A documentary team has discovered remains on Mount Everest believed to be those of a mountaineer who disappeared while attempting to reach the summit 100 years ago. national geographic. Due to climate change, snow and ice in the Himalayas are melting, exposing the bodies of climbers who lost their lives trying to reach the world's highest peaks.
British mountaineer Andrew Irvine disappeared with his climbing partner George Mallory in 1924 while trying to be the first to reach the 8,848-meter (29,029-foot) summit of Mount Everest. Mallory's body was recovered in 1999, but Irvine's fate remained a mystery until a National Geographic team recently discovered it on Mount Everest's central Rongbuk Glacier. They found a boot with a human foot inside and a sock with a sewn-in label that read “AC IRVINE.”
The discovery could provide important clues about the whereabouts of the climbers' belongings and solve one of mountaineering's most enduring mysteries: whether Irvine and Mallory reached the summit before their deaths. It is possible. If proven, they would have reached the summit nearly 30 years before the first confirmed ascent in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.
“This probably tells the whole story of what happened,” Julie Summers, Irvine's great-niece, said in an interview with National Geographic. She added, “I've lived with this story ever since I was seven years old, when my father told me about the mystery of Uncle Sandy on Everest. Jimmy told me he saw A.C. Irvine's name on a sock label. I was moved to tears in the trunk, and it will always be a moving moment.”
The first recorded ascent of Mount Everest was on May 29, 1953, by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. Ten years later, in 1963, Jim Whitaker became the first American to accomplish this feat.
Members of the Irvine family reportedly offered to provide DNA samples to confirm the identity of the remains.
Irvin, who was just 22 years old at the time of his disappearance, was last seen on the afternoon of June 8, 1924, on the final push to the summit with Mallory.
Earlier this year, Mallory's last letter to his wife was digitized and published online by the University of Cambridge. In it, he wrote that the odds of reaching the summit were “50 to 1 against us.”
Irvine is believed to have been carrying a small camera at the time, and it has been discovered that it could potentially rewrite the history of mountaineering.
“This was a monumental and emotional moment for us and the entire team on the ground. We can only hope that this will finally bring relief to his relatives and the entire climbing community,” said Climbing Team Member and National・Climbing team member Jimmy Chin said: Geographical explorer. Chin has chosen not to reveal the exact location of the remains to deter potential trophy hunters, but remains hopeful that other artifacts, including a camera, may be nearby. “It certainly narrows the search area,” he says.
Since the 1920s, more than 300 climbers have lost their lives on Mount Everest.
