Everest, Mallory and Irvine. What did happen in 1926?

27 April 2003

THE enduring mystery of who first conquered Everest may at last be solved after a veteran climber said he knew where to find the body of Sandy Irvine, who disappeared near the summit in 1924.

Xu Jing, deputy leader of a Chinese expedition in 1960, has belatedly revealed that he found Irvine’s body at 27,300ft on the northeast ridge of the mountain. The location is above the scree slope where the remains of Irvine’s climbing companion, George Mallory, were discovered in 1999.

The question of whether Mallory and Irvine reached the summit almost 30 years before Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay has turned their doomed ascent into one of almost legendary stature. The mystery could now be solved, because Irvine was said to be carrying a camera that he could have used to photograph the pair at the top.

Xu, 77, whose expedition was the first to climb Everest from the north — as Mallory and Irvine did — and survive, said in an interview in Beijing this weekend that he was alone at dawn when he found Irvine’s body.

“I found his body in a crack one metre wide, with steep cliffs on both sides,” Xu said. “He was in a sleeping bag, as if he was taking shelter, fell asleep and never awoke.

“His body was intact but his skin was blackened. He was facing up. After I returned, I did some research of the historical records and realised it must have been Irvine.”

Xu said he was the only member of the Chinese team to see the body because he was lagging behind and turned round at about 28,000ft, 1,000ft below the summit. “I saw the body on the last of four attempts to make it to our camp 7. On my return down, I took a more direct route.

“I felt sad; if possible I would have buried him. But I was reaching my limit and it was in a difficult crack. I just couldn’t do anything.”

Asked why he had failed to make public his discovery at the time he said: “I just didn’t register that that was something significant.”

Xu’s revelation is likely to trigger searches by the many expeditions now on Everest, marking the 50th anniversary of the first authenticated ascent by Hillary and Tenzing.

Erin Simonson, who helped to organise the 1999 expedition that recovered Mallory’s body and which was led by her husband Eric, said: “He would like to go back and although there are no definite plans it could be as early as next year.”

Mallory’s body was also first found by a Chinese climber.

In 1975 Wang Hongbao was looking for one of his missing companions when he came across the body.

He told an outsider about it only in 1979 and died the next day in an avalanche.

However, the tenuous story provided sufficient clues for Simonson and his academic adviser, Jochen Hemmleb, to make their discovery of Mallory’s remains.

Audrey Salkeld, co-author of The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine and an authority on Everest, said Xu’s disclosure pointed to a new theory about what happened to them after they were spotted on the northeast ridge on June 8, 1924, by Noel Odell, “going strong for the top”.

“Mallory was found with frayed rope still attached to him,” said Salkeld. “It may be he slipped, Irvine tried to hold him and then the rope snapped over a rock between them.

“If the story of the sleeping bag is correct — two bags were found in the climbers’ last tent — then it points to a very poignant story of Irvine surviving a fall, bivouacking for the night and failing to get back to the tent.” The bag seen by Xu may have been a spare.

Salkeld says there are reasons for Xu’s long silence. “For years the international climbing community did not believe the Chinese account of their first ascent of Everest from the north,” she said.

“The members of the Chinese expedition were following orders and they had to stick to the party line. They didn’t want to discuss Mallory and Irvine because it would have detracted from their ascent.”

Xu has also made the claim about Irvine in an interview with Simonson and Hemmleb, to be published in a book, Detectives on Everest, to be published in Britain in May.

“He had bottled it up for years and finally decided to break from the party line,” said Salkeld.

Mallory’s body yielded personal letters, sun goggles and an altimeter, but not the camera lent by Howard Somervell that might have provided conclusive evidence about how high he and Irvine had managed to climb. It may be that Irvine’s body could surrender this final secret. Film can survive at these altitudes for decades.

Until then, the debate about whether they got to the summit almost 30 years before Hillary and Tenzing will continue.

The evidence remains ambiguous. Odell’s sighting of them in a sudden clearing of the clouds at 28,230ft is contentious. He later changed his story, reducing the estimated altitude.

The only hard evidence of their progress is that Irvine’s ice axe was found at 27,760ft during the next British expedition to attempt the route in 1933, and in 1999 one of the duo’s oxygen bottles was found a little higher.

The only man to have seen Irvine since insists he could not have reached the summit. Xu said: “We were the first to reach the top from the north. Even the Americans say so.”