Mount Everest, Northeast Ridge, 8450 m, June 9, 1924
 Foreword by Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner and Ralf Dujmovits
The Last Witness
Snooper
Post-mortem at 8155 m
A Public Case
On Trail of the Past
The Empty Tent
Vanished in the Mists
The Ice-Axe
Steps, Lies, and Video
The Dark Wall
Close Encounters
Evidence from Things not seen
The Body on the Ridge
Impossible Verdict
"To Fight and to Understand"
Appendix:
The Findings of the Mallory & Irvine Research Expeditions
Notes and References
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index
[click on each chapter for an excerpt]
Foreword by Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner and Ralf Dujmovits
„Mountaineering on the 8000-metre peaks, and on Mount Everest in particular, has sadly taken a Stepp backwards over the past two decades. From climbing ‘by fair means’ that was propagated in the 1970s and 1980s but is done by only a few these days, it has gone back to the fixed-rope alpinism that was practised on most first ascents of the 8000ers in the 1950s. It is climbing ‘by all means’, with the summit as the only goal – no matter what and how many means it takes.“ (P. 9)
„This kind of mountaineering mirrors our society. It speaks volumes about today’s definition and understanding of success. Only absolutes count – the highest summit, the fastest time, the maximum gain. The style of an undertaking or the philosophy behind it counts little. Mallory represented a different kind of mountaineering ...“ (P. 9)
„By minutely reconstructing Mallory’s last climb through the discoveries on the mountain and reports from other expeditions, Jochen Hemmleb provides the hitherto deepest insight into the history of the early Everest expeditions – and thus into Mallory’s character, his time, and his spirit.“ (P. 10)
The Last Witness
„What did it all mean? A ‘sleeping’ (dead?) ‘English’ at 8100 m? … Hasegawa wanted to make sure that he hadn’t misunderstood the key part of what Wang Hongbao was saying. He etched into the snow the characters ‘8100 m – dead English body’ – and Wang gave a big nod. As Hasegawa realized the meaning of Wang’s gestures, he was awestruck … The ‘dead English’ had to be Mallory or Irvine!“ (P. 14)
„Should there be something like ‘the curse of Mount Everest’? Because the third victim of the avalanche meant that the most important witness in the greatest riddle of the mountain was silenced forever. – The third victim was Wang Hongbao.“ (P. 16)
„What Hasegawa didn’t know at the time: Wang hadn’t been the only Chinese witness in the Mallory case. Already in 1960, another climber had found an unknown body high on Mount Everest – yet 41 years were to pass before he told his story“ (P. 16)
How it all began: The discovery of the “English dead” in 1975
Xu Jing’s sensational revelation: a second unknown body on the north face of Everest
Snooper
„It was the classic crime novel: Two men disappear, the sole eyewitness contradicts himself, a body is found, the finder is killed. But this detective story was real. And unresolved. Could I …? When I finished the last pages of the book, I had an unerring gut feeling: This story was going to lead to something in my life!“ (P. 20)
Jochen Hemmleb: from geology student to co-instigator of the expedition that discovered Mallory
Post-mortem at 8155 m
„Ned and Liesl, our film crew at Basecamp, and I looked at each other. What had happened up there? I spoke out my thoughts: ‘… but Conrad mentioned ‘boulder’, the code word. Does it mean ...?’ The radio remained silent. Meanwhile high up on the north face everything was settled. Conrad had been in the process of climbing back to the others from the lower rim of the snow terrace. As he traversed the down-sloping scree ledges, he looked again over his right shoulder – and suddenly spotted something white among the rocks ... Soon after, Conrad again stood in front of a body. But this body was not from recent years...“ (P. 35)
The discovery of the Everest pioneer: the events of May 1, 1999
A Public Case
„Back home, the media onslaught continued … My life accelerated as if somebody had put me atop a rocket and lit the fuse.“ (P. 40)
„The artificially created ‘hero-and-villain’ story was easy to sell in its simplicity – a correct representation of the events and the inherently complex and often contradicting nature of climbing (and climbers) it was not.“ (P. 42)
„Mallory’s strengths, his pioneering spirit and his mysterious disappearance on Mount Everest became the foundation of the myth. But his obvious weaknesses are what make Mallory so personally touching, fascinating, and worth discussing...“ (P. 44)
Mallory: myth and reality – then and now
The Empty Tent
„What was Mallory thinking before this last summit bid? What plans did he make? … After their last conversation on the evening of June 4, Edwand Norton noted the essentials of Mallory’s plans and later published them in a footnote to his official expedition account. Strangely enough, this footnote is ignored by many authors reconstructing Mallory and Irvine’s last climb“ (P. 92)
The last days before the summit: the Mallory notes
Vanished in the Mists
„Judging Mallory and Irvine’s chances of having reached the summit depends to a certain degree on the quantity of oxygen they had available or could have taken on their ascent. … From the available documents and from the traces found on the mountain we know roughly how many oxygen bottles Mallory and Irvine had at their disposal the night before the summit. Mallory’s last note to Odell indicates how many bottles he probably took on his summit bid. How many bottles he and Irvine did take on June 8 is something we don’t know yet. But there is a hint …“ (P. 102ff.)
The oxygen question and a possible answer
„After nearly four hours of climbing, Brent and Jake had put the major part of the Yellow Band behind them and approached the crest of the Northeast ridge. Jake was about to bypass a cone-shaped tower when he suddenly glimpsed a patch of wool protruding from between the snow and a rock “ (P. 106)
A new trace of Mallory and Irvine?
„’I had no hallucinations. They were moving, actually, moving figures. … I tell you they were climbers!“ (P. 119)
The testimonies and contradictions of the last eyewitness
The Ice-Axe
„Wyn-Harris was perhaps 20 meters below the ridge crest, when he saw something metallic glinting among the ochre-brown rocks. …“ (P. 129)
The first trace of Mallory and Irvine, and its possible meaning
„’The gully was a delusion, a mere shallow scoop in the smooth walls … A few knobbly excrescences could be found which, with less snow about, would afford a tolerably good foothold. For the hands there was nothing …“ (P. 131)
Was Mallory’s route a dead-end? The observations of the 1933 expedition
Steps, Lies, and Video
„Liu Lienman attempted the wall first. He placed a piton in a crack above his head and started to climb up. Four times he fell when his crampons skidded off the small edges of the brittle rock. … Qu Yinhua banged in another piton and tried it, as did Wang Fuzhou – both without success. Time was running out …“ (P. 157f.)
„Liu was so exhausted that he could no longer move at first. His limbs were like paralysed … During the night he slowly realized that he might not make it back to Basecamp …“ (P. 159)
„ A bivouack without shelter at almost 8700 m, a summit climb in the night – to western mountaineers and observers it all seemed very suspect.“ (P. 165)
„Comparison with modern photographs left no doubt – the film sequence was taken at the base of the Third Step“ (P. 166)
The Chinese expedition of 1960: the first confirmed climb of the crux of Mallory’s route – and the film images that prove it
Exclusive interviews with members of the 1960 summit team, Wang Fuzhou, Qu Yinhua, and Liu Lienman
The Dark Wall
„’My inability to make the moves reinforces my belief that Mallory and Irvine were not able to surmount this formidable obstacle.“ (P. 178)
„ ‚I think Mallory was capable of reaching the summit.“ (P. 183)
Could Mallory and Irvine have climbed the crux of their route in 1924? The 1999 controversy – and the interviews with the two climbers who made the first free ascents of the Second Step. One as early as 1985.
Close Encounters
„As little information was published about the place and the oxygen bottle, this left room for much speculation. Was the oxygen bottle from 1924? Was it from the dead body? Was the dead body Andrew Irvine?“ (P. 198)
The years after 2001: What was really found on Everest – and where
Evidence from Things not seen
„Many had hoped that it was the ‘timer’ of the mystery of Mallory and Irvine: Mallory’s watch … Rust marks on the face of the watch seemed to indicate the time of the fatal fall, because it was thought that the watch was stopped by a heavy blow. Both assumptions were proven wrong.“ (P. 202)
Mallorys watch: the clues it provides – and the strange coincidence with another circumstantial evidence in the Mallory case
„’We felt that the Mallory clothing was more than adequate to climb to the summit in. We thought it would be hard to survive a bivouac near the summit, though.“ (P. 209)
Was Mallory’s clothing really as inadequate as often claimed? The surprising conclusions of the British textile experts – and the account of an Everest summit climb in ordinary ski-touring equipment
The Body on the Ridge
„In Mallory’s final resting place – way down the north face and just 300 meters away from the safety of Camp VI – many see evidence that he did not reach the summit. For reasons of time, the place of his death would have to have been higher up the mountain if he had made the top.
Perhaps this was really the case. Something must have happened on the way down 200 meters beyond the First Step. Maybe it was just a first mishap, in which Irvine lost his ice-axe. Maybe it was already the accident that separated the two mountaineers. …“ (P. 218)
„But what happened to Andrew Irvine? Did he survive the accident that killed Mallory? … There was someone who had followed Irvine’s final steps. …“ (P. 220f.)
How did Mallory die? The evidence for a possible second fall
How did Irvine die, and where is his body? Exclusive interviews with Chinese climber Xu Jing about his observations and discoveries in 1960
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