Truth: Mountaineer charts intrepid attempt

A lost climber, a missing camera and fears

From far below, they were two tiny dots close to the summit of the world’s highest mountain. It was just before

on June 8, 1924 and the dots seen by geologist Noel Odell were George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, soon to be lost in a ferocious snow storm.

But were they going up or down? Had they reached the summit before their death? Were they the first men to see the top of the world? Did they make it?

Those questions have obsessed mountaineers since the pair’s epic and fatal climb in 1924 because if the young British climbers – in hobnail boots and Gabardine coats – had reached Everest’s 29,035ft summit – then dubbed The Third Pole – the history books would need to be rewritten.

They would have beaten New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, who took the record in 1953, by some 30 years. They would also have been the first to successfully do it on the deadly North Face, almost 40 years before a Chinese team Everest author made the climb Mark Synnott in 1960.

All that is known is that Mallory, 37, and Irvine, 22 and known as Sandy – who is said to have carried a Vest Pocket Kodak ( VPK) camera that might hold proof of the men on the summit – died on the mountain. The body of Mallory – who once famously replied when asked why he wanted to climb Everest “because it is there” – was found in 1999. Many have tried to find Irvine and his Kodak but failed. The only clue came two years later in 2001 when one of the 1960 Chinese climbers claimed he had seen a body on the North Face that was not Mallory so had to be Irvine.

Now Mark Synnott, the National Geographic explorer and climber, who, armed with fresh intelligence in 2019, searched the area known as the Holzel Spot and found nothing, reveals startling new information in his latest book that raises a new question: did the Chinese remove Irvine’s body to protect its own 1960 record?

Synnott was part of an 18-strong expedition led by the New Zealander Jamie Mcguinness. He revealed: “One of his local contacts told Jamie that he had heard directly from a China Tibet Mountaineering (CTMA) official that the Chinese had beat us to the Holzel Spot and carried Irvine’s body off the mountain and back to Lhasa, where it is kept under lock and key with other Mallory artefacts, including the VPK.”

He said the information echoed rumours they had heard earlier in the expedition but were unable to confirm, but, he claimed, in 2012, a Chinese liaison officer had told Mcguinness the body was taken before 2008. Synnott, who has also had sight of a “top secret” Chinese document about the country’s record-breaking 1960 ascent, writes in his book, The Third Pole: “After hearing Jamie’s more recent revelations, I started to wonder if there was more in it.”

The 51-year-old dad-of-four, a highly respected professional climber, revealed he shared the details with Jochen Hemmleb, a world expert on Everest, who was also part of the group, that was led by Eric Simonson, that found

Mallory’s body in 1999. He said that Hemmleb “had heard the same thing from his Chinese contacts”.

Hemmlebb, who has been working on the mystery himself for 34 years with four expeditions on Everest, said that because of its sheltered position, it was more likely the body was moved, rather than being swept away by wind or avalanche. He said he did not want to “finger point”. But, he confirmed: “I have picked up similar rumours from different persons than Mark did. I second Mark on this. I am on the same page as him.”

Synnott accepts that the information is only hearsay but in the book, he stresses: “We now have multiple sources all essentially saying the same thing: the Chinese found Irvine, removed the body, and are jealously guarding this information from the rest of the world – all to protect the claim that the 1960 Chinese team was the first to reach the summit of the Third Pole from the north.”

He has also had sight of a Chinese document on the 1960 mission prepared for the country’s leaders, revealing the importance of the record to China. Simonson, who attended Madras College secondary school in St Andrews while living in Scotland and now runs International Mountain Guides in