Evidence gained through a series of expeditions to the world’s highest mountain has added weight to the assertion that George Mallory and his companion Andrew Irvine were the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

Mallory’s last known sighting, by mountaineer Noel Odell, was just 240 metres from the summit, but it wasn’t known whether the pair were on their way to the summit or returning from it. Speaking at a recent lecture at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), Graham Hoyland, who has spent decades researching the mystery, completing eight expeditions to Everest in the process, said that most people presume that Mallory died after attempting to climb the cliff known as the Second Step, and that this is where Odell spotted them. But Hoyland said that this route had never been attempted, so was unlikely to have been chosen by Mallory, especially since his companion wasn’t deemed to be much of a climber.

Instead, Hoyland thinks they took a lower route to the top, known as the Third Step, and that this is where Odell saw them. This route would have presented a much reduced challenge and was closer to the summit, making it more likely that the pair were successful.

In 1999, Hoyland found Mallory’s body 600 metres below the summit, 75 years after his death. Irvine’s body has never been retrieved, and nor has the camera, which could hold the definitive answer to one of mountaineering’s biggest mysteries.

December 2007