[decimon]

Caption: The north side of Mount Everest is the area believed to be consumed by extreme storms during the Mallory & Irvine expedition.

Credit: Dr John Semple

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[decimon]

Low on high ping.

Not very long ago but interesting.

[The Good Doctor]

Extreme weather at the top of a huge mountain contributed to their demise? I don’t believe it.

[waterhill]

They found Mallory...

[IBIAFR]

I suspect this author has never been to high altitude. I’ve seen people hypoxic and worse yet suffering from HAPE and HACE at 11,000ft in the Khumbu Valley. Suffering hypoxia on a climb is a given. That’s what acclimatization days are for. The barometer could rise 20mbr at the summit of Everest and you still can’t breathe. Far more likely is white out from the storm led to a fall and the broken leg observed when they found Mallory’s body a few years ago. Have to remember equipment 80 years ago was much heavier and not nearly as warm also.

[SES1066]

Climbing this mountain today requires preparation, skill and a bravery that borders upon stupidity. Even so, people pay big money every year to DIE on that mountain and their bodies frequently stay there because no one has the ability to take the corpse down the slope. [There are 120 or so corpses on Mt. Everest right now.]

This is life at the very edge of habitable conditions. When George Mallory and Andrew Irvine did their climb, they were amongst the very best in the world but they didn't return. The most valuable camera in the world is a "Vest Pocket" Kodak that lies somewhere on the slopes of Everest. It and it alone could prove that Sir Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay were not the 1st to the summit in 1953. There is at least one expedition being planned just to look for Irvine's body and this camera in 2011.