Amazon.com Review
For three quarters of a century, adventure enthusiasts around the globe have speculated about the fate of British mountaineers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine. Did they reach the peak of Mount Everest before disappearing on June 6, 1924? How did they die? What was their fatal mistake? In 1999, the Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition set out to answer these questions by retracing the steps of the doomed climbers, and in
The Ghosts of Everest, they share their findings. William Nothdurft has gracefully woven the testimonies of expedition members Jochen Hemmleb, Eric Simonson, and Larry Johnson, all the while counterpointing the modern ascent with a captivating reconstruction of what befell the earlier one. There are also stunning photographs, which manage to be inspiring and beautiful and gruesome--occasionally all at once. And while it's impossible to establish
exactly what happened to Mallory and Irvine, this account is persuasive enough to fascinate rock climbers and couch potatoes alike.
--Melissa Asher
From Publishers Weekly
One of the great mysteries of modern exploration and adventure is whether British climbers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine reached Mount Everest's summit on their pioneering 1924 expedition in which both men vanished. Were they the first to scale the world's highest spot, decades before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made their successful ascent in 1953? On the 75th anniversary of the ill-fated duo's disappearance, a 1999 Everest expeditionAwith Simonson as team leader, Hemmleb as historical adviser and Johnson as team coordinatorAattempted to retrace Mallory and Irvine's probable route and solve the mystery. Incredibly, they discovered Mallory's bodyAremarkably intact, badly bruised and with a broken legAfrozen in the snow. In a taut narrative that skillfully jump-cuts between the 1924 Mallory/Irvine expedition and their own, the authors make a compelling case that Mallory fell to his death and that he appears to have been roped to Irvine, who also fell and was injured. (Irvine's body was reportedly sighted by a Chinese climber in 1975, but this awaits further proof.) Did Mallory and Irvine make it to Everest's summit? "It is more likely than had previously been thought that they did make itAbut it is still far from certain," conclude the authors. They base their analysis on their findings atop Everest, including personal letters and an inventory of oxygen tanks they found in Mallory's pockets. Their report, a work of historic importance that reads like a detective thriller, includes a moving foreword by Mallory's daughter, Clare Mallory Millikan, plus 100 photographs (80 in color, 20 sepia) illustrating both the 1999 search expedition and Mallory's 1924 attempt. First serial to Outside; author tour. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
