June 8th - The Day That Mallory And Irvine Tried To Conquer Everest

It was on this day, June 8th in 1924 that George Mallory and Andrew Irvine lost their lives on an attempt to climb the then-unclimbed Mount Everest.


When a team of Everest climbers found Mallory's body in 1999 it was aparent that Mallory had fallen from a much higher ridge...but he had his 'goggles' in his pocket which would suggest that he wasnt facing the sun, which would in turn suggest he was coming back from the summit, or as near as they got to it..
..or...would it ??


On his attempt a few days earlier, Edward Norton (a soldier and head of his expedition) had suffered serious snow-blindness because he did not wear his goggles, so Mallory would be unlikely to have dispensed with them in daylight, and given their known departure time and movements, had they not attempted the summit pyramid it is unlikely that they would have still been out by nightfall. An alternative scenario is that Mallory may have carried an extra pair and the pair he was wearing was torn off in his fall.


It would be another 29 years before Edmund Hillary & Tenzing Norgay climbed the mountain.


Did they make it ??...Were they the first ??


..more on the 1924 Everest expedition here