George Mallory

George Herbert Leigh Mallory (18 June 1886 – 8 or 9 June 1924) was an English mountaineer who took part in the first three British expeditions to Mount Everest in the early 1920s.

Born in Cheshire, Mallory became a student at Winchester College, where a teacher recruited him for an excursion in the Alps and he developed a strong natural ability for climbing. After graduating from Magdalene College, Cambridge, he taught at Charterhouse School whilst honing his skills as a climber in the Alps and the English Lake District. He served in the British Army during the First World War and fought at the Somme.

After the war, Mallory returned to Charterhouse before resigning to participate in the 1921 British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition. In 1922, he took part in a second expedition to make the first ascent of the world's highest mountain, in which his team achieved a record altitude of without supplemental oxygen. Once asked by a reporter why he wanted to climb Everest, Mallory famously replied, "Because it’s there."

During the 1924 expedition, Mallory and his climbing partner, Andrew "Sandy" Irvine, disappeared on the northeast ridge of Everest. The last sighting of the pair was approximately 800 vertical feet (245 m) from the summit. Mallory's fate was unknown for 75 years until his body was discovered on 1 May 1999 by a research expedition that had set out to search for the climbers' remains. Whether Mallory and Irvine reached the summit before they died remains a subject of debate, various theories, and continuing research.

Early life, education, and teaching career

George Mallory was born in Mobberley, Cheshire, the son of Herbert Leigh-Mallory (1856–1943), a clergyman who changed his surname from Mallory to Leigh-Mallory in 1914. His mother was Annie Beridge (1863–1946), the daughter of a clergyman in Walton, Derbyshire. George had two sisters and a younger brother, Trafford Leigh-Mallory, the World War II Royal Air Force commander. His parents raised him in a ten-bedroom house on Hobcroft Lane in Mobberley.

In 1896, Mallory attended Glengorse, a boarding school in Eastbourne on the south coast, having transferred from another preparatory school in West Kirby. At 13, he won a mathematics scholarship to Winchester College. In his final year there, a master, R. L. G. Irving, who took several people climbing in the Alps each year, introduced him to rock climbing and mountaineering.

In October 1905, Mallory entered Magdalene College, Cambridge, to study history. Mallory was a keen oarsman who rowed for his college.

While at Cambridge University, he became good friends with future members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Rupert Brooke, John Maynard Keynes, James Strachey, Lytton Strachey, and Duncan Grant, who took some portraits of Mallory.

After gaining his degree, Mallory stayed in Cambridge for a year writing an essay he published as '' Boswell the Biographer'' (1912). He lived briefly in France afterward. In 1910, he began teaching at Charterhouse School, another of England's great public schools, where he met the poet Robert Graves, then a pupil. In his autobiography, '' Goodbye to All That'', Graves remembered Mallory fondly, both for the encouragement of his interest in literature and poetry, and his instruction in climbing. Graves recalled: "He (Mallory) was wasted (as a teacher) at Charterhouse. He tried to treat his class in a friendly way, which puzzled and offended them."

While at Charterhouse, Mallory met his wife, Ruth Turner (1892–1942), who lived in Godalming, Surrey, and they were married in 1914, six days before Britain entered the First World War. George and Ruth had two daughters and a son: Frances Clare (1915–2001), Beridge Ruth, known as "Berry" (1917–1953), and John (1920–2011).

During the First World War, in December 1915, Mallory was commissioned in the Royal Garrison Artillery as a second lieutenant and was promoted to lieutenant on 1 July 1917. He served in France and fought at the Battle of the Somme. Mallory relinquished his commission on 21 February 1920, retaining the rank of lieutenant.

After the war, Mallory returned to Charterhouse, but resigned in 1921 to join the first British expedition of Mount Everest. Between expeditions, he attempted to make a living from writing and lecturing, with only partial success. In 1923, he took a job as a lecturer with the Cambridge University Extramural Studies Department. He was given temporary leave so that he could join the 1924 Everest attempt.

Climbing

In Europe

In 1910, in a party led by Irving, Mallory and a friend attempted to climb Mont Vélan in the Alps, but turned back shortly before the summit due to Mallory's altitude sickness. In 1911, Mallory climbed Mont Blanc, and made the third ascent of the Frontier ridge of Mont Maudit in a party again led by Irving. According to Helmut Dumler, Mallory was "apparently prompted by a friend on the Western Front in 1916 o writea highly emotional article of his ascent of this great climb"; this article was published as "Mont Blanc from the Col du Géant by the Eastern Buttress of Mont Maudit" in the ''Alpine Journal'' and contained his question, "Have we vanquished an enemy?" .e., the mountainto which he responded, "None but ourselves."

By 1913, Mallory had ascended Pillar Rock in the English Lake District, with no assistance, by what is now known as "Mallory's Route"—currently graded Hard Very Severe 5a (Yosemite Decimal Rating 5.9). It is likely to have been the hardest route in Britain for many years.

One of Mallory's closest friends and climbing companions was a young woman named Cottie Sanders, who became a novelist with the pseudonym of Ann Bridge. The nature of their relationship is elusive; Sanders was either a "climbing friend" or a "casual sweetheart". After Mallory died, Cottie wrote a memoir of him, which was never published, but provided much of the material used by later biographers such as David Pye and David Robertson and the novel ''Everest Dream''.

In Asia

Mallory participated in the initial 1921 Mount Everest expedition, organised and financed by the Mount Everest Committee, that explored routes up to Everest's North Col. The expedition produced the first accurate maps of the region around the mountain, as Mallory, his climbing partner Guy Bullock, and E. O. Wheeler of the Survey of India explored in depth several approaches to its peak. Under Mallory's leadership, and with the assistance of around a dozen Sherpas, the group climbed several lower peaks near Everest. His party were almost certainly the first Westerners to view the Western Cwm at the foot of the Lhotse face, as well as charting the course of the Rongbuk Glacier up to the base of the North Face. After circling the mountain from the south side, his party finally discovered the East Rongbuk Glacier—the highway to the summit now used by nearly all climbers on the Tibetan side of the mountain. By climbing up to the saddle of the North Ridge (the North Col), they spied a route to the summit via the North-East Ridge over the obstacle of the Second Step.

In 1922, Mallory returned to the Himalayas as part of the party led by Brigadier General Charles Bruce and climbing leader Edward Strutt, with a view to making a serious attempt on the summit. Eschewing their bottled oxygen, which was at the time seen as going against the spirit of mountaineering, Mallory, along with Howard Somervell and Edward Norton, almost reached the crest of the North-East Ridge. Despite being hampered and slowed by the thin air, they achieved a record altitude of before weather conditions and the late hour forced them to retreat. A second party led by George Finch reached an elevation around using bottled oxygen both for climbing and—a first—for sleeping. The party climbed at record speeds, a fact that Mallory seized upon during the next expedition.

Mallory organised a third unsuccessful attempt on the summit, departing as the monsoon season arrived. On 7 June 1922, while he was leading a group of porters down the lower slopes of the North Col of Everest in fresh, waist-deep snow, an avalanche swept over the group, killing seven Sherpas. The attempt was immediately abandoned, and Mallory was subsequently accused of poor judgement, including by expedition participants such as Dr. Longstaff.

Mallory is famously quoted as having replied to the question, "Why did you want to climb Mount Everest?" with the retort, "Because it's there", which has been called "the most famous three words in mountaineering". Questions have arisen over the authenticity of the quote, and whether Mallory actually said it. Some have suggested that it was a paraphrase by a newspaper reporter, but scrutiny of the original ''Times'' report leaves this unresolved. The phrase was certainly consistent with the direct quotes cited in the report, so it appears not to misrepresent Mallory's attitude.

Mallory's last climb

June 1924 expedition to Everest

Mallory joined the 1924 Everest expedition, led, as in 1922, by Gen. Charles Bruce. Mallory, who was 37 at the time of the expedition, believed his age would make this his last opportunity to climb the mountain, and when touring the US proclaimed that the expedition would successfully reach the summit.

Mallory and Bruce had made the first attempt, which was inexplicably aborted by Mallory at Camp 5. Norton and Somervell then set off from Camp 6, and in perfect weather, Norton managed, without oxygen, to reach , a new record height.

On 4 June 1924, Mallory and Andrew Irvine set off from Advanced Base Camp (ABC) at and had already begun using oxygen from the base of the North Col, which they climbed in hours. Mallory had been converted from his original scepticism about oxygen usage by his failure on his initial assault and recalling the very rapid ascent of Finch in 1922.

At 08:40 on 6 June, they set off, climbing to Camp 5. On 7 June, they reached Camp 6. Mallory wrote he had used only of one bottle of oxygen for the two days, which suggests a climb rate of some 856 vertical feet per hour.

On 8 June, expedition member Noel Odell was moving up behind the pair in a "support role". Around , he spotted the two climbing a prominent rock step, either the First or Second Step, about 13:00, although Odell might, conceivably, have been viewing the higher, then-unknown, "Third Step".

At the time, Odell observed that one of the men surmounted the Second Step on the northeast ridge. Apart from his testimony, there has been no discovery of physical evidence to suggest that Mallory and Irvine climbed higher than the First Step. One of their oxygen cylinders was recovered from below the First Step by Tap Richards on 17 May 1999, and Irvine's ice axe was discovered nearby in 1933. They never returned to their camp.

Presumably, Mallory and Irvine died either late the same evening or on 9 June. The news of Mallory and Irvine's disappearance was widely mourned in Britain and the two were hailed as national heroes. A memorial service was held in London at St Paul's Cathedral on 17 October and was attended by a great assembly of family, friends, and dignitaries including King George V and members of the royal family, Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, and his entire Cabinet.

Mallory's will was proven in London on 17 December; he bequeathed his estate of £1706 17s. 6d. (roughly equivalent to £ in ) to his wife.

Lost on Everest for 75 years

After their disappearance, several expeditions tried to find their remains, and perhaps, determine if they had reached the summit. Frank Smythe, when on the 1936 expedition, believed he spotted a body below the place where Irvine's ice axe had been found three years earlier, "I was scanning the face from base camp through a high-powered telescope...when I saw something queer in a gully below the scree shelf. Of course, it was a long way away and very small, but I've a six/six eyesight and do not believe it was a rock. This object was at precisely the point where Mallory and Irvine would have fallen had they rolled on over the scree slopes," Smythe wrote in a letter to Edward Felix Norton. He kept the discovery quiet as he feared press sensationalism, and it was not revealed until 2013, after the letter was found by his son when preparing his biography.

In late 1986, Tom Holzel launched a search expedition based on reports from Chinese climber Zhang Junyan that his tent-mate, Wang Hungbao, had stumbled across "an English dead" at in 1975. On the last day of the expedition, Holzel met with Zhang Junyan, who reiterated that, despite official denials from the Chinese Mountaineering Association, Wang had come back from a short excursion and described finding "a foreign mountaineer" at "8,100 m." Wang was killed in an avalanche the day after delivering his verbal report, so the location was never more precisely fixed.

In 1999, the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition, sponsored in part by the TV show '' Nova'' and the BBC
...