The Himalayas seen from the summit of Mount Everest in Nepal on May 31, 2021. Lhakpa Sherpa/AFP via Getty Images Hide caption
Toggle caption Lhakpa Sherpa/AFP (via Getty Images)
What appears to be the partial remains of Andrew “Sandy” Irvine has been discovered by a team of National Geographic mountaineers, the magazine said Friday, one day after the Briton lost his life on an earlier attempt to summit Everest. It was reported that a century has passed.
A crew led by photographer and filmmaker Jimmy Chin found a pair of worn-out socks sticking out of a partially melted chunk of ice on the Central Rongbuk Glacier below the north face of the mountain in September. I found leather boots.
“I lifted the sock and there was a red label sewn in that said AC IRVINE,” Chin told National Geographic.
Irvine, 22, a student at Oxford University, disappeared with his climbing partner George Mallory, 37, while attempting to conquer the world’s tallest mountain in June 1924.
Had they succeeded, the team would have been the first to reach the summit of Everest. However, the two men went missing and were declared dead, and questions remain as to whether they actually made it to the summit.
The first people confirmed to have scaled the majestic peak were nearly 30 years later, in 1953, by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepali-Indian Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.
After their deaths, mystery remains as to Irvin and Mallory’s final fate.
Mallory is an experienced mountaineer and had already taken part in previous British Everest expeditions. His well-preserved remains were discovered in 1999 during a research expedition by Mallory and Irvine.
Mallory’s body showed signs of severe injuries consistent with a sudden fall. But the question of what happened to the inexperienced partner persisted for the next quarter of a century.
The National Geographic team’s discovery provides a key piece to the long-standing mystery of what happened to the two men and how close they got to the summit.
In an interview with National Geographic, Chin said he would not go into detail about exactly where the booted feet were found to ward off people trying to make a name for himself. He said he is hopeful that based on where the boots were found, the rest of Irvine’s remains may be found relatively nearby.
“It does narrow down the search area,” Chin said.
The expedition packed the finds into a cooler and handed them over to the China Tibetan Mountaineering Association, but before doing so they secured DNA samples and provided them to the British Consulate to help positively identify the remains.
“But hey… there’s a label on it,” Chin said, expressing confidence in the veracity of the team’s findings.
