Finding George Mallory

Did George Mallory and Andrew Irvine of the 1924 British Expedition reach the top of the highest mountain in the world?

It has been more than a century after the two climbers were last seen just 300m below the summit. And 26 years ago Mallory’s remains were found on the North Face of Everest, while Irvine’s boot was located at its base. 

Some doubt that the two could have reached the top with the level of equipment and clothing of the time, but others are convinced that at least one of them made it but had an accident on the way down.

Among those who believe Mallory and Irvine were the first to climb Mt Everest, and not Hillary and Tenzing in 1953, are the Nepali guides who took part in the research expeditions in 1999, 2001 and 2004 to find clues about Mallory and Irvine.

Mallory’s body was found 8,125m on the North Face in 1999, and Irvine’s detached foot and sock with his initials inside a leather hob-nailed boot was found in 2024 in the Rongbuk Glacier below the North Face. Various expeditions have recovered a mitten, an oxygen cylinder, and ice axe from that expedition.

“I believe they reached the summit, and fell on the way down in the dark and bad weather,” says Panuru Sherpa, who has climbed Mt Everest 16 times, including on the northern route taken by four British expeditions in 1921, 1922, 1924 and 1933.

“They were making good progress past the Second Step from where it is a much easier hour-and-half to the summit. A climber who reaches that point below the final pyramid does not turn back.”

Panuru is convinced that the location of Mallory’s body and Irvine’s ice axe shows that the two had not lost their way on their descent. He told Nepali Times in Denver, where he now lives: “Mallory’s body was not decomposed even after 75 years, and his exposed back was white like marble. One of legs was broken, and there was an altimeter and letters written to his wife Ruth in his pocket.”

He remembers the search team was happy to locate Mallory, but it was unable to find one of the three cameras believed to be with the duo that could have held the proof that the two, or at least one of them, had indeed been the first to climb Everest. 

There was a deep wound around Mallory’s waist, which could have been caused during the fall by the rope which was still found tied around his body. Mallory’s remains were covered in stone slabs at the site after a brief ritual, Panuru recalls.

A 1975 Chinese expedition reported seeing the body of a Western climber, which was probably Mallory, near their Camp VI. There are rumours in climbing circles that the Chinese also found a camera, but that the negative could not be developed.

Everest summiteers have said the Second Step’s 45m overhanging cliff at 8,610m would have been “essentially insurmountable”, and it is only possible today because the Chinese fixed aluminium ladders to the rock face in 1975. 

But Panuru agrees with other mountaineering historians who believe Mallory could have decided to take a route below the northeast ridge and bypass the Second Step, following the advice of fellow team member Ed Norton who set the then world record by reaching 8,572m.

The other finding that could indicate that Mallory reached the top was that a photograph of his wife Ruth which he intended to place at the summit was not in his pocket. 

EVEREST CONNECTION

Panuru is the son of Nima Tsering Sherpa, who was a part of the 1953 expedition to Mt Everest that made Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay the first climbers on the world’s highest peak. Nima carried loads for that expedition up to the South Col.

Nima had eight sons and a daughter, Panuru is the sixth, and most of his siblings are also climbers. After the successful 1953 expedition, Nima spent time grazing yaks, growing potatoes and raising his family in Phortse. He joined expeditions to support the family.

The young Panuru would meet mountaineers who stopped by at the family’s tea house in Phortse. He has walked the Jiri route to Kathmandu many times, and his eldest brother who worked for Mountain Travel Nepal got him a job as a trekking guide.

Panuru ended up joining expeditions, climbing Everest from both sides multiple times. Panuru Sherpa’s brother Danuru was the youngest member of the 1999 expedition, and a year earlier had first climbed Everest from the Nepal side when he was only 18. The siblings are now chefs at the Sherpa House in Colorado. 

In 2001, both brothers were members of another expedition composed of 20 foreign and 21 Nepali climbers led by David Hahn that tried to find Irvine in the same area of the North Face, guided by the discovery of Irvine’s ice axe in a 1933 expedition as well as sightings of what was believed to be his body near the ridge above. No more clues were found then, or in 2004 when Danuru returned for another search expedition.

Remnants of Irvine and Mallory’s Camp VI were found at 8,600m during the 2001 expedition, only about 300m from where Mallory’s body was located. 

“It was probably dark when Mallory fell because his snow goggles were in his pocket,” says Danuru, who has taken part in the three search expeditions on the north side and is also convinced the two fell on their way down after reaching the summit.

Altogether 13 people died on Everest during the three expeditions that Mallory was involved in, of which nine were Nepali porters, cooks and guides who were hired in Darjeeling before the march-in.

“Chomolungma and Sherpa are synonymous,” says Danuru. “It was Chomolungma that made the Sherpa people famous globally, and it was Sherpas who made it possible to climb Everest.”

Konrad Anker, who led the 1999 team that found Mallory’s body, doubts that one or both the climbers reached the summit in 1924, mainly because of the difficulty of climbing a cliff at 8,600m with the kind of gear they had. 

“It is possible, but unlikely they climbed the Second Step with 1920s equipment, but even getting to that altitude back then was an incredible accomplishment,” he has said.

After the expedition, Anker and Panuru worked together to set up the Khumbu Climbing Center to upgrade the technical skills of Nepali guides. Panuru has also trained hundreds of fellow Nepali guides, and many of them regard him as a mentor.

Panuru knew the need for better training because he himself had been badly wounded during a fall into a crevasse in the Khumbu Icefall in one of his early expeditions in 1992 and had to be evacuated by helicopter to Kathmandu. 

But the very next year, he was back on the mountain. He climbed Everest from the north with a Korean team in 1994, and a year later got to the top again from the north side with an American expedition. He summited again from the Nepal side in 1996, and nearly died in an avalanche on the north side that killed a fellow Sherpa in 1997. 

So far, Panuru has climbed Everest 16 times, Cho Oyu 14 times from both sides, Xixapangma four times, five other eight-thousanders in Nepal, and Ama Dablam six times. He was the first Nepali to ascend Gurla Mandhata in Tibet. After emigrating to the United States, he has climbed Mt Denali (6,190m) in Alaska three times while also being a part of a volunteer rescue team. 

Irvine’s boot was found by an expedition led by American climber Jimmy Chin in the Rongbuk Glacier, probably transported there from the base of the face by the movement of ice in the past 100 years.

Asked why he climbed Everest 16 times, Panuru echoes George Mallory: “Because I was there.”