Everest expedition doesn't turn out picture-perfect
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Seventy-seven years after a stumble, a fall, and two cold, quiet deaths, the mystery of Mallory and Irvine remains just that.
Eric Simonson's 2001 Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition is back from the North Face of Everest - without the famous Kodak pocket camera carried by British climbers George Leigh Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine on June 8, 1924.
Which is not to say the expedition was a bust.
"We found some cool old stuff," Simonson says. "I wish we could say we had the definitive clue, but we don't."
That clue might be the Kodak portable camera Mallory, then Britain's most acclaimed climber, and his young companion were known to have taken with them to their highest camp, Camp VI, before their historic, courageous - and ultimately fatal - summit bid.
The camera wasn't found on or near the body of Mallory, discovered by Conrad Anker at 27,000 feet in 1999. Simonson, who led that expedition (chronicled in the book, "Ghosts of Everest"), returned in March to search for Irvine, who may have carried the precious Kodak cargo.
If he had it, he still does. No trace of Irvine was found.
The group did manage to search several primary target areas early in the trip, but snows later blanketed the upper ridge, making search conditions more challenging.
Still, a lot went on under the watchful eyes of Simonson, whose International Mountain Guides Web site (www.mountainguides.com) contains a fascinating, detailed chronology. Some highlights:
• In late April, climbers Brent Okita and Jake Norton discovered Mallory and Irvine's Camp VI, at 26,700 feet on the Northeast Ridge. The camp had last been spotted by a British expedition in 1933. It had never been photographed, and its precise location was a mystery.
A search that included a small metal detector found frayed tent poles and canvas, tins of tea, a sock and other small items.
Simonson admits to having held out some hope of finding either the camera or climbing journals at Camp VI - things that might have been overlooked by harried British climbers when they descended the Northeast Ridge 68 years ago. None were found, although he believes more might be found at the site, a precarious perch now partially covered by fallen rock.
The location of the camp itself is significant: It's lower on the mountain than previously believed. That only adds to the debate of their fate: It means Mallory and Irvine had farther to go on their summit day than anyone thought. On the other hand, it means they were making better time than anyone suspected before they were spotted high on the Northeast Ridge by colleagues below.
• Much of the research expedition's time and energy wound up being exerted on rescues of stranded and dying members of some of the other 21 groups on Everest's north side this spring.
On May 6, three team members rescued two stranded Chinese glaciologists, saving their lives. And on May 24, team members Dave Hahn, Richards and Jason Tanguay, with Sherpa companions Pu Dorje and Pu Nuru, abandoned a final summit bid to rescue five climbers who had spent the night above 28,000 feet.
Three of the climbers were Russians encountered between the First and Second Step. Once they were secured, with new supplies on the way, Hahn, Richards and Tanguay pushed on up the ridge, only to discover another stranded pair, a U.S. guide and a Guatemalan client, who had spent the night at 28,500 feet and were barely able to stand. The trio, only 500 feet from the top, gave up the summit to save two lives. One of the Russian climbers later died on the way down while being assisted by team member Andy Politz.
"I guess it was the right time and place for the people we kept running into, but the wrong time for us," Simonson says. "But, well, that's the way it is. You can't just walk past people."
Apparently, some climbers can.
Climbing teams from Spain and Colombia walked right past the scene of the high-altitude rescues by Simonson's group. Simonson won't come right out and criticize the other climbers for their choices, saying in a Web posting that he "understands" the pressures to summit.
"On the other hand," he writes, "making the summit would be tainted for me if I achieved this at the cost of someone's life. These are tough calls. Let's just say that at high altitude, there is little justice."
He was proud of his guys, he says - and encouraged enough by their discoveries to consider a resumption of the search in 2003.
"I still think there's a mystery up there to be solved."
But days like May 24 tend to change your perspective forever.
At the very time Simonson's climbers were saving lives high on Everest, the mountain took one back: A young Australian climber emerged from a tent at Camp 5, 26,000 feet - and abruptly dropped dead.
Whether climbing's biggest mystery is solved, the lesson of Mallory and Irvine might be painfully simple: Altitude kills.
"All this death and destruction really puts in perspective the research objectives of our expedition," Simonson said in a final Internet dispatch. "We love the history of the early pioneer climbers. But we just can't forget what a dangerous place this can be.
"George Mallory and Andrew Irvine were the first in what has become a very long list of people who went too far, past the point of no return, and paid the big price."
Ron C. Judd's outdoors columns run Sundays in Sports and Thursdays in Northwest Weekend. He can be reached at 206-464-8280 or rjudd@seattletimes.com.