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Daily Mountain
47 years, Australia
Newly discovered pictures reveal the extraordinary bravery of George Mallory's expedition to Mount Everest in 1921.
The newly restored, digitized images are part of a collection featuring First World War veteran Mallory and his hardy team of adventurers who made history in 1921 as part of the first British reconnaissance expedition to the world's highest peak.
In the first image an intrepid explorer can be seen sat pensively on a mound of snow with his hat on and taking a puff on his pipe, with the vertiginous mountains looming in the background.
Mallory, who would return to the mountain two more times, and fellow climber Guy Bullock, made it 23,000 ft up the mountain via the North Col on Everest's north ridge, before atrocious winds forced them to turn back.
The 1921 group, lead by Charles Howard-Bury, were quite poorly prepared by modern standards of climbing.
They did not have any oxygen equipment and levels of fitness in the group, who were mostly in their fifties, was poor and the equipment rudimentary.
Mallory wrote to Ruth, his wife, in June 1921 saying they were about to 'walk off the map'.
When the mountain finally appeared into view according to The Times he wrote: 'The problem of its great ridges and glaciers began to take shape and to haunt the mind.'
The pictures were restored by Salto Ulbeek Studio in Belgium for the Royal Geographical Society.
They will go on display in a free exhibition in London from 29 October.
Despite being forced to turn back, Mallory did not give up and would return to the mountain in 1922 in an attempt to conquer the world's highest peak.
The 1922 expedition is considered the first ascent on the world's tallest mountain and it was the first to use bottled oxygen to aid mountaineers as they neared the 29,000-ft peak.
But the trip ended in tragedy when, on their third attempt at reaching the summit, the group were hit by an avalanche and seven men died.
The group did have some success, becoming the first ever climbers to go above 26,000 feet, the first to use of oxygen bottles, paving the way for future attempts and the first to get high quality photos near the summit.
Mallory took part in three expeditions to Everest.
The first, in 1921, was a reconnaissance expedition to assess whether a route could be found up the north side of the mountain.
The south side was then not an option because Nepal was closed to Westerners.
When a route was discovered, Mallory returned the following year with a team led by Charles Bruce and Edward Lisle Strutt, along with more than 100 Tibetan and Nepalese porters.
After setting up a base camp, the group made three attempts at the summit.
The first, undertaken without using oxygen, reached a world record 26,985 ft. The second, with oxygen, reached 27,316 ft before Bruce had a problem with his oxygen mask.
The team's doctors advised against a third attempt because so many of the group were exhausted or ill. But it went ahead and the team was hit by an avalanche.
Nine porters fell into a crevasse and were buried under the snow. Two porters were dug out but seven others died.
After the tragedy, Mallory made a tour of the UK and US and, using the data his group had gained, raised funds for another expedition in 1924, which got to within 900ft of the summit.
Mallory and his fellow climber Andrew 'Sandy' Irvine died during the 1924 expedition and Mallory's body was't found until 1999.
Some still believe they may have reached the peak before they died. Edmund Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay are the first climbers credited with reaching the summit in 1953.
This article first appeared on www.dailymail.co.uk. The original can be read here.
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