very difficult climbs.
Everest is a unique elevation. There at the summit really represents the limit of human performance. I don’t think human beings can go much higher than that, but they can just barely get to that point. The highest mountain in the world represents the highest that man can go.
But imagine what it must have been like for the British. An unknown kingdom piercing the sky, forbidden, treacherous, with death always just a step away–and then at the last minute they disappear into the mist to become part of the mountain and the myth forever.
Q: They didn’t have much going for them besides bravery–or hubris–did they?
A: They were very tough. They’d been on the road for several months, they’d walked all the way across Tibet. They were climbing in those days with such primitive equipment–canvas tents, leather boots, tweed jackets–and they didn’t have the knowledge of the mountain that we do. But when we compare their climbing times with ours today, they were just as fast.
Two of Mallory’s partners (Norton and Somervell) made it to 28,000 feet without oxygen. That record stood until 1978 when the Italian climber Reinhold Messner finally made the first ascent without it. So between 1924 and 1978 nobody climbed any higher without oxygen than these guys did.
Q: At that height you’re getting only one-third the oxygen you get at sea level. How is it possible to function?
A: We acclimatize gradually. At least 50 people have climbed Everest without oxygen, but it’s still very difficult to do. Your brain just functions better with it. You think clearly. You’re much less likely to make a mistake. Mallory and Irvine were using it. They had a primitive system, but this actually works into one of the most important clues we brought back from the expedition.
The only previous evidence had been the discovery in 1933 of Irvine’s ice ax at 28,000 feet, so we knew they’d been up there someplace. Then in 1975 a Chinese climber found the body of what he called `an old English dead.’ We think it was Irvine and it remains up there. The Chinese climber was then killed in an avalanche, so the knowledge died with him.
But among the things we found on Mallory’s body were a number of notes and lists. They looked like scribbles, but we pieced the puzzle together and found out how much oxygen they’d had for the summit bid.
Q: And you discovered they had enough, correct?
A: From the notes, we determined they had three bottles apiece, which would have left them with 12 hours of oxygen, enough to allow them to get very high on the mountain.
Q: So the key issue is whether they were going up or coming down when they fell. The body was found on a snow terrace, just below the spot where an ice ax believed to be Irvine’s was found in 1933. High winds swept the snow away and revealed Mallory’s body beneath the drafts. The head was frozen into the ground and you didn’t remove the body but removed handwritten letters addressed to Mallory, an altimeter, a pocket knife and a piece of rope. You cut a small piece of flesh from the arm for DNA analysis. Anything else?
A: Yes. Mallory’s goggles were found in his pocket, suggesting they were coming down in the evening and he had removed his sunglasses. The whole story hinges on timing.
Q: It is easy to imagine them in the dark, stumbling on a low angle in treacherous terrain. Some fresh snow made it easy to slip, so one of them started tumbling in a fall, out of control, dragging the partner with him. They fought to stop, but they were exhausted, sleep-deprived, dehydrated, hypoxic. Mallory was found gripping the mountain for eternity.
A: Yes. The fact that his body wasn’t terribly destroyed suggests he didn’t fall all that far. A head wound, which would have been fatal, probably knocked him unconscious. But he may have realized his fate. He had broken his leg and had covered it gently with the other leg, protectively. He never could have survived the night in light clothing.
Q: You buried him where you found him. But the mystery still eats at you, doesn’t it?
A: Sure. In order to get to the point where they fell, they would have had to make it quite a ways before it got dark. So the timing is everything.
Really, though, whether they made it is not as important as understanding what they were doing 75 years ago. The incredible human adventure story. Maybe they made it, maybe not. It doesn’t matter. What was really cool is what they were trying to do.
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An edited transcript
