Discovering George Mallory
Warning: This post may offend people sensive to um, well... dead people.
Discovering who you ask. Yes, Mallory isn't exactly a household name in the states. George Mallory was an English mountain climber who took part in the first three British expeditions to Mount Everest in the early 1920s. However on the third expedition, in June 1924, Mallory and his climbing partner disappeared somewhere on the upper Northeast ridge during the final stage of their attempt to first persons to reach the tallest peek of the highest mountain in the world. The pair's last known sighting was only a few hundred metres from the summit. Mallory's ultimate fate was unknown for 75 years, until his body was finally discovered in 1999.
The 1999 expedition was the second attempt ever at searching for the missing climbers. A first attempt in 1986 failed due to bad weather and the death of a Sherpa before reaching the actual search area on the mountain on concept of a exploration team was revived when a marketing director of a publishing company in Harrisburg, PA, presented the concept to mountain guide Eric Simonson. Simonson counts among the most experienced organizers of Everest expeditions, besides having a strong interest in mountaineering history. The BBC expressed interest in filming the documentary of the search and partnered with various other corporations i.e PBS-Nova, ZDF, as well as outdoor equipment companies like Lowe Mountain Sports, Mountain Hardwear, and others. With financing in the bag the exploration began.
Remarkably it only took the group 45 minutes to discover the corpse of three climbers from more recent expeditions. It became apparent that the area was an catchment of sorts for anything or anyone falling down the North Face from the Northeast Ridge.
One of the exploration members was returning from the lower western rim of the basin, when he spotted a blue-yellow object fluttering in the wind. He traversed over for closer examination. As he happened to look over his right shoulder, he suddenly saw "a patch of white, that was whiter than the rock that was around and also whiter than the snow." It was another corpse - but not from recent times.
A bleached-out heel, a nailed leather boot, natural fibre clothing - all this indicated that it must have been there for a long time. It was 11.45 a.m. the body was lying face-down on a sloping ledge, head pointing uphill. The upper torso was firmly frozen into the gravel that had accumulated around it over the years. The clothing consisted of several layers of cotton, silk, wool, flannel and canvas.
The head was covered in a fur-lined motorcycle leather helmet, the right leg still wore putties, three pairs of woollen socks, and a nailed leather boot. Most of the clothing on the back was missing, shorn away by the wind.
The exposed skin was bleached white by the sun, looking like marble. Only where it had been covered the skin showed a yellow-brown colour, the bare hands were almost black in places. Large parts of the buttocks, right thigh, and the abdominal cavity had been pecked by birds.
Everything pointed to a fall. The right tibia and fibula were fractured above the boot top, the lower leg bent at a sharp angle. The right elbow was either broken or dislocated. Closer inspection revealed cuts, abrasions and bruises along the right side of the body. The torso was tangled in a length of broken climbing rope. The rope had squashed the rib cage and probably broken some ribs on the left side. The posture of the body, with its arms stretched out over the head, looked as if the climber had tried to self-arrest. But who was it?
The team then searched the body's clothing for any camera, personal effects and means of identification. Eventually they turned over a piece of the collar and a clothing label became visible. It read George Mallory.
Learn More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mallory
http://www.affimer.org/hemmleb4.html
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