The video debunking the internet myth that Irvine was found in 1975: ua-cam.com/video/1s7zQ6SdAWE/v-deo.html To summarize: The Chinese initially said a western climber's body was found because no Chinese climbers died in 1975. Later (after Pan Duo said she saw a Western body), the official narrative was changed and it was announced that one Chinese climber died -- his body visible in photos and videos on the 1975 ascent. Pan Duo was later re-interviewed where she repeated that it was a western climber, apparently unaware that the Chinese had changed the story. This leaves a photo and video of a Chinese body in the exact same location Pan Duo said. As it is unlikely that Wu fell right on top of Irvine, the logical explanation is that someone realized they could get a lot of views if they push a fake story. In addition, one group of the 1933 team climbed a similar route to the 1975 Chinese -- as is show by the map in this video. This again leaves the problem that if Irvine was there in 1975, why was he not seen in 1933? -- with the logical explanation being that Irvine was never in that location. Even without extensive knowledge about the 1975 Chinese expedition, basic skills necessary to navigate the internet of misinformation would tell you that the story from an "anonymous diplomat" -- with no reason to remain anonymous, was likely fake. The fact that the Economist looked into the story a decade ago and passed on running with it after conducting its own investigation is a good sign the story had serious problems. The myth also has all the tell-tale signs of being false -- such as unnecessary details that change, that it was only popularized after Pan Duo died, and that it is directly contradicted by Pan Duo's interview that was recorded. I discuss various basic problems with the myth in the Midterm Exam video: ua-cam.com/video/JtE3VvI8UM8/v-deo.html The only mystery is why some people ask for "proof" that it was debunked. Where is the "proof" that it was true? Just because some nice person tells you something on the internet does not make it true. Nor do "multiple sources saying similar things" confirm anything when all those sources are based on nothing but rumors themselves. If "multiple sources saying similar things" confirmed something as fact, then all the world's religions would be confirmed as fact.
I am 72 and not want to annoy you. But firstly I studied the problem of the watch; people say that it stopped at the momment of the fall, but I believe that it stopped when it freezed. My mother had a very similar watch and I put it in the refrigerator ( - 14 ºC) and it freezed (stoped) in less than 10 minutes. Mallory´s watch protected by clothes and body heat certainly run more. Some 20 years ago I´ve contated Politz, to no avail, asking him to make an enlargement of his photo of the North Face, because I´m sure that we can see two "small snow patchs" - one like a cross (Mallory) and whiter than the snow - as Conrad Anker says when he finds Mallory and the other lying in his left shoulder with his legs folded pointing to the summit, as some chinese has spoken. In the Politz photo you can see a small shadow wich shows that he is in a small ravine easily covered with few snow.
@@antoniopena8101 In terms of the body heat, once he died, it goes away pretty quickly face down in rock. So maybe you are saying he died a little before 1:27, stopped producing heat and the watch froze. Great. I don't see any major difference. It is not going to stay non-frozen more than a couple minutes with his dead body pressed against the rock. Maybe there was snow there at the time, so perhaps you get a couple more minutes. I just don't see why this would be a big deal. Ok, He died at 1:17 AM rather than 1:27. Pretty sure you can figure out what he was doing in those last 18+ hours of climbing. If you have some photo idea, best to go over the the Yeti Academy and have snow monkeys look at it.
I've always enjoyed maps ever since I can remember. Thank you for making this incredible discovery precise and easy for the non-mountaineering folks like myself.
I've watched all your videos on this subject and I wanted to thank you and convey how much I have enjoyed them. Insightful, logical, entertaining and compassionate towards these great but partly forgotten heroes. It would be awesome for someone to fund a feature of all your analysis in time for the 100th anniversary of their death next year. Well done and thanks again
Is it true what I've just read in the newspapers that Andrew Irvines foot, encased in his sock and boot, was found on Everest's Central Rongbuk Glacier, below the mountain's North Face and at a lower altitude than where Mallory's remains were discovered?
It is indeed true. Unfortunately it appears as though avalanches and the glacier have ground Irvine's remains up into fragments, quite unlike Mallory's state of preservation. The things left for us to learn from it might be limited because of that. But he has been found.
I find it an incredible coincidence that his body has remained undiscovered for 100 years despite him following a well known path as well as dozens of official searches for him around that area. They found Mallory the very first day of the first official expedition way back in 1999. We've spent so much time looking for Irvine it beggars belief he still remains hidden. Maybe he really did vanish into the clouds that afternoon of June 8th 1924. 😄 I will say this, they could have missed him on the 04 and 08 searches. Snow was high and they could have easily passed by him by metres and not realised. I hope those areas searched are not written off as he could conceivably have been there.
Irving is still up there, buried in a slide of stone & ice... He would both humour yet appreciate the ongoing quest to find his body - anything to compel the Human Spirit to greater heights, so to speak. ;)
its not a well travelled path, was pretty much abandoned in favor of the current route to the summit. maybe 100 people have traversed that area in last 30 years is my guess.
@@nagel133 Even still, They located Mallory straight away. Been actively looking for Irvine for 24 years in the vicinity(they were roped) and elsewhere and nada.
@@Lord_Thistlewick_Flanders not really, you're confusing all the new content and interest in the Irvine search with the notion that he has been searched for a ton. Given most searches don't last long for obvious reasons, he has been looked for a few times, but by no means has the mountain been scoured. To some extent, Conrad Anker had a bit of fortune finding Mallory so quickly and also had been directed to that body from earlier Chinese. There are stillmany places Irvine could be that have not been searched with any kind of thoroughness.
Thanks for wading in on possible locations for Irvine. And you also answered one of the questions I asked you before. I was wondering if the mountain was steep enough that Irvine could have fallen all the way down the mountain, and you seem to think it’s possible. If the likelihood of them being tied together is high, then the likelihood of Irvine being mostly above or below Mallory is also high. The both would have relatively fallen, in the same path down the mountain.
I have a recollection - sadly unsourced other than my not always infallible memory - that the 1999 team have deliberately obfuscated the exact site of Mallory's body in order to prevent tourist climbers re-disturbing it.
How would they have done that? You can see the location from their numerous photos. Most likely, they are trying to explain why the corpse magically moves every time they need it for their theory to work. If they wanted "tourist climbers" to not disturb it, likely the best thing to have done was to give Mallory a proper burial.... As they hiked down the mountain toward Camp II, Thom stopped and looked back at the gravesite-now about seventy-five feet above him. It wasn’t a proper burial, as there simply weren’t enough stones in the vicinity to fully bury the body. This fact bothered Thom more than anything else. Synnott, Mark. The Third Pole (p. 26). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
@@michaeltracy2356 Thanks, Michael. If I ever find the source, I'll post it here. From memory, it was that they put out misleading info about the exact site of the body, rather than tried to disguise it in situ. But, as you point out in your video, there is footage of the body being discovered, so not a difficult one to work out. And while I'm here, thanks for all the videos - fascinating and illuminating. M
"Deliberately obfuscated" is perhaps too strong. The exact location of the body was never released, but people have plopped locations onto maps based on the still imagery and video that is available. This accounts for the various maps showing the body in slightly different locations. There's no grand conspiracy, just a lack of precision on exactly where the body is in order to deter folks from graverobbing or making it into a particularly dangerous pilgrimage site.
@@AQ.Gimpalong That is you just inventing "facts" to fit your theory that they are trying to "deter folks from graverobbing." Numerous photos of the site exist -- as I point out. Anyone who has an ability to get to that location could easily determine where the grave is. That they didn't fully bury the body is also something that you completely ignore. Try responding with facts and address other facts that people raise. Simply stating talking points is of no value to anyone. It is also not particularly dangerous -- it is fairly easy to get to with little to no risk of falling. The people who tell you it is dangerous are telling you a story -- a story that makes themselves look better. And the reason for the lack of precision in the location of the oxygen bottle? Is that also to deter folks from grave robbing the oxygen bottle? The problem is that these same people (the 1999 team) invent facts and move things whenever they need it to fit whatever theory they have. The 1999 location was moved west specifically to show that he didn't fall from the ice axe location. The oxygen bottle keeps moving to "prove" they climb the ridge -- then a photo from 1933 shows up showing it was not in that location, and it moves again.
@@martinwebb969 I think I remember Jake Norton saying as much. It is not the lack of a source -- it is the credibility problems with that source. Jake keeps moving the oxygen bottle, and it is not to protect the privacy of the oxygen bottle nor prevent people from visiting the site where the oxygen bottle was found. He moves it to support his theory they climbed the ridge. When a professional photographer doesn't take pictures of something -- and he went back to Everest numerous times and never once took a picture of the oxygen bottle location -- there are serious questions about why.
I have often wondered about the rope around Mallory, the length, the cut? Were they tied together, did they fall together, is it possible one cut the other free, did it cut on a rock with the force of both falling, what was its original length? What is the possibility that they are both resting in the same area and that Irvine is close to Mallorys location? I understand there are discrepancies in the ice axe location but because of Mallory's location it obviously appears that something happened directly above and if they are tied together to limit the fall while climbing an obstacle (ascent or descent) and the rope could give an indication of those circumstances. (love your videos by the way and look forward to each release)
I obviously have no proof but I think Irvine could have fallen thousands of feet in some ice and snow conditions. After all they slipped fell roped, perhaps from slick loose rock and ice and he kept on sliding while Mallory stopped on a low angle area.
Amazing video as always Michael, just read both ghosts of everest and detectives on everest and one thing got my attention. That is, Xu Jing's statement that he found a body wrapped in a sleeping bag or some sort of clothing between 8200 and 8300 meters in 1960. Do you think his statement is trustworthy? I think I've seen most of your videos but can't remember if you discussed this before. Would love your thoughts on Xu's account. Keep up the good work!
I suspect they don't want to release any footage or images, in the hopes that they can be the ones to eventually find Andrew and make money off of it. After the atrocious way in which George's body was dealt with, no wonder Andrew's family want people to leave it be.
I think that a fair point. There seems to be more interest in being the first person to find Sandy, than collating all information to actually find him.
@@tornadoe13 It is a myth that they treated it with respect. They spent hours hacking away to get to him, in cases striking his body and causing clouds of dust to come up. They were swearing out loud. They took trophies and even went back two days later to look for more trophies and even take pictures of his face.
@@HighCarbDiabeticVthat is very true they looted the body, I saw a video where they were showing the various trophies that they had stolen from the body.
Excellent video. And what an incredible idea to triangulate Malory‘s location! I have seen so many conflicting marks on pictures and you are the perfect guy for the job.
Hello Michael, thank you for yet another amazing video, it has caused yet another sleepless night for me, pondering the mysteries of M&I. This video has raised a couple of questions which I was hoping you would be able to answer, as I am unable to find the information and the only sources that have come up have been from members of the 99 expedition and I don't really think that they would be of any help. 1. What were the injuries found on Mallory's body? I have seen the widely circulating photo of Mallory with his head buried in scree and his back exposed, along with having read the information provided by Jake Norton regarding the bloodstains on Mallory's shirt lapels along with the broken ankle, broken tibia/fibula, broken ribs, dislocated elbow and head injuries. Regarding the head injuries found on Mallory's body, I read that one was caused by a stray crampon from the 99 expedition but that the other one was found present on the body itself before the unfortunate "crampon incident" occurred. Is there any additional information to be found regarding the nature of the "original" head injury because I seem to be coming up short. In addition, I also read somewhere (do not remember where) that there were lacerations found on Mallory's back but the photo that I've analyzed and have available currently shows no signs of any lacerations on his back whatsoever - can you or someone else from this community confirm if this is true? Furthermore, the nature of the fracture on the tibia and fibula on the legs, I can't really get too good of a look on the photo I have. 2. The length of the rope used during their final moments Is there any information out there regarding the length of the ropes used during the 1924 expedition, as this is critical to what I am trying to accomplish for my own personal analysis.I presume (and this is personal conjecture) that all parties out on a summit bid would have used the same type of rope with the same parameters ( more specifically and most important to my analysis - it's length, material, girth). 3. The length of the rope found on Mallory's body Once again, this is critical to my objective, because I think that valuable information could be obtained from it, along with the way in which it was found on Mallory's body. I presume that this is information which could be provided if proper photos of the body were found but my investigation intro trying to find any different ones from the one circulating on the Internet has been fruitless and the chances of one of the 99 expedition members sharing their photos are about the same as M&I having taken the 2nd Step, so I have hit a bit of a snag in that aspect and am asking for help. What I am trying to do: My goal is to deconstruct the final fall of Mallory based on the facts and evidence we have thus far and those I have requested in my above points, utilizing the powers of basic physics and medicine (I'm a medical student) to gain an approximate location from which Mallory could have fallen.
From Conrad Ankers book The Lost Explorer , page 103 : If Irvine had belayed Mallory and the rope had broken when Mallory’s weight came on it, the rope would have parted near Irvine’s end. Instead, we found it broken only some ten feet away from Mallory’s waist. I think, then, that one man pulled the other off (it could have been Irvine, coming second, who fell), that both men plunged down the mountain together, and that the rope sawed over a rock edge. That’s happened often over the years, even with good nylon ropes. And if I’m right, the place to look for Irvine is not in Hemmleb’s search zone, which is up and left, or east, of where I found Mallory, but rather to the right or west of Mallory, because when the accident happened they would have been diagonaling down and eastward with Mallory in the lead. In my scenario, as Mallory fell, the rope tangled around him. The initial impact came on his right side.
I'm glad to see you point out the location of Mallory's body. I studied pictures they took that day for over a week . and after seeing where they marked the spot on the picture like you had here I knew immediately that was the wrong spot. It's exactly where you had it marked. 👍
@Michael Tracy love your videos. I'm wondering if you could please share any links on the 1999 discovery of Mallory which suggests that the team didn't do a thorough job or where the searchers may have been rough with the body while searching Mallory. I tried searching in Google and other search engines and wish to read this on my own instead of relying on the research of others 🙃 thanks and keep up the wonderful content.
ua-cam.com/video/IwUqUzgpHw0/v-deo.html. Also see Wade Davis, Into the Silence where he states roughly the same thing and describes them ripping up the clothing while "searching" it. Its on page 569.
Micheal I’ve watched a lot of these videos and heard a lot of your critiques on other peoples books and theories. what do you think is the best book on this subject?
I remember seeing an excellent article on your website detailing a possible location for Irvine in an area usually covered in snow and next to a “sleeping bag“ rock. If you have marked that location in this video, could you please post a timestamp for it? I think Thom Pollard is being intentionally cryptic to generate buzz and views for his UA-cam channel. His videos are full similar devices which rarely have a payoff.
Great new video. You mention that the story of the Chinese finding a body has been debunked…I’ve watched all of your videos, and I don’t recall you saying that before? I was under the impression that the “English dead sightings” stories were at least plausible, even if one doesn’t go so far as to believe that they pushed Irvine’s body off the mountain at a later date to protect their north face record.
There is a possible sighting of Irvine in 1960 by the Chinese, but it says nothing about them removing or burying the body. Xu Jing -- who claims to have seen a body in 1960, was returning from the First Step to the Chinese camp at about 8100m. He would have to have crossed the ice axe fall line in order to do so. Thus, his sighting, if true is simply that Irvine is on the upper mountain -- likely on the fall line from the ice axe location in any one of the dozens of places he could be. The video debunking: ua-cam.com/video/1s7zQ6SdAWE/v-deo.html
Keep up the Amazing Work Mike! Hey partner, where can the average, land locked Murican feller find the best, or actually the most detailed photos of Everest? I have found that the tv shows, or documentaries, heck even actual videos from Summit Pushes. You just can never truly get the actual scale of this treasure. I suppose I am wondering where to find the highest resolution photos, as I can no longer find the Giga-Pixel photo. I am also interested in photos of the summit ridge that show various landmarks like green boots cave, and other historic landmarks on the Mother of the Planet! Thanks So Much Partner! Namaste!
@@michaeltracy2356 Truly awe inspiring photos sir! I would absolutely love to have one of those breathtaking photos take up an entire wall in my Man Cave, Or Old Boy Cave I should say!
Interesting to watch this video a year later. Let's see if Chinese will allow to search the area around discovered foot with metal detectors. We may expect also scientific modelling on where Irvine's body entered glacier so it moved the way it did. And I wonder if frozen body was divided due forces of falling down the slope or if it was the result of glacier "milling" everything in its path.
Fantastic work Michael. Is there any reason to believe the Nat Geo is purposefully hiding information and they might have actually found Irvine resting place with the drone scouting footage they made, but withholding it until the time is right (*cough* 100th year anniversary). And why is that we only rely on this footage for some hope. I'm sure any tourist can pack a drone and just fly it there, so a more organized independent expedition surely can pack enough drones to scout huge portions of the possible sites.
Yes, the bizarre withholding of anything related to the area below the ice axe location is a strong indication that something was found. Keep in mind, they were there in 2019, and the mountain was closed in 2020 and is still closed. The Chinese will confiscate your drone and ban your sherpas if you do that. Nor surprisingly, the Sherpas tell the Chinese as soon as they see anyone with a drone.
So I have a theory on Irvine.. and I think I’m right (of course) and I think it would be worthwhile to do some LIGHT excavation to get to him. He’s in possession of not one, but two cameras.. both presumably filled with photos of the summit and the trip up. Invaluable doesn’t even describe it. Where they found Mallory is in a steep scree field.. not ideal. Think shale and gravel held together loosely by chunks of ice.. it’s dangerous shit. Like ices version of quicksand. With that said.. Irvine is most likely under Mallory. Within 5’. We need to excavate his body and then pull out an area of about 12’ each way and dig down about a graves length past him. I not only think he’s there, but his body would be relatively intact.. the core anyways. And he stored his Kodak close to his chest in his gear. The answer is lying within 10’ of Mallory, whom we know where his body is located. Irvine I believe would be 100% fine with this risk if it meant the first photos of the summit and his legacy saw the light of day. Also.. off-topic. But remember, this kid was 22 years old. The he absolute massive balls he had to hike up there after watching grown mountaineer men fold entirely says a lot about him. I think he took a nasty fall, it flung Mallory down.. then much like a yo-yo, slung Irvine back below Mallory and he smacked the ground first.. followed by a good amount of debris burying him and finally.. Mallory coming to rest on top of him. Why? Well a few reasons. Mallory didn’t die right away. It appears he fell.. woke up and ‘slid’ down a bit to Irvine who was wrapped in their rope. Mallory had enough strength to cut it (his knife was found on him). Or.. who knows. I really truly believe those Kodak cameras are within just a meter or two from his body. And with them, Irvine. Irvine was a religious note taker too.. his journal would be invaluable. I’m talking people will be able to write and fill books type invaluable.
And they missed Irvine using the metal detector in 1999? And the camera 5 feet away? That just didn't ping the metal detector Andy Poltiz ran over that whole area to test your "theory" out 20 years ago? There is also no reason to believe he had a Kodak camera much less that he carried two cameras. I did a whole video on that. It would help if you first address problems with the existing theories using some type of factual based reasoning.
The inverted T has always stood out for me , it points at many things (Ghosts of Everest page 112 ) In Ghosts of Everest also page 123 Andy Politz says that Mallory's body was to far away from the Chinese camp for Wang Hongbao to have seen him . Could sleeping with the 1924 oxygen system have created a problem of condensation in the bladder freezing , that might have caused a delay ?
Not really possible to push breath back into the bladder and the O2 coming out is dry. The main advantage to the 1924 setup is the inability to ice up. It is very difficult to have everything ready and you just leave on time form high camp. Any number of things could have caused the delay. The issue with Wang's sighting is the sweater piece they found in 2001. Of course, no photo was taken, so we are again left wondering many things. However, it could explain Wang's find. That is, Wang goes out of his tent and finds a piece of a sweater glued to the rocks. This causes him to go investigate a little further than he would have normally gone where he sees the body. As Wang clearly saw Mallory and reported it to others on the Chinese team, it is not whether Wang saw Mallory, it is how the events unfolded that caused Wang to see Mallory. Also, the 1960 team had Xu Jing go off on a search for Mallory and Irvine -- we went over to find their Camp 6 for no other reason than to find their Camp 6. So, it is not completely unthinkable that if Wang saw a piece of clothing, he would go investigate.
@@michaeltracy2356 Wang's 20 minutes is a bit vague , you can walk 20mins to a store to buy milk but on Everest the concept of time could be distorted . Noticed on Jake Nortons site that that J Hemmleb is favouring the third step for Odell's sighting again.
Another great video Michael. Your detective work is excellent and seems to be the only analysis that is genuinely dispassionate and not suffering the Rashamon effect.
@@ty56ty1 I really do not want to do a video about Wang's sighting. It is just a game of telephone where he told one person a very brief account, and that account has been told and re-told so many times it has little or nothing to do with what was originally reported. The only account from Wang was told to a Japanese climber who spoke no Chinese. And Wang spoke no Japanese. And from this, a detailed description of all sorts of things as come out as established fact. Wang said very little -- the original account has him making mainly hand gestures and using the single word "English." He was able to write the number 8100 as that was recognizable in both languages. Beyond that, he said little else -- just hand gestures and articulation.
@@michaeltracy2356 thanks for the summary of Wang's information. Maybe you can clarify one detail I'd understood from 1999? Wang's sighting of a body, while there was no verbal comprehension, he imitated how the body was lying, as if peacefully asleep on his side. When Mallory was located in 1999, it surprised everyone that he was clearly in a position of self-arrest, not gentle repose. Surely Wang's imitation, had it been Mallory he'd seen, would've been the self-arrest pose, not a slumbering on his side one? As you said, game of telephone, the more links the more distorted, which is why the earliest transcription is the most reliable? Hence putting Irvine within 20?mins of that camp 6. Also, as an alpinist, I totally appreciate how horrendous it is searching for a dropped piece of equipment to try to retrieve it. Even only a couple of metres away it remains invisible....
Thanks for this analysis, Michael. I've been fascinated by M&I since before 1999. I'm wondering, if we were to discount the reported Chinese sightings from 1960 and 1975, what are the odds that Irvine simply fell further down the mountain than Mallory? If he did, would he have ended up anywhere that could be reasonably searched?
Most people who fall from that region end up on the upper mountain. That is, close to Mallory or above. There isn't good information on searches much below Mallory because it gets pretty steep and likely a body would not come to rest there -- at least none have ever been found. If Irvine fell all the way down, searching the glacier below with a drone will eventually turn him up -- though what we be left of his body is rather questionable.
@@michaeltracy2356 Follow up question: I've read that the Chinese told the Russians that they found a body at 8600m in 1960. This is in the neighborhood of the Second Step, as I understand it. We have to assume that M&I fell together - or at least that Irvine was belaying Mallory when he fell - because of the rope-jerk injuries on Mallory's body, right? If so, there's no way he could have ended up at that elevation. Have there been any attempts to make sense of that discrepancy?
Much has been discussed about that sighting. First, as with everything, there is a game of telephone where the story keeps getting repeated and repeated with details being added and deleted. The facts that we know is that Xu Jing returned to high camp at the base of the First Step to call out his backup climber. He then descended to the camp at 8100m that is just above and to the west of the 8000m snowfield. He reported seeing a body somewhere along that descent. Thus, if he did see Irvine, Irvine is located somewhere below the First Step and above the 8000m field. The most logical place for Irvine to be in that location is below the ice axe location. What you need to ask yourself is why no photo, videos, drone photos, or published searches of that area have taken place. Only a "oh, we searched there, nothing to see, move along." As for the rope injuries, Mallory could have had an earlier fall. The reason to believe they were roped together is that Mallory had a rope around his body and such a rope would be of no use tying to anything other than another human being in the fashion he had it tied. Mallory typically climbed roped up, and there is no reason to believe he deviated from this usual practice on this climb. You can see him roped up in the photo from 1922 with Norton and Norton himself was roped up on the descent just days earlier, as you can see in the photo of Norton take on the descent that day. However, I will just point out that you are approaching this as a "mystery." If you do that, you will stumble across rather obvious "clues" that appear to have been overlooked. Such as, "Oh, Mallory had a rope around him, perhaps he was tied to Irvine." Although numerous "expert" are trying to sell a story that they fell separately, or they split up, or there were multiple falls, or they didn't fall form the ice axe, this is all nonsense. For instance, on the Xu Jing route, although it is fairly obvious that if Xu Jing did see a body, as his route crossed the ice axe fall line, it would be logical to assume that any such body would have been on the ice axe fall line. However, numerous "experts" searched the area of the warts -- not a remote possibility for Xu Jing's descent, the the area between the First and Second Step -- as Xu Jing was descending from the First Step, this search never made any sense. Now, try to get any one of these "experts" to release photos of the area below the ice axe location in a low snow year such as 2019 and see how far you get. If you want to solve the "mystery," you do not see to research old Chinese sightings or rope jerk injuries. You need photos of the area below the ice axe location during a low snow year. There was a drone that took such photos in 2019. The people involved were Mark Synnott, Ronan Ozturk, Thom Pollard, and it was sponsored by National Geographic. The photos were supposed to be released at the Nat Geo museum exhibit -- they were not. If you wish to help, you can try contacting these individuals and get them to release the photos. I have, and they either do not respond or provide excuses for why the photos can't be released.
Still lots of big questions, but at least we know where Irvine ended up. How he got there is still not clear, nor (at least to me) what the location of his remains tells us about whether he and Mallory died in the same incidents. It looks to me like Irvine must have fallen in or closer to the couloir, in which case Mallory survived and then died in a separate incident. The frayed rope and bruising around Mallory’s torso do seem consistent with that sequence, but that is just speculation. Hopefully the rest of Irvine’s remains are located and those (and bigger) questions can be answered.
Can someone tell me,if a guy can fly a drone from the summit,why cant they continually fly one and slowly scan sections of the sides of the mountain and see if they can find Irvines body? in good weather of course....
They do. They just won't share the photos they took. This is discussed in The Watch video and I have been trying to get these drone photos for some time.
@@Pixel8Head This is a very naive view that I find rather insulting. First, anything that is "obvious," has been thought of,. I was there and got some close up photos in 2018 -- everything was covered in snow. As you get a low snow year about 1 in 10 years, getting these photos is not as easy as you think. Second, as I mentioned with the drones, people won't share their photos. There are the drone photos, but also people went there and it happened to be a low snow year and they took photos. They refuse to share those photos, refuse to post them, refuse to sell them. This is because there is a narrative that is worth far more money than the truth. Your view is naive because it assumes people will spend large sums of money to provide you the truth for free. This is not the way the world works. They spend large sums of money to make you believe the truth is what they want it to be. But if you really want to know the truth for yourself, just take your own advice and go there and take the photos -- not so easy is it?
I'm not sure it's that they're in love with any theory. I think these 1999 guys are just stuck in the mentality that they're Indiana Jones racing the other scavenger hunters to the treasure. that has been the constant with these guys from then until now.
What are your thoughts on, as I understood his video, Thom Pollard saying that he wasn't going to discuss the Mallory/Irving issue on UA-cam any longer, that if you wanted to know what he knows or thinks, you'll have to buy his book. (If I misunderstood his video statement, please correct me)
It would be nice to hear some approximant distances. It's hard to understand how far something is from anything else with these photos. It is such a huge area.
Is at all possible that Irvine's body tumbled thousands of feet down the mountain and that he is way below where all the previous searches have looked? Is it also possible that he could of slipped in a different location to Mallory and that everyone is searching in the wrong location? Ie Irvine fell at around the third step but Mallory slipped where the ice axe was found several hours later when he was further down the mountain? Great work BTW.
Interesting theory but if Irvine had already fallen earlier, to the point that Mallory knew he could not have survived and thus George carried on without him, why would Mallory have had a rope around his waist when he was found? Who would he have been roped TO?
@@djtrendsetta5766 Maybe he was exhausted and didn't want to expend energy to untie the rope? Maybe the knot was just too difficult to untie with gloves on?
@@BigDickMark Seeing how far past the point it was that they should have been back at camp, Mallory's hands were no doubt severely frostbitten. So, him being unable to untie the rope is certainly a good possibility. I'd think he would want to make every effort to free himself of it though because surely a rope of that length would be _quite_ heavy, right?
Hi Michael, When does the snow stop? or does it never stop? Is there a month when "experts" determine it will be or has been a light snow yr? What month is typically the lightest snow month on Everest? And last why are the chinese closing the mountain in 2023? Was it closed in 2022? Thanks- love your videos.
Generally, the "monsoon" season will be 100% snow all the time. This is usually June to September -- which is why Mallory needed to be done before the monsoon set in. Snow varies by year and typically, there will be heavy snow years and light snow years with about 1 in 10 being light snow years, 1 in 10 being "heavy" and everything else is in between. The problem is that wind is what blows the snow off the mountain. So, you need high winds for good searching, but that makes climbing extremely difficult. North side has been closed to foreign climbers since 2020 for supposed health reasons. But Chinese teams have been climbing it during that time. Hopefully, they didn't give the Yeti covid.
Could you clarify for me why Mallory is so far down the mountain if it is thought the fall occurred at or near the ice axe location? That is a long way to fall and wouldn't the damage to Mallory's body be more extensive? As you stated the majority of falls that occur around the ice axe location, most bodies remain above where Mallory was found. Thanks, great video as always.
Why do you say it is a long way down? Other people fell from the ridge -- were seen falling from the ridge and seen coming to rest near where Mallory's body is. Russel Brice witnessed one of them. In addition, Conrad Anker specifically stated he was looking for the location a body would come to rest if it had fallen from the ice axe location. So, likely he looked in that location because it is a location a body would come to rest if it fell from the ice axe location -- because it is exactly what he said he was going to do.
www.everestnews.com/everest2005/airforceeverest2005u10152005.htm. Climber reached summit... Fell from ridge... To next to Mallory. "Now Brice says he has spotted a body at a ht of 8150mts Which lies very close to Mallory's body which he says could be Chaithanya since the clothing color matches. " Not a real mystery as to what happened here.
@@michaeltracy2356 As I have never been to Everest, all I have to go by is photos. Looked like a long way to fall to where Mallory is. Thanks for the answer.
The relatively light damage to Mallory’s body seems unusual. In The Third Pole, when Synnott commented that almost all people end up in an upside down position when they die made me think. How is it the George came to rest in a fully upright position with a compound fracture and, according to Thom P, a “fatal ice axe blow to his head.” Thom has said “other than his nose being compressed from years of laying face down, his face looked the same.” Suggesting that he somehow slid face down a few thousand feet without scraping or bashing his face repeatedly down the slope. With that said, when Joe Simpson fell roughly 4500 ft in the Andes. His previously compound fractured leg was really his only injury. Possibly the glacier was a smooth surface from melting? So it can be possible, right? On a slightly different failed climb, when Tony Kürz tried to rescue his fallen climbing companion, it shows that in dire times, some times creativity takes front and center stage. My point or question is this, has anyone explored the possibility that the found glove could’ve been blown to it’s resting spot? Could the axe have been dropped prior to the eventual accident? It seems like an obvious starting point for tragedy is at the axe. However, maybe one of them in their depleted state dropped it and simply went on without it? Kamaldeep (The Third Pole) is one of many examples of climbers losing focus as they are succumbing to the elements. Second a question about the O2 canisters. Where did you get your 3 canisters for the summit? P338 of The Third Pole has a dispatch from Mallory stating they are going with 2 in the note to Odel. Just curious on that. Love your work and analysis! Can’t get enough of all your videos!
@@wymanfischer7295 The note does not say they will go on 2 canisters. It says they will ""probably" go on 2 -- which means that decision was not final. They had brought up enough for 3 each, and it appears they figured out how the cache bottles -- because the bottle that was found was likely below the ice axe site and moved above it by a Sherpa (as reported by Dave Hahn). If they were cache bottles, which there is good reason to believe they were, then they would not cache their bottles that low on the mountain. They would use less oxygen and cache higher. If you reason it out, there are explanations for how they made their decisions and why. Nowhere in his note did Mallory say he was going to take apart the oxygen apparatus and leave most of it in high camp. But that is what they did. It is reasonable to assume that when they were planning their final climb, the obvious benefit of oxygen caching occurred to them and they adapted to take advantage of being able to climber longer with significantly less weight. Somehow you need to explain why an oxygen bottle was found so low on the mountain, and no reasonable explanation works with them only taking 4 bottles total. Doesn't matter which of the now 6 different positions it was claimed to have been found in. It does not take 4 hours to get to any of them.
I think its clear the Chinese /West thing is not going to get better soon , and may get a lot worse . Great use of Photos on this Michael , can I make a request , any climber that finds him put his remains in a sleeping bag after if you are going to cut his trousers off
We can see into the universe with telescopes - and find the needle on the moon - but we can't seem to examine a mountain - centimeter by centimeter - from just 5 miles away.
Always talk talk sense. Just a shame the can't find Andrew. Loads of people have climbed Everest. It would be more important to find Andrew than climb the mountain.
I think its most likely Irvine fell far enough where over the next 20-30-40 years he fell to the glacier and is burried somewhere near the base and will never be found as he is crushed and under tons of ice/snow.
One does not follow from the other. If he "buried" in the glacier near the base, then he will likely be found and would likely have already been found. It is fairly easy to search the base with drones, and the glacier is always moving and bodies come up periodically.
@michaeltracy2356 true he could turn up but after this length of time, and how little we knew about everest then, I'm of the belief he made it all the way to the base and is burried somewhere well within the glaciers and we most likely won't ever find him.
Can I ask you a direct question- make no mistake - I do love your videos they are interesting. And I also climb and one day will hopefully find myself up there - but, do you think he is still up there or not ? Because with all your puns there is serious confusion exactly where your position lies
I am in the middle of a three part video series that addresses that. But, I think you miss the point of this channel. It is that you think for yourself. It would not matter what I "think" happened if I don't have evidence to support it and some logical steps of deductions that take that evidence and infer some conclusion. Another common theme is that you should look at what people do rather than what they say. As I went to Everest in 2018 specifically looking for Irvine, your question is really "Did someone who spent a large amount of time and money to go to Everest really think Irvine is up there, or did he just want to waste a bunch of time and money?" Phrased that way, perhaps your question seems a little silly.
2:30 Isn't that a body, in the upper right? At 1/5 (of the picture's size) from the top edge and one-third from the right edge I see something that looks very much like a body.
This image is not high enough resolution to determine whether a body is or is not in a location. Perhaps it could be, but just not enough resolution to say. However, if it is where I think you are referring, that ledge was crossed by Frank Smythe in 1933, so if there is a body there, it would not be Irvine's. Pretty much anything in the top 1/3 of that photo was covered by the 1933 expedition,, including the so-call "Holzel Slot."
i think ive watched every piece of consumable media on this, and i think i have my own conclusion. id value your opinion on it. i think they tried the norton culwar. and it got them to the top. but it was dangerous, and it shook them. when they reached the summit, mallory thought itd be better to try the ridge route down. maybe by the time they got to the first step, they were out of oxygen, and it was getting dark. they were looking for a route down from the ridge. in the dark they miss their oxygen stash, if they did have one in that area, making the crisis worse. weak with little to no oxygen, things get worse and worse for them. mallory tries to push on to find a route, and falls to his current resting place. whether the rope around his body was cut by irving, who couldnt save him, or himself while trying to bybass some unforseen obstacle, idk. irving is now stuck on or right below the ridgeline, and not thinking clearly. he decides to bivouac for the night, until he can get his bearings at sunrise, but a mild storm comes in, dropping the temperature further and disorienting him. either from any of the various mountain illnesses, or from being blinded by the snow and winds, irving walks or falls off the face of everest in the middle of the night, it seems pretty clear to me that mallory made the summit, or at minimum to the top of the third step, but the evidence seems to indicate he at least didnt take the norton culwar back to camp. i just watched a movie on youtube called "climbing everest the hard way" about an old british team that climbed a culwar on everest and summited. it looked considerably harder than any other footage ive seen and they indicated that its almost impossible to decend without ropes, due to the looseness of the rocks and quality of the snow. so that might explain why the plan was to go up the culwar, but all the gear was found closer to the modern route. its also possible irving fell between the summit and the third step, and that mallory made the return trip alone. if thats the case, than weve been looking for irvine in the entirely wrong place.
So, Wyn Harris climbed into the couloir, climbed up it about 1/2 way and then turned around and walked right past the ice axe. And you take that because one person climbed the couloir and actually found an ice axe from Mallory and Irvine, this is evidence that they climbed a completely different route on the descent. More than likely, the were on the. same route of Wyn Harris because, at least for part of their route, they were on the same route as Wyn Harris. As they would not leave the ice axe on the way up, that sort of narrows it down. You also have them changing routes when they are exhausted, and would have no way of knowing this new and unclimbed route would be any better than the known route they just climbed. I would recommend simplifying your theory so that it doesn't make any leaps of logic and has an explanation for all the known evidence. You should also explain clearly why you deviate from the numerous factual explanations I have provided and not invent "facts." Mesner climbed out of the couloir just fine without ropes. And he descended the. couloir just fine without ropes. There is also no way to descend the Second Step without leaving a rope, and no rope was left on the Second Step, as seen by. the. 1933 team. So, you. need to explain all. the evidence. If they descended. the "ridge," where is the rope? Why did Mallory still have a rope when, under your theory, he would have left that rope on the Second Step and somehow it disappeared by 1933. As you can see, too many leaps of logic and ignoring facts that don't work for you.
@@michaeltracy2356 wait, i didnt know about the mesner bit in the coillar. can you update the playlist you made for this? im trying to find all the videos on here, but i dont remember the mesner story, and i dont think the playlist was updated for a while. i thought the ice axe was found closer to the first step. but beyond that, theres 3 things im basing my analysis on. 1. norton described the coilwar conditions as similar to the way the 1975 british team from that youtube movie "climbing everest the hard way" described it. the opinion of the british team was that they were not happy climbing it, and they thought itd be nearly impossible to downclimb it without the guide ropes, which mallory didnt have. that makes me think that mallory wouldnt have wanted to decend it, regardless of if he climbed up it. i know about the switchback path you talk about next to the culwar, but im wondering if maybe, by the time they got to it, it was too dark to find, or maybe mallory decided it wasnt worth trying either for whatever reason. perhaps the weather, perhaps low oxygen. hard to say. 2. the 1999 team that found mallory said he had an injury around his waist. im wondering if it got there because mallory could do the second step, but irvine couldnt, and irvines fall is probably where that injury came from. also, both ends of that rope were reported to be cut i think, so perhaps they did use a rope for the second step, or at least part of it, and its since blown away. its imossible to say since i dont know any details beyond that on the rope they found tied to mallory. finally, if we accept that the injury is from irvines fall, than we need a place where someone whos roped to another human being can fall with enough force to break a rope, but not rip their partner off the side of the mountain with them (if they fell together than it seems to me the rope would still be intact, and/or irvine would have landed really close to mallory), 3. i know that high altitudes makes people do silly things. a lot of what we have to go off of is what mallory said before going on his final accent. and we know that there was some rethinking of the plan, because they didnt bring their lights with them, as theyd previously planned to, indicating they left later than intended. whos to say they didnt make further adjustments as they went, based on their new perspectives as they got higher up. and with their lack of oxygen, those decisions would have gotten worse and worse. 4th, bonus point, thats just now occuring to me: mallories body location. im not sure what he could have fallen off of there. i dont see any obstacles above him beyond the first step, which is way to the west, and he needs to have fallen with enough force to break his leg. that implies to me that they where trying to get lower on the mountain. a reasonable explaination for that is that they took a higher ridge route back, and after clearing the obstacles, they now need to try and descend, and try and refind their original track so they can get back to camp. i know they have to descend even on the norton route, but from looking at your lines showing that route, it doesnt look like the area above the body is their descent point, that path looks fairly level. 5th "im kinda reaching here" point: if they took the ridge route back, theres more places where irvine could have easily fallen onto the nepal side, and as far as i know, no one climbs the nepal side of the northeast ridge. thatd explain why we havent found irvine yet, hes on the side no one explores. as an aside, i dont completely buy in to writing off the weather report for that day. i dont believe it was "the storm of the century", but i dont think it was nothing either. its possible it was just enough of a weather issue that it got them either lost, or made the coilwar route less attractive and safe. as i mentioned, i learned a lot about culwars in that british movie about their expedition. they imply that the deeper the snow, the worse climbing a coilwar is. if a storm came and dumped some snow on them, an already bad route is just going to look that much worse to mallory. and mallory isnt just worried about himself, hes looking after irvine as well. perhaps they took the zigzag route, but then why would they fall when they were almost home free, and not on any of the obstacles we know about today? if the storm was a huge storm, thatd make more sense, but if its just a little storm than that makes it hard to say. and if there was no storm, then why fall like that when your so close, and theres no obstacle to make you fall? idk. im still looking into this, and ill never know for sure, but its fun to hypothesize about and discuss. please do a video on messner (or if u have already, send me a link). im going to do some of my own looking into that, but id love to hear your analysis of it. you really get into the weeds and thats fun to listen too and think about. the problem with this mystery is that theres so many details that are out there, and much of it is contradictory, or it comes from a human source. and since no human returned from mallorys summit attempt to talk about what happened, all the human source info needs to be taken with a grain of salt, since it isnt even a second hand account, its just clues as to what may have happened. the only human source i serously give credit too is odell, and i agree with your analysis of his words. they definetly made it to the third step in my mind, and mallory definetly made it further east than the first step. thats all we can really know forsure rn. edit: i think i found the messner bit. "messner and how he silenced the trolls". i probably missed it because no mallory or irvine in the title, or i was just really sleepy the first time i watched it and didnt understand what you were saying. second edit: im still looking for more wyn harris material. hes a lot harder to find.
With all the satellite technology we have it would surely be possible if enough resources were used to pinpoint every visible body and every body shaped object on that mountain to find many lost climbers.
When bodies fall from such heights, they are often smashed and disarticulated on the rocks below. Irvine's body probably met such a fate. However I still believe it's possible the Chinese found his body and stole the camera the same as they stole the ice axe. They have a motive for wanting to deny Mallory and Irvine credit for reaching the summit.
"When bodies fall from such heights, they are often smashed and disarticulated on the rocks below." How do you know this? When were you there and which bodies did you personally see that were smashed? How do you know when they fell there?
@michaeltracy2356 the assumption is reasonable if assuming a fall, especially a long one, over and onto rock.. not exactly going to be kind to a body's features.
I have commented previously that I highly suspect Irvine was located in 2019. This may have been just a grave. But the people who were there -- Mark Synott, Jake Norton, etc. will not release photos of the area below the ice axe site even though they both previously stated they would. Mark in his book. Jake in private emails to me. I suspect something was found, but the mountain has been closed to foreign climbers since then. Perhaps it will be opened in 2024 -- but it will be a giant yak dung show. But I highly suspect something was found. Also the technology is getting better all the time. Drones can search all the way down the glacier and do in minutes what would take a week on foot. High resolution cameras mean you really only need a low snow period of time and you can "search" the mountain from your tent. These just weren't available 10 years ago at anything approaching commercially reasonable prices. Now, they are fairly inexpensive. The only reason Irvine would not be found is if someone (i.e. Chairman Mao) does not want him found.
@@michaeltracy2356 thank you for this insight...awesome!....I must add if you don't mind?..if it were myself on foot that found him upon knowing this?....I'd be I suppose paranoid of having myself an "accident" coming down the mountain...thanks again sir...good day.
With the importance of Mallory having been the first to summit Everest, I am dumbfounded that in 1999 they disturbed anything on or near Mallory. It should've been left like a crime scene and had a anthropologists excavate.
@juliesummers3178 This is a very complicated question -- not "dumb" at all. Ultimately, the Chinese want control of the region's water. Now, Irvine's body is not a major piece of that, but the Chinese summit in 1960 is, and Irvine's body does have a lot to do with that. For whatever reason, the 1999 team did not search for summit rocks in Mallory's pockets. Although Liesl Clark mentioned them once, there is some taboo about talking about them despite the "documentaries" being made by Nat Geo and Discovery, which one would think would highlight the use of geology to solve the "great mystery." If Irvine is never found, the issue of summit rocks remains a niche item for a couple people on UA-cam. If his body is found, whether his pockets contain summit rocks or not will largely determine whether they made the summit. Obviously, if they do contain summit rocks, they made it. While if the pockets are completely shredded by wind, etc, then the result is inconclusive. But regardless, the issue of summit rocks will come up. The Chinese took no photos of their "summit" in 1960, but they did collect summit rocks. Rocks which have remained locked away in China, though pictures of them exist. The one detailed photo that was released does not appear to remotely match with summit rocks, and the color in the photo of the entire sample matches the color of the white rocks well below the summit, beginning around the Third Step and ending around the Citadel -- the final rock step on the ridge. Easiest way to make sure such a discussion never takes place is to make sure Irvine is never found. In terms of the logistics of removing him, this is not that difficult if they don't care about respecting the body. Just rip it up and carry it down in pieces. There is the possibility that the removal would show up in photos -- that is, an artifact would appear in older photos and then no longer appear in more recent photos. However, the people who have the most recent photos from 2019 when there was low enough snow to allow for such an analysis will not release them. It is not just the drone photos that are not being released, it is anything from that year in the area below the ice axe. Personally, I doubt the Chinese removed the body, but I'll get into that in the video about why I think the body was found in 2019. Regardless removing the body would not help China, as the current trend is that most people who honest look at the "mystery" quickly see there is no mystery at all. They didn't attempt the Second Step, but instead climbed the route to the east of the couloir which I refer to as the "zig-zag." As people overwhelmingly die after a summit and people who turn around overwhelmingly make it back alive, the most likely explanation for their death is that they were returning from a late summit. The weather was fine after 4PM, as the photo taken of the mountain June 8 at sunset shows a crystal clear sky. Thus, not only is their death explained by the statistics, but there is not any other obvious reason they would fall off the mountain at that particular location. If hope that explains a little of what I think is really going on. If you are the real Julie Summers and want to come on the channel and discuss your book or other items about Irvine, please just email me.
@@michaeltracy2356 Great analysis of this mystery Mr. TRACY. I think the 2019 guys are waiting to get back on the mountain because they had found something worth keeping quite about. Political circumstances are the reason for the delay. Problem is only the Chinese have been on the mountain since. I fear that evidence has been removed.
Isn’t it possible, that they felt together in the nearly same line , but Irvine maybe slipped a bit more and felt straight down on the line of Mallory but much deeper now ??? Mallory was found on a “field” , Which is not so steep, But a little bit more down, there is another big fall …… So what , if Irvine is much deeper …..?? I know the Chinese said , they found a English body lies on his side … That’s the problem 😄
@@michaeltracy2356 What if Irvine is actually way lower then people think? Mallory's rope was cut if i remember correctly from the fall. What if Mallory fell, Irvine fell with him on a rock and when Mallory's head got hit on his axe he got flung and Irvine got sent off the mountain causing the rope to break
Drones require Chinese approval. A drone was used in 2019 and they refuse to release the photos. Thus, while technically possible, it is politically impossible.
There is one theory that gets overlooked quite a bit is foul play. I don’t know if both were glory hounds but theory is that Irvine hit Malory in the head with axe or some blunt object, cut his rope and let gravity do the rest. Afterwards either continued on, died in a fall somewhere else hence why his body has not been found. Lot of grey areas on that one is because just the sheer energy of the climb at that altitude alone would make that scenario more difficult. It was what, 70 odd years for Malory body to be found so if Irvine is there, sooner or later he’ll be found assuming he didn’t fall in a cravese.
5:02 At first I thought there was someone sitting in the middle/top left of the picture, legs stretched out and crossed, but I'm wrong, it's probably just an optical illusion 🤣🤣
The video debunking the internet myth that Irvine was found in 1975: ua-cam.com/video/1s7zQ6SdAWE/v-deo.html
To summarize: The Chinese initially said a western climber's body was found because no Chinese climbers died in 1975. Later (after Pan Duo said she saw a Western body), the official narrative was changed and it was announced that one Chinese climber died -- his body visible in photos and videos on the 1975 ascent. Pan Duo was later re-interviewed where she repeated that it was a western climber, apparently unaware that the Chinese had changed the story.
This leaves a photo and video of a Chinese body in the exact same location Pan Duo said. As it is unlikely that Wu fell right on top of Irvine, the logical explanation is that someone realized they could get a lot of views if they push a fake story. In addition, one group of the 1933 team climbed a similar route to the 1975 Chinese -- as is show by the map in this video. This again leaves the problem that if Irvine was there in 1975, why was he not seen in 1933? -- with the logical explanation being that Irvine was never in that location.
Even without extensive knowledge about the 1975 Chinese expedition, basic skills necessary to navigate the internet of misinformation would tell you that the story from an "anonymous diplomat" -- with no reason to remain anonymous, was likely fake. The fact that the Economist looked into the story a decade ago and passed on running with it after conducting its own investigation is a good sign the story had serious problems. The myth also has all the tell-tale signs of being false -- such as unnecessary details that change, that it was only popularized after Pan Duo died, and that it is directly contradicted by Pan Duo's interview that was recorded. I discuss various basic problems with the myth in the Midterm Exam video: ua-cam.com/video/JtE3VvI8UM8/v-deo.html
The only mystery is why some people ask for "proof" that it was debunked. Where is the "proof" that it was true? Just because some nice person tells you something on the internet does not make it true. Nor do "multiple sources saying similar things" confirm anything when all those sources are based on nothing but rumors themselves. If "multiple sources saying similar things" confirmed something as fact, then all the world's religions would be confirmed as fact.
I am 72 and not want to annoy you. But firstly I studied the problem of the watch; people say that it stopped at the momment of the fall, but I believe that it stopped when it freezed. My mother had a very similar watch and I put it in the refrigerator ( - 14 ºC) and it freezed (stoped) in less than 10 minutes. Mallory´s watch protected by clothes and body heat certainly run more.
Some 20 years ago I´ve contated Politz, to no avail, asking him to make an enlargement of his photo of the North Face, because I´m sure that we can see two "small snow patchs" - one like a cross (Mallory) and whiter than the snow - as Conrad Anker says when he finds Mallory and the other lying in his left shoulder with his legs folded pointing to the summit, as some chinese has spoken. In the Politz photo you can see a small shadow wich shows that he is in a small ravine easily covered with few snow.
@@antoniopena8101 In terms of the body heat, once he died, it goes away pretty quickly face down in rock. So maybe you are saying he died a little before 1:27, stopped producing heat and the watch froze. Great. I don't see any major difference. It is not going to stay non-frozen more than a couple minutes with his dead body pressed against the rock. Maybe there was snow there at the time, so perhaps you get a couple more minutes. I just don't see why this would be a big deal. Ok, He died at 1:17 AM rather than 1:27. Pretty sure you can figure out what he was doing in those last 18+ hours of climbing.
If you have some photo idea, best to go over the the Yeti Academy and have snow monkeys look at it.
Even if someone locates Irvine, he's probably dead by now.
Okay silly goose, take an upvote. That got a chuckle out of me.
But if not, if you help him back down the mountain, then it would "count."
Another great video. I really liked the weather balloon reference 👍. Thank you, Michael.
😂😂😂😂
Never got to see Arthur 2 On The Rocks starring Dudley Moore
You died exactly a century ago today. You were a heroic, virile, brave and handsome. RIP king!
Mallory still has a better shot with a pretty woman a century after his demise than I, today. Lol.
Falsyfication Face
I've always enjoyed maps ever since I can remember. Thank you for making this incredible discovery precise and easy for the non-mountaineering folks like myself.
Love your videos Michael! Keep up the great work! Your sense of humor is the cherry on top!
Duh! I was totally sold to the “ chinese found Irvine in 1975 and toppeled him down the mountain “ story. Thanks for your work
Thanks! For continuing the search/journey. Fascinating to follow all this. Best Regards!
I've watched all your videos on this subject and I wanted to thank you and convey how much I have enjoyed them. Insightful, logical, entertaining and compassionate towards these great but partly forgotten heroes. It would be awesome for someone to fund a feature of all your analysis in time for the 100th anniversary of their death next year. Well done and thanks again
Is it true what I've just read in the newspapers that Andrew Irvines foot, encased in his sock and boot, was found on Everest's Central Rongbuk Glacier, below the mountain's North Face and at a lower altitude than where Mallory's remains were discovered?
It is indeed true. Unfortunately it appears as though avalanches and the glacier have ground Irvine's remains up into fragments, quite unlike Mallory's state of preservation. The things left for us to learn from it might be limited because of that. But he has been found.
Michael, thank you again for an amazing video. Very clear, very informative, very objective and your delivery is top notch
Nop totch*
I find it an incredible coincidence that his body has remained undiscovered for 100 years despite him following a well known path as well as dozens of official searches for him around that area. They found Mallory the very first day of the first official expedition way back in 1999. We've spent so much time looking for Irvine it beggars belief he still remains hidden. Maybe he really did vanish into the clouds that afternoon of June 8th 1924. 😄
I will say this, they could have missed him on the 04 and 08 searches. Snow was high and they could have easily passed by him by metres and not realised. I hope those areas searched are not written off as he could conceivably have been there.
Irving is still up there, buried in a slide of stone & ice... He would both humour yet appreciate the ongoing quest to find his body - anything to compel the Human Spirit to greater heights, so to speak. ;)
He's buried beneath the snow and ice he might be found one day I believe he will be
its not a well travelled path, was pretty much abandoned in favor of the current route to the summit. maybe 100 people have traversed that area in last 30 years is my guess.
@@nagel133 Even still, They located Mallory straight away. Been actively looking for Irvine for 24 years in the vicinity(they were roped) and elsewhere and nada.
@@Lord_Thistlewick_Flanders not really, you're confusing all the new content and interest in the Irvine search with the notion that he has been searched for a ton. Given most searches don't last long for obvious reasons, he has been looked for a few times, but by no means has the mountain been scoured. To some extent, Conrad Anker had a bit of fortune finding Mallory so quickly and also had been directed to that body from earlier Chinese. There are stillmany places Irvine could be that have not been searched with any kind of thoroughness.
I'm here, probably one of the first, after a boot with Irvines initials were found!
Thanks for wading in on possible locations for Irvine.
And you also answered one of the questions I asked you before. I was wondering if the mountain was steep enough that Irvine could have fallen all the way down the mountain, and you seem to think it’s possible.
If the likelihood of them being tied together is high, then the likelihood of Irvine being mostly above or below Mallory is also high.
The both would have relatively fallen, in the same path down the mountain.
I really hope they find him in my lifetime - it’s a fascinating story.
They have found his boots! Are you still alive?
Your weather balloon at the end just about killed me. :D
I have a recollection - sadly unsourced other than my not always infallible memory - that the 1999 team have deliberately obfuscated the exact site of Mallory's body in order to prevent tourist climbers re-disturbing it.
How would they have done that? You can see the location from their numerous photos. Most likely, they are trying to explain why the corpse magically moves every time they need it for their theory to work.
If they wanted "tourist climbers" to not disturb it, likely the best thing to have done was to give Mallory a proper burial....
As they hiked down the mountain toward Camp II, Thom stopped and looked back at the gravesite-now about seventy-five feet above him. It wasn’t a proper burial, as there simply weren’t enough stones in the vicinity to fully bury the body. This fact bothered Thom more than anything else.
Synnott, Mark. The Third Pole (p. 26). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
@@michaeltracy2356 Thanks, Michael. If I ever find the source, I'll post it here. From memory, it was that they put out misleading info about the exact site of the body, rather than tried to disguise it in situ. But, as you point out in your video, there is footage of the body being discovered, so not a difficult one to work out. And while I'm here, thanks for all the videos - fascinating and illuminating. M
"Deliberately obfuscated" is perhaps too strong. The exact location of the body was never released, but people have plopped locations onto maps based on the still imagery and video that is available. This accounts for the various maps showing the body in slightly different locations. There's no grand conspiracy, just a lack of precision on exactly where the body is in order to deter folks from graverobbing or making it into a particularly dangerous pilgrimage site.
@@AQ.Gimpalong That is you just inventing "facts" to fit your theory that they are trying to "deter folks from graverobbing." Numerous photos of the site exist -- as I point out. Anyone who has an ability to get to that location could easily determine where the grave is. That they didn't fully bury the body is also something that you completely ignore. Try responding with facts and address other facts that people raise. Simply stating talking points is of no value to anyone. It is also not particularly dangerous -- it is fairly easy to get to with little to no risk of falling. The people who tell you it is dangerous are telling you a story -- a story that makes themselves look better.
And the reason for the lack of precision in the location of the oxygen bottle? Is that also to deter folks from grave robbing the oxygen bottle? The problem is that these same people (the 1999 team) invent facts and move things whenever they need it to fit whatever theory they have. The 1999 location was moved west specifically to show that he didn't fall from the ice axe location. The oxygen bottle keeps moving to "prove" they climb the ridge -- then a photo from 1933 shows up showing it was not in that location, and it moves again.
@@martinwebb969 I think I remember Jake Norton saying as much. It is not the lack of a source -- it is the credibility problems with that source. Jake keeps moving the oxygen bottle, and it is not to protect the privacy of the oxygen bottle nor prevent people from visiting the site where the oxygen bottle was found. He moves it to support his theory they climbed the ridge. When a professional photographer doesn't take pictures of something -- and he went back to Everest numerous times and never once took a picture of the oxygen bottle location -- there are serious questions about why.
Oh how I love your analysis and especially your humour. Thank you
Yes!!! A new video!
I have often wondered about the rope around Mallory, the length, the cut? Were they tied together, did they fall together, is it possible one cut the other free, did it cut on a rock with the force of both falling, what was its original length? What is the possibility that they are both resting in the same area and that Irvine is close to Mallorys location? I understand there are discrepancies in the ice axe location but because of Mallory's location it obviously appears that something happened directly above and if they are tied together to limit the fall while climbing an obstacle (ascent or descent) and the rope could give an indication of those circumstances. (love your videos by the way and look forward to each release)
I believe he's close buried under snow and ice 😢 one defo cut the rope when George fell
I obviously have no proof but I think Irvine could have fallen thousands of feet in some ice and snow conditions. After all they slipped fell roped, perhaps from slick loose rock and ice and he kept on sliding while Mallory stopped on a low angle area.
The weather balloon 😂😂
That was pure genius
Amazing video as always Michael, just read both ghosts of everest and detectives on everest and one thing got my attention. That is, Xu Jing's statement that he found a body wrapped in a sleeping bag or some sort of clothing between 8200 and 8300 meters in 1960. Do you think his statement is trustworthy? I think I've seen most of your videos but can't remember if you discussed this before. Would love your thoughts on Xu's account. Keep up the good work!
I suspect they don't want to release any footage or images, in the hopes that they can be the ones to eventually find Andrew and make money off of it. After the atrocious way in which George's body was dealt with, no wonder Andrew's family want people to leave it be.
I think that a fair point. There seems to be more interest in being the first person to find Sandy, than collating all information to actually find him.
@@AtomicExtremophile looking for his camera.
Mallory's body was treated with the utmost respect and I hope my body is treated as such when I pass.
@@tornadoe13 It is a myth that they treated it with respect. They spent hours hacking away to get to him, in cases striking his body and causing clouds of dust to come up. They were swearing out loud. They took trophies and even went back two days later to look for more trophies and even take pictures of his face.
@@HighCarbDiabeticVthat is very true they looted the body, I saw a video where they were showing the various trophies that they had stolen from the body.
Excellent video. And what an incredible idea to triangulate Malory‘s location! I have seen so many conflicting marks on pictures and you are the perfect guy for the job.
Now that his boot was found can you update?
Yes, not only his boot, but his foot inside the boot.
Yes please, such a great video, needs an update
Crazy how it has been 99 years since this all happened
Hello Michael, thank you for yet another amazing video, it has caused yet another sleepless night for me, pondering the mysteries of M&I.
This video has raised a couple of questions which I was hoping you would be able to answer, as I am unable to find the information and the only sources that have come up have been from members of the 99 expedition and I don't really think that they would be of any help.
1. What were the injuries found on Mallory's body?
I have seen the widely circulating photo of Mallory with his head buried in scree and his back exposed, along with having read the information provided by Jake Norton regarding the bloodstains on Mallory's shirt lapels along with the broken ankle, broken tibia/fibula, broken ribs, dislocated elbow and head injuries.
Regarding the head injuries found on Mallory's body, I read that one was caused by a stray crampon from the 99 expedition but that the other one was found present on the body itself before the unfortunate "crampon incident" occurred. Is there any additional information to be found regarding the nature of the "original" head injury because I seem to be coming up short.
In addition, I also read somewhere (do not remember where) that there were lacerations found on Mallory's back but the photo that I've analyzed and have available currently shows no signs of any lacerations on his back whatsoever - can you or someone else from this community confirm if this is true?
Furthermore, the nature of the fracture on the tibia and fibula on the legs, I can't really get too good of a look on the photo I have.
2. The length of the rope used during their final moments
Is there any information out there regarding the length of the ropes used during the 1924 expedition, as this is critical to what I am trying to accomplish for my own personal analysis.I presume (and this is personal conjecture) that all parties out on a summit bid would have used the same type of rope with the same parameters ( more specifically and most important to my analysis - it's length, material, girth).
3. The length of the rope found on Mallory's body
Once again, this is critical to my objective, because I think that valuable information could be obtained from it, along with the way in which it was found on Mallory's body. I presume that this is information which could be provided if proper photos of the body were found but my investigation intro trying to find any different ones from the one circulating on the Internet has been fruitless and the chances of one of the 99 expedition members sharing their photos are about the same as M&I having taken the 2nd Step, so I have hit a bit of a snag in that aspect and am asking for help.
What I am trying to do:
My goal is to deconstruct the final fall of Mallory based on the facts and evidence we have thus far and those I have requested in my above points, utilizing the powers of basic physics and medicine (I'm a medical student) to gain an approximate location from which Mallory could have fallen.
From Conrad Ankers book The Lost Explorer , page 103 : If Irvine had belayed Mallory and the rope had broken when Mallory’s weight
came on it, the rope would have parted near Irvine’s end. Instead, we found it broken only some ten feet
away from Mallory’s waist.
I think, then, that one man pulled the other off (it could have been Irvine, coming second, who fell), that
both men plunged down the mountain together, and that the rope sawed over a rock edge. That’s happened
often over the years, even with good nylon ropes. And if I’m right, the place to look for Irvine is not in
Hemmleb’s search zone, which is up and left, or east, of where I found Mallory, but rather to the right or
west of Mallory, because when the accident happened they would have been diagonaling down and
eastward with Mallory in the lead.
In my scenario, as Mallory fell, the rope tangled around him. The initial impact came on his right side.
I'm glad to see you point out the location of Mallory's body. I studied pictures they took that day for over a week . and after seeing where they marked the spot on the picture like you had here I knew immediately that was the wrong spot. It's exactly where you had it marked. 👍
Maybe they don’t want grave robbers disturbing him?
Did not the 1999 team state that they deliberately mis recorded the locations of Mallory's body to protect the remains from tampering.
@Michael Tracy love your videos. I'm wondering if you could please share any links on the 1999 discovery of Mallory which suggests that the team didn't do a thorough job or where the searchers may have been rough with the body while searching Mallory. I tried searching in Google and other search engines and wish to read this on my own instead of relying on the research of others 🙃 thanks and keep up the wonderful content.
ua-cam.com/video/IwUqUzgpHw0/v-deo.html. Also see Wade Davis, Into the Silence where he states roughly the same thing and describes them ripping up the clothing while "searching" it. Its on page 569.
I remember seeing a video of it years back, some of it was cut but could still see them playing with the body and cutting pockets
Micheal I’ve watched a lot of these videos and heard a lot of your critiques on other peoples books and theories. what do you think is the best book on this subject?
Great video! Love your sense of humor. Looking forward to hearing how your weather balloon works out! 🤣🤣🤣
I remember seeing an excellent article on your website detailing a possible location for Irvine in an area usually covered in snow and next to a “sleeping bag“ rock. If you have marked that location in this video, could you please post a timestamp for it?
I think Thom Pollard is being intentionally cryptic to generate buzz and views for his UA-cam channel. His videos are full similar devices which rarely have a payoff.
The "sleeping bag" rock is just to the left of the red circle at 4:30.
They found his foot!
Great new video. You mention that the story of the Chinese finding a body has been debunked…I’ve watched all of your videos, and I don’t recall you saying that before? I was under the impression that the “English dead sightings” stories were at least plausible, even if one doesn’t go so far as to believe that they pushed Irvine’s body off the mountain at a later date to protect their north face record.
There is a possible sighting of Irvine in 1960 by the Chinese, but it says nothing about them removing or burying the body. Xu Jing -- who claims to have seen a body in 1960, was returning from the First Step to the Chinese camp at about 8100m. He would have to have crossed the ice axe fall line in order to do so. Thus, his sighting, if true is simply that Irvine is on the upper mountain -- likely on the fall line from the ice axe location in any one of the dozens of places he could be.
The video debunking: ua-cam.com/video/1s7zQ6SdAWE/v-deo.html
Please keep the Great Climbs series coming
Keep up the Amazing Work Mike! Hey partner, where can the average, land locked Murican feller find the best, or actually the most detailed photos of Everest?
I have found that the tv shows, or documentaries, heck even actual videos from Summit Pushes. You just can never truly get the actual scale of this treasure. I suppose I am wondering where to find the highest resolution photos, as I can no longer find the Giga-Pixel photo. I am also interested in photos of the summit ridge that show various landmarks like green boots cave, and other historic landmarks on the Mother of the Planet! Thanks So Much Partner! Namaste!
For the North side, I have released a number of high resolution photos: drive.google.com/drive/folders/13EfMhAY1Dczx4wqKcGGa5RD3r8kpTXaz
@@michaeltracy2356 Truly awe inspiring photos sir! I would absolutely love to have one of those breathtaking photos take up an entire wall in my Man Cave, Or Old Boy Cave I should say!
I loved this! Well done
Loved the weather balloon dig at the end 😅
I have become very interested in this mystery, I think someone will take the ball and finish the search.
Interesting to watch this video a year later. Let's see if Chinese will allow to search the area around discovered foot with metal detectors. We may expect also scientific modelling on where Irvine's body entered glacier so it moved the way it did. And I wonder if frozen body was divided due forces of falling down the slope or if it was the result of glacier "milling" everything in its path.
Fantastic work Michael.
Is there any reason to believe the Nat Geo is purposefully hiding information and they might have actually found Irvine resting place with the drone scouting footage they made, but withholding it until the time is right (*cough* 100th year anniversary).
And why is that we only rely on this footage for some hope. I'm sure any tourist can pack a drone and just fly it there, so a more organized independent expedition surely can pack enough drones to scout huge portions of the possible sites.
Yes, the bizarre withholding of anything related to the area below the ice axe location is a strong indication that something was found. Keep in mind, they were there in 2019, and the mountain was closed in 2020 and is still closed.
The Chinese will confiscate your drone and ban your sherpas if you do that. Nor surprisingly, the Sherpas tell the Chinese as soon as they see anyone with a drone.
You'll find out next year when Nat Geo does not come out with an exclusive that there is no reason to believe in this conspiracy.
Nat Geo posted a few hours ago that they found Andrew Irvine's partial remains.
So I have a theory on Irvine.. and I think I’m right (of course) and I think it would be worthwhile to do some LIGHT excavation to get to him. He’s in possession of not one, but two cameras.. both presumably filled with photos of the summit and the trip up. Invaluable doesn’t even describe it.
Where they found Mallory is in a steep scree field.. not ideal. Think shale and gravel held together loosely by chunks of ice.. it’s dangerous shit. Like ices version of quicksand.
With that said..
Irvine is most likely under Mallory. Within 5’. We need to excavate his body and then pull out an area of about 12’ each way and dig down about a graves length past him. I not only think he’s there, but his body would be relatively intact.. the core anyways. And he stored his Kodak close to his chest in his gear.
The answer is lying within 10’ of Mallory, whom we know where his body is located. Irvine I believe would be 100% fine with this risk if it meant the first photos of the summit and his legacy saw the light of day.
Also.. off-topic. But remember, this kid was 22 years old. The he absolute massive balls he had to hike up there after watching grown mountaineer men fold entirely says a lot about him.
I think he took a nasty fall, it flung Mallory down.. then much like a yo-yo, slung Irvine back below Mallory and he smacked the ground first.. followed by a good amount of debris burying him and finally.. Mallory coming to rest on top of him.
Why? Well a few reasons. Mallory didn’t die right away. It appears he fell.. woke up and ‘slid’ down a bit to Irvine who was wrapped in their rope. Mallory had enough strength to cut it (his knife was found on him).
Or.. who knows. I really truly believe those Kodak cameras are within just a meter or two from his body. And with them, Irvine. Irvine was a religious note taker too.. his journal would be invaluable. I’m talking people will be able to write and fill books type invaluable.
And they missed Irvine using the metal detector in 1999? And the camera 5 feet away? That just didn't ping the metal detector Andy Poltiz ran over that whole area to test your "theory" out 20 years ago?
There is also no reason to believe he had a Kodak camera much less that he carried two cameras. I did a whole video on that. It would help if you first address problems with the existing theories using some type of factual based reasoning.
So, Irvin was not in the upper mountain. Either he fell or was thrown down.
The inverted T has always stood out for me , it points at many things (Ghosts of Everest page 112 )
In Ghosts of Everest also page 123 Andy Politz says that Mallory's body was to far away from the Chinese camp for Wang Hongbao to have seen him .
Could sleeping with the 1924 oxygen system have created a problem of condensation in the bladder freezing , that might have caused a delay ?
Not really possible to push breath back into the bladder and the O2 coming out is dry. The main advantage to the 1924 setup is the inability to ice up. It is very difficult to have everything ready and you just leave on time form high camp. Any number of things could have caused the delay.
The issue with Wang's sighting is the sweater piece they found in 2001. Of course, no photo was taken, so we are again left wondering many things. However, it could explain Wang's find. That is, Wang goes out of his tent and finds a piece of a sweater glued to the rocks. This causes him to go investigate a little further than he would have normally gone where he sees the body. As Wang clearly saw Mallory and reported it to others on the Chinese team, it is not whether Wang saw Mallory, it is how the events unfolded that caused Wang to see Mallory.
Also, the 1960 team had Xu Jing go off on a search for Mallory and Irvine -- we went over to find their Camp 6 for no other reason than to find their Camp 6. So, it is not completely unthinkable that if Wang saw a piece of clothing, he would go investigate.
@@michaeltracy2356 Wang's 20 minutes is a bit vague , you can walk 20mins to a store to buy milk but on Everest the concept of time could be distorted .
Noticed on Jake Nortons site that that J Hemmleb is favouring the third step for Odell's sighting again.
Another great video Michael. Your detective work is excellent and seems to be the only analysis that is genuinely dispassionate and not suffering the Rashamon effect.
@@ty56ty1 I really do not want to do a video about Wang's sighting. It is just a game of telephone where he told one person a very brief account, and that account has been told and re-told so many times it has little or nothing to do with what was originally reported. The only account from Wang was told to a Japanese climber who spoke no Chinese. And Wang spoke no Japanese. And from this, a detailed description of all sorts of things as come out as established fact. Wang said very little -- the original account has him making mainly hand gestures and using the single word "English." He was able to write the number 8100 as that was recognizable in both languages. Beyond that, he said little else -- just hand gestures and articulation.
@@michaeltracy2356 thanks for the summary of Wang's information.
Maybe you can clarify one detail I'd understood from 1999?
Wang's sighting of a body, while there was no verbal comprehension, he imitated how the body was lying, as if peacefully asleep on his side.
When Mallory was located in 1999, it surprised everyone that he was clearly in a position of self-arrest, not gentle repose.
Surely Wang's imitation, had it been Mallory he'd seen, would've been the self-arrest pose, not a slumbering on his side one?
As you said, game of telephone, the more links the more distorted, which is why the earliest transcription is the most reliable?
Hence putting Irvine within 20?mins of that camp 6.
Also, as an alpinist, I totally appreciate how horrendous it is searching for a dropped piece of equipment to try to retrieve it. Even only a couple of metres away it remains invisible....
Thanks for this analysis, Michael. I've been fascinated by M&I since before 1999. I'm wondering, if we were to discount the reported Chinese sightings from 1960 and 1975, what are the odds that Irvine simply fell further down the mountain than Mallory? If he did, would he have ended up anywhere that could be reasonably searched?
Most people who fall from that region end up on the upper mountain. That is, close to Mallory or above. There isn't good information on searches much below Mallory because it gets pretty steep and likely a body would not come to rest there -- at least none have ever been found.
If Irvine fell all the way down, searching the glacier below with a drone will eventually turn him up -- though what we be left of his body is rather questionable.
@@michaeltracy2356 Thanks, that's interesting. Drones certainly add a lot of scope to any potential searches.
@@michaeltracy2356 Follow up question: I've read that the Chinese told the Russians that they found a body at 8600m in 1960. This is in the neighborhood of the Second Step, as I understand it. We have to assume that M&I fell together - or at least that Irvine was belaying Mallory when he fell - because of the rope-jerk injuries on Mallory's body, right? If so, there's no way he could have ended up at that elevation. Have there been any attempts to make sense of that discrepancy?
Much has been discussed about that sighting. First, as with everything, there is a game of telephone where the story keeps getting repeated and repeated with details being added and deleted.
The facts that we know is that Xu Jing returned to high camp at the base of the First Step to call out his backup climber. He then descended to the camp at 8100m that is just above and to the west of the 8000m snowfield. He reported seeing a body somewhere along that descent. Thus, if he did see Irvine, Irvine is located somewhere below the First Step and above the 8000m field. The most logical place for Irvine to be in that location is below the ice axe location. What you need to ask yourself is why no photo, videos, drone photos, or published searches of that area have taken place. Only a "oh, we searched there, nothing to see, move along."
As for the rope injuries, Mallory could have had an earlier fall. The reason to believe they were roped together is that Mallory had a rope around his body and such a rope would be of no use tying to anything other than another human being in the fashion he had it tied. Mallory typically climbed roped up, and there is no reason to believe he deviated from this usual practice on this climb. You can see him roped up in the photo from 1922 with Norton and Norton himself was roped up on the descent just days earlier, as you can see in the photo of Norton take on the descent that day.
However, I will just point out that you are approaching this as a "mystery." If you do that, you will stumble across rather obvious "clues" that appear to have been overlooked. Such as, "Oh, Mallory had a rope around him, perhaps he was tied to Irvine." Although numerous "expert" are trying to sell a story that they fell separately, or they split up, or there were multiple falls, or they didn't fall form the ice axe, this is all nonsense.
For instance, on the Xu Jing route, although it is fairly obvious that if Xu Jing did see a body, as his route crossed the ice axe fall line, it would be logical to assume that any such body would have been on the ice axe fall line. However, numerous "experts" searched the area of the warts -- not a remote possibility for Xu Jing's descent, the the area between the First and Second Step -- as Xu Jing was descending from the First Step, this search never made any sense.
Now, try to get any one of these "experts" to release photos of the area below the ice axe location in a low snow year such as 2019 and see how far you get. If you want to solve the "mystery," you do not see to research old Chinese sightings or rope jerk injuries. You need photos of the area below the ice axe location during a low snow year. There was a drone that took such photos in 2019. The people involved were Mark Synnott, Ronan Ozturk, Thom Pollard, and it was sponsored by National Geographic. The photos were supposed to be released at the Nat Geo museum exhibit -- they were not. If you wish to help, you can try contacting these individuals and get them to release the photos. I have, and they either do not respond or provide excuses for why the photos can't be released.
Still lots of big questions, but at least we know where Irvine ended up. How he got there is still not clear, nor (at least to me) what the location of his remains tells us about whether he and Mallory died in the same incidents. It looks to me like Irvine must have fallen in or closer to the couloir, in which case Mallory survived and then died in a separate incident. The frayed rope and bruising around Mallory’s torso do seem consistent with that sequence, but that is just speculation. Hopefully the rest of Irvine’s remains are located and those (and bigger) questions can be answered.
I;ve always felt Irivine fell higher up the mountain and Mallory was coming down alone.
They were roped together, so no, that does not work.
Is it not possible that Mallory was not attached to Irvine, that Mallory attached the rope to a rock and then descended and fell?
Would a berg high powerful optic be the easier tool to analyse every point of interest before sending a team to check it out?
Yes, we did exactly that in 2018. However, with a high level of. snow, high power optics are of little use.
Can someone tell me,if a guy can fly a drone from the summit,why cant they continually fly one and slowly scan sections of the sides of the mountain and see if they can find Irvines body? in good weather of course....
They do. They just won't share the photos they took. This is discussed in The Watch video and I have been trying to get these drone photos for some time.
@@michaeltracy2356 Surely someone could do a close up scan of the cliffs like they scan the seafloor looking for wrecks.Then share the results 😠😠
@@Pixel8Head This is a very naive view that I find rather insulting. First, anything that is "obvious," has been thought of,. I was there and got some close up photos in 2018 -- everything was covered in snow. As you get a low snow year about 1 in 10 years, getting these photos is not as easy as you think.
Second, as I mentioned with the drones, people won't share their photos. There are the drone photos, but also people went there and it happened to be a low snow year and they took photos. They refuse to share those photos, refuse to post them, refuse to sell them.
This is because there is a narrative that is worth far more money than the truth. Your view is naive because it assumes people will spend large sums of money to provide you the truth for free. This is not the way the world works. They spend large sums of money to make you believe the truth is what they want it to be. But if you really want to know the truth for yourself, just take your own advice and go there and take the photos -- not so easy is it?
I'm not sure it's that they're in love with any theory. I think these 1999 guys are just stuck in the mentality that they're Indiana Jones racing the other scavenger hunters to the treasure. that has been the constant with these guys from then until now.
What are your thoughts on, as I understood his video, Thom Pollard saying that he wasn't going to discuss the Mallory/Irving issue on UA-cam any longer, that if you wanted to know what he knows or thinks, you'll have to buy his book.
(If I misunderstood his video statement, please correct me)
It would be nice to hear some approximant distances. It's hard to understand how far something is from anything else with these photos. It is such a huge area.
Is at all possible that Irvine's body tumbled thousands of feet down the mountain and that he is way below where all the previous searches have looked?
Is it also possible that he could of slipped in a different location to Mallory and that everyone is searching in the wrong location? Ie Irvine fell at around the third step but Mallory slipped where the ice axe was found several hours later when he was further down the mountain?
Great work BTW.
Interesting theory but if Irvine had already fallen earlier, to the point that Mallory knew he could not have survived and thus George carried on without him, why would Mallory have had a rope around his waist when he was found? Who would he have been roped TO?
@@djtrendsetta5766 Maybe he was exhausted and didn't want to expend energy to untie the rope? Maybe the knot was just too difficult to untie with gloves on?
@@BigDickMark Seeing how far past the point it was that they should have been back at camp, Mallory's hands were no doubt severely frostbitten. So, him being unable to untie the rope is certainly a good possibility. I'd think he would want to make every effort to free himself of it though because surely a rope of that length would be _quite_ heavy, right?
Ron Burgundy on the North Face: "Weather balloons ASSEMBLE!!!"
Has Tom Holzel made any headway in his search? I last recall he desperately needed funding to get back up there in 2013.
Holzels "slot" was searched in 2019 and was empty. As I note in the videos, that area was walked over by the 1933 team, so Irvine was never there.
Andrew is my mums god fathers brother we miss him we hope he gets found
Hi Michael, When does the snow stop? or does it never stop? Is there a month when "experts" determine it will be or has been a light snow yr? What month is typically the lightest snow month on Everest? And last why are the chinese closing the mountain in 2023? Was it closed in 2022? Thanks- love your videos.
Generally, the "monsoon" season will be 100% snow all the time. This is usually June to September -- which is why Mallory needed to be done before the monsoon set in. Snow varies by year and typically, there will be heavy snow years and light snow years with about 1 in 10 being light snow years, 1 in 10 being "heavy" and everything else is in between.
The problem is that wind is what blows the snow off the mountain. So, you need high winds for good searching, but that makes climbing extremely difficult.
North side has been closed to foreign climbers since 2020 for supposed health reasons. But Chinese teams have been climbing it during that time. Hopefully, they didn't give the Yeti covid.
@@michaeltracy2356 hi and thank u
Good stuff.
Could you clarify for me why Mallory is so far down the mountain if it is thought the fall occurred at or near the ice axe location? That is a long way to fall and wouldn't the damage to Mallory's body be more extensive? As you stated the majority of falls that occur around the ice axe location, most bodies remain above where Mallory was found. Thanks, great video as always.
Why do you say it is a long way down? Other people fell from the ridge -- were seen falling from the ridge and seen coming to rest near where Mallory's body is. Russel Brice witnessed one of them. In addition, Conrad Anker specifically stated he was looking for the location a body would come to rest if it had fallen from the ice axe location. So, likely he looked in that location because it is a location a body would come to rest if it fell from the ice axe location -- because it is exactly what he said he was going to do.
www.everestnews.com/everest2005/airforceeverest2005u10152005.htm. Climber reached summit... Fell from ridge... To next to Mallory. "Now Brice says he has spotted a body at a ht of 8150mts Which lies very close to Mallory's body which he says could be Chaithanya since the clothing color matches. "
Not a real mystery as to what happened here.
@@michaeltracy2356 As I have never been to Everest, all I have to go by is photos. Looked like a long way to fall to where Mallory is. Thanks for the answer.
The relatively light damage to Mallory’s body seems unusual. In The Third Pole, when Synnott commented that almost all people end up in an upside down position when they die made me think. How is it the George came to rest in a fully upright position with a compound fracture and, according to Thom P, a “fatal ice axe blow to his head.”
Thom has said “other than his nose being compressed from years of laying face down, his face looked the same.” Suggesting that he somehow slid face down a few thousand feet without scraping or bashing his face repeatedly down the slope.
With that said, when Joe Simpson fell roughly 4500 ft in the Andes. His previously compound fractured leg was really his only injury. Possibly the glacier was a smooth surface from melting? So it can be possible, right?
On a slightly different failed climb, when Tony Kürz tried to rescue his fallen climbing companion, it shows that in dire times, some times creativity takes front and center stage.
My point or question is this, has anyone explored the possibility that the found glove could’ve been blown to it’s resting spot? Could the axe have been dropped prior to the eventual accident? It seems like an obvious starting point for tragedy is at the axe. However, maybe one of them in their depleted state dropped it and simply went on without it? Kamaldeep (The Third Pole) is one of many examples of climbers losing focus as they are succumbing to the elements.
Second a question about the O2 canisters. Where did you get your 3 canisters for the summit? P338 of The Third Pole has a dispatch from Mallory stating they are going with 2 in the note to Odel. Just curious on that.
Love your work and analysis! Can’t get enough of all your videos!
@@wymanfischer7295 The note does not say they will go on 2 canisters. It says they will ""probably" go on 2 -- which means that decision was not final. They had brought up enough for 3 each, and it appears they figured out how the cache bottles -- because the bottle that was found was likely below the ice axe site and moved above it by a Sherpa (as reported by Dave Hahn).
If they were cache bottles, which there is good reason to believe they were, then they would not cache their bottles that low on the mountain. They would use less oxygen and cache higher.
If you reason it out, there are explanations for how they made their decisions and why. Nowhere in his note did Mallory say he was going to take apart the oxygen apparatus and leave most of it in high camp. But that is what they did. It is reasonable to assume that when they were planning their final climb, the obvious benefit of oxygen caching occurred to them and they adapted to take advantage of being able to climber longer with significantly less weight.
Somehow you need to explain why an oxygen bottle was found so low on the mountain, and no reasonable explanation works with them only taking 4 bottles total. Doesn't matter which of the now 6 different positions it was claimed to have been found in. It does not take 4 hours to get to any of them.
I think its clear the Chinese /West thing is not going to get better soon , and may get a lot worse . Great use of Photos on this Michael , can I make a request , any climber that finds him put his remains in a sleeping bag after if you are going to cut his trousers off
We can see into the universe with telescopes - and find the needle on the moon - but we can't seem to examine a mountain - centimeter by centimeter - from just 5 miles away.
It has been examined, but the people who did so refuse to release the photographs. Politics > Truth. That is, the post-truth world we live in.
TY🙏🙏
How can the Chinese be trusted in anything --
I mean the Endurance ship was found over 100 years so i still have hopw for this as well.
Always talk talk sense. Just a shame the can't find Andrew. Loads of people have climbed Everest. It would be more important to find Andrew than climb the mountain.
I think its most likely Irvine fell far enough where over the next 20-30-40 years he fell to the glacier and is burried somewhere near the base and will never be found as he is crushed and under tons of ice/snow.
One does not follow from the other. If he "buried" in the glacier near the base, then he will likely be found and would likely have already been found. It is fairly easy to search the base with drones, and the glacier is always moving and bodies come up periodically.
@michaeltracy2356 true he could turn up but after this length of time, and how little we knew about everest then, I'm of the belief he made it all the way to the base and is burried somewhere well within the glaciers and we most likely won't ever find him.
They've just found him. He is, in fact, dead.
well his foot is dead, that's all we can confirm at the moment
Think about it: If Irvine was ever found, why wouldn't the Chinese announce it publicly? Or it was "so important to not say anything about it?
Great vid
2024 slowly approaches.
Can I ask you a direct question- make no mistake - I do love your videos they are interesting. And I also climb and one day will hopefully find myself up there - but, do you think he is still up there or not ? Because with all your puns there is serious confusion exactly where your position lies
I am in the middle of a three part video series that addresses that. But, I think you miss the point of this channel. It is that you think for yourself. It would not matter what I "think" happened if I don't have evidence to support it and some logical steps of deductions that take that evidence and infer some conclusion.
Another common theme is that you should look at what people do rather than what they say. As I went to Everest in 2018 specifically looking for Irvine, your question is really "Did someone who spent a large amount of time and money to go to Everest really think Irvine is up there, or did he just want to waste a bunch of time and money?" Phrased that way, perhaps your question seems a little silly.
@@michaeltracy2356Your opinion would be interesting, though.
Any news about Jerzy Kukuczka
I'm a little surprised at Mr. Pollard's remark. Not very surprised, but a little. The truth wants to be free.
2:30 Isn't that a body, in the upper right? At 1/5 (of the picture's size) from the top edge and one-third from the right edge I see something that looks very much like a body.
This image is not high enough resolution to determine whether a body is or is not in a location. Perhaps it could be, but just not enough resolution to say. However, if it is where I think you are referring, that ledge was crossed by Frank Smythe in 1933, so if there is a body there, it would not be Irvine's. Pretty much anything in the top 1/3 of that photo was covered by the 1933 expedition,, including the so-call "Holzel Slot."
wherever Mr. Irvine`s body lies .....I hope it remains hidden & at peace..
i think ive watched every piece of consumable media on this, and i think i have my own conclusion. id value your opinion on it.
i think they tried the norton culwar. and it got them to the top. but it was dangerous, and it shook them. when they reached the summit, mallory thought itd be better to try the ridge route down. maybe by the time they got to the first step, they were out of oxygen, and it was getting dark. they were looking for a route down from the ridge. in the dark they miss their oxygen stash, if they did have one in that area, making the crisis worse. weak with little to no oxygen, things get worse and worse for them. mallory tries to push on to find a route, and falls to his current resting place. whether the rope around his body was cut by irving, who couldnt save him, or himself while trying to bybass some unforseen obstacle, idk. irving is now stuck on or right below the ridgeline, and not thinking clearly. he decides to bivouac for the night, until he can get his bearings at sunrise, but a mild storm comes in, dropping the temperature further and disorienting him. either from any of the various mountain illnesses, or from being blinded by the snow and winds, irving walks or falls off the face of everest in the middle of the night,
it seems pretty clear to me that mallory made the summit, or at minimum to the top of the third step, but the evidence seems to indicate he at least didnt take the norton culwar back to camp. i just watched a movie on youtube called "climbing everest the hard way" about an old british team that climbed a culwar on everest and summited. it looked considerably harder than any other footage ive seen and they indicated that its almost impossible to decend without ropes, due to the looseness of the rocks and quality of the snow. so that might explain why the plan was to go up the culwar, but all the gear was found closer to the modern route. its also possible irving fell between the summit and the third step, and that mallory made the return trip alone. if thats the case, than weve been looking for irvine in the entirely wrong place.
So, Wyn Harris climbed into the couloir, climbed up it about 1/2 way and then turned around and walked right past the ice axe. And you take that because one person climbed the couloir and actually found an ice axe from Mallory and Irvine, this is evidence that they climbed a completely different route on the descent. More than likely, the were on the. same route of Wyn Harris because, at least for part of their route, they were on the same route as Wyn Harris. As they would not leave the ice axe on the way up, that sort of narrows it down.
You also have them changing routes when they are exhausted, and would have no way of knowing this new and unclimbed route would be any better than the known route they just climbed.
I would recommend simplifying your theory so that it doesn't make any leaps of logic and has an explanation for all the known evidence. You should also explain clearly why you deviate from the numerous factual explanations I have provided and not invent "facts." Mesner climbed out of the couloir just fine without ropes. And he descended the. couloir just fine without ropes.
There is also no way to descend the Second Step without leaving a rope, and no rope was left on the Second Step, as seen by. the. 1933 team. So, you. need to explain all. the evidence. If they descended. the "ridge," where is the rope? Why did Mallory still have a rope when, under your theory, he would have left that rope on the Second Step and somehow it disappeared by 1933. As you can see, too many leaps of logic and ignoring facts that don't work for you.
@@michaeltracy2356 wait, i didnt know about the mesner bit in the coillar. can you update the playlist you made for this? im trying to find all the videos on here, but i dont remember the mesner story, and i dont think the playlist was updated for a while. i thought the ice axe was found closer to the first step. but beyond that, theres 3 things im basing my analysis on.
1. norton described the coilwar conditions as similar to the way the 1975 british team from that youtube movie "climbing everest the hard way" described it. the opinion of the british team was that they were not happy climbing it, and they thought itd be nearly impossible to downclimb it without the guide ropes, which mallory didnt have. that makes me think that mallory wouldnt have wanted to decend it, regardless of if he climbed up it. i know about the switchback path you talk about next to the culwar, but im wondering if maybe, by the time they got to it, it was too dark to find, or maybe mallory decided it wasnt worth trying either for whatever reason. perhaps the weather, perhaps low oxygen. hard to say.
2. the 1999 team that found mallory said he had an injury around his waist. im wondering if it got there because mallory could do the second step, but irvine couldnt, and irvines fall is probably where that injury came from. also, both ends of that rope were reported to be cut i think, so perhaps they did use a rope for the second step, or at least part of it, and its since blown away. its imossible to say since i dont know any details beyond that on the rope they found tied to mallory. finally, if we accept that the injury is from irvines fall, than we need a place where someone whos roped to another human being can fall with enough force to break a rope, but not rip their partner off the side of the mountain with them (if they fell together than it seems to me the rope would still be intact, and/or irvine would have landed really close to mallory),
3. i know that high altitudes makes people do silly things. a lot of what we have to go off of is what mallory said before going on his final accent. and we know that there was some rethinking of the plan, because they didnt bring their lights with them, as theyd previously planned to, indicating they left later than intended. whos to say they didnt make further adjustments as they went, based on their new perspectives as they got higher up. and with their lack of oxygen, those decisions would have gotten worse and worse.
4th, bonus point, thats just now occuring to me: mallories body location. im not sure what he could have fallen off of there. i dont see any obstacles above him beyond the first step, which is way to the west, and he needs to have fallen with enough force to break his leg. that implies to me that they where trying to get lower on the mountain. a reasonable explaination for that is that they took a higher ridge route back, and after clearing the obstacles, they now need to try and descend, and try and refind their original track so they can get back to camp. i know they have to descend even on the norton route, but from looking at your lines showing that route, it doesnt look like the area above the body is their descent point, that path looks fairly level.
5th "im kinda reaching here" point: if they took the ridge route back, theres more places where irvine could have easily fallen onto the nepal side, and as far as i know, no one climbs the nepal side of the northeast ridge. thatd explain why we havent found irvine yet, hes on the side no one explores.
as an aside, i dont completely buy in to writing off the weather report for that day. i dont believe it was "the storm of the century", but i dont think it was nothing either. its possible it was just enough of a weather issue that it got them either lost, or made the coilwar route less attractive and safe. as i mentioned, i learned a lot about culwars in that british movie about their expedition. they imply that the deeper the snow, the worse climbing a coilwar is. if a storm came and dumped some snow on them, an already bad route is just going to look that much worse to mallory. and mallory isnt just worried about himself, hes looking after irvine as well. perhaps they took the zigzag route, but then why would they fall when they were almost home free, and not on any of the obstacles we know about today? if the storm was a huge storm, thatd make more sense, but if its just a little storm than that makes it hard to say. and if there was no storm, then why fall like that when your so close, and theres no obstacle to make you fall?
idk. im still looking into this, and ill never know for sure, but its fun to hypothesize about and discuss. please do a video on messner (or if u have already, send me a link). im going to do some of my own looking into that, but id love to hear your analysis of it. you really get into the weeds and thats fun to listen too and think about. the problem with this mystery is that theres so many details that are out there, and much of it is contradictory, or it comes from a human source. and since no human returned from mallorys summit attempt to talk about what happened, all the human source info needs to be taken with a grain of salt, since it isnt even a second hand account, its just clues as to what may have happened. the only human source i serously give credit too is odell, and i agree with your analysis of his words. they definetly made it to the third step in my mind, and mallory definetly made it further east than the first step. thats all we can really know forsure rn.
edit: i think i found the messner bit. "messner and how he silenced the trolls". i probably missed it because no mallory or irvine in the title, or i was just really sleepy the first time i watched it and didnt understand what you were saying.
second edit: im still looking for more wyn harris material. hes a lot harder to find.
With all the satellite technology we have it would surely be possible if enough resources were used to pinpoint every visible body and every body shaped object on that mountain to find many lost climbers.
You need someone with a drone to survey the area with a def cam.
When bodies fall from such heights, they are often smashed and disarticulated on the rocks below. Irvine's body probably met such a fate. However I still believe it's possible the Chinese found his body and stole the camera the same as they stole the ice axe. They have a motive for wanting to deny Mallory and Irvine credit for reaching the summit.
"When bodies fall from such heights, they are often smashed and disarticulated on the rocks below." How do you know this? When were you there and which bodies did you personally see that were smashed? How do you know when they fell there?
And what motive is that exactly?
@michaeltracy2356 the assumption is reasonable if assuming a fall, especially a long one, over and onto rock.. not exactly going to be kind to a body's features.
Now that they've found Irvine's foot, this video was remarkably prescient.
Their bodies have been on that mountain for 100 yrs crazy to think about.
He is there
Mr tracy....do you think he will ever be found?....
I have commented previously that I highly suspect Irvine was located in 2019. This may have been just a grave. But the people who were there -- Mark Synott, Jake Norton, etc. will not release photos of the area below the ice axe site even though they both previously stated they would. Mark in his book. Jake in private emails to me.
I suspect something was found, but the mountain has been closed to foreign climbers since then. Perhaps it will be opened in 2024 -- but it will be a giant yak dung show. But I highly suspect something was found. Also the technology is getting better all the time. Drones can search all the way down the glacier and do in minutes what would take a week on foot. High resolution cameras mean you really only need a low snow period of time and you can "search" the mountain from your tent. These just weren't available 10 years ago at anything approaching commercially reasonable prices. Now, they are fairly inexpensive.
The only reason Irvine would not be found is if someone (i.e. Chairman Mao) does not want him found.
@@michaeltracy2356 thank you for this insight...awesome!....I must add if you don't mind?..if it were myself on foot that found him upon knowing this?....I'd be I suppose paranoid of having myself an "accident" coming down the mountain...thanks again sir...good day.
With the importance of Mallory having been the first to summit Everest, I am dumbfounded that in 1999 they disturbed anything on or near Mallory. It should've been left like a crime scene and had a anthropologists excavate.
Oh, they left a crime scene alright.
Did they go back and strip the body of everything,I’ve read a few accounts of that is it true does anybody know
You cant believe a word anyone says about everest anymore.
You called it.
Can I ask one dumb question? Why would the Chinese have removed Irvine's body? And if so, how?
@juliesummers3178 This is a very complicated question -- not "dumb" at all. Ultimately, the Chinese want control of the region's water. Now, Irvine's body is not a major piece of that, but the Chinese summit in 1960 is, and Irvine's body does have a lot to do with that.
For whatever reason, the 1999 team did not search for summit rocks in Mallory's pockets. Although Liesl Clark mentioned them once, there is some taboo about talking about them despite the "documentaries" being made by Nat Geo and Discovery, which one would think would highlight the use of geology to solve the "great mystery."
If Irvine is never found, the issue of summit rocks remains a niche item for a couple people on UA-cam. If his body is found, whether his pockets contain summit rocks or not will largely determine whether they made the summit. Obviously, if they do contain summit rocks, they made it. While if the pockets are completely shredded by wind, etc, then the result is inconclusive. But regardless, the issue of summit rocks will come up.
The Chinese took no photos of their "summit" in 1960, but they did collect summit rocks. Rocks which have remained locked away in China, though pictures of them exist. The one detailed photo that was released does not appear to remotely match with summit rocks, and the color in the photo of the entire sample matches the color of the white rocks well below the summit, beginning around the Third Step and ending around the Citadel -- the final rock step on the ridge.
Easiest way to make sure such a discussion never takes place is to make sure Irvine is never found.
In terms of the logistics of removing him, this is not that difficult if they don't care about respecting the body. Just rip it up and carry it down in pieces. There is the possibility that the removal would show up in photos -- that is, an artifact would appear in older photos and then no longer appear in more recent photos. However, the people who have the most recent photos from 2019 when there was low enough snow to allow for such an analysis will not release them. It is not just the drone photos that are not being released, it is anything from that year in the area below the ice axe.
Personally, I doubt the Chinese removed the body, but I'll get into that in the video about why I think the body was found in 2019. Regardless removing the body would not help China, as the current trend is that most people who honest look at the "mystery" quickly see there is no mystery at all. They didn't attempt the Second Step, but instead climbed the route to the east of the couloir which I refer to as the "zig-zag." As people overwhelmingly die after a summit and people who turn around overwhelmingly make it back alive, the most likely explanation for their death is that they were returning from a late summit. The weather was fine after 4PM, as the photo taken of the mountain June 8 at sunset shows a crystal clear sky. Thus, not only is their death explained by the statistics, but there is not any other obvious reason they would fall off the mountain at that particular location.
If hope that explains a little of what I think is really going on. If you are the real Julie Summers and want to come on the channel and discuss your book or other items about Irvine, please just email me.
@@michaeltracy2356
Great analysis of this mystery Mr. TRACY.
I think the 2019 guys are waiting to get back on the mountain because they had found something worth keeping quite about. Political circumstances are the reason for the delay. Problem is only the Chinese have been on the mountain since. I fear that evidence has been removed.
I believe that after Irvine lost his gear he fell down the north face
Isn’t it possible, that they felt together in the nearly same line , but Irvine maybe slipped a bit more and felt straight down on the line of Mallory but much deeper now ??? Mallory was found on a “field” ,
Which is not so steep,
But a little bit more down, there is another big fall ……
So what , if Irvine is much deeper …..??
I know the Chinese said , they found a English body lies on his side …
That’s the problem 😄
My school friend died in 2019 on Everest
I suspect he is no longer alive. I am not a scientist but feel confident that he came to great harm and hence the search is...alas...in vain.
As is the search for new jokes... Someone beat you to this one by a long, long time.
i think its entirely possible that Irvine died further up the mountain and mallory died descending, alone.
They were roped together. So, not likely, unless it was a very very long rope.
@@michaeltracy2356 What if Irvine is actually way lower then people think? Mallory's rope was cut if i remember correctly from the fall.
What if Mallory fell, Irvine fell with him on a rock and when Mallory's head got hit on his axe he got flung and Irvine got sent off the mountain causing the rope to break
Jamie McGuiness' photo is hard to evalute for the absolute lack of a scale reference.
There are mountains of discussion about that photo over on Jake Norton's site. Jump in and join the discussion: jakenorton.com/community-signup/
@@michaeltracy2356 Thanks for the tip, I'll look into it. Love your work.
Does global warming mean more rocks will appear and for longer periods each year high up on Everest?
Now we have drones, so its verry possible to do research this kind of things
Drones require Chinese approval. A drone was used in 2019 and they refuse to release the photos. Thus, while technically possible, it is politically impossible.
There is one theory that gets overlooked quite a bit is foul play. I don’t know if both were glory hounds but theory is that Irvine hit Malory in the head with axe or some blunt object, cut his rope and let gravity do the rest. Afterwards either continued on, died in a fall somewhere else hence why his body has not been found. Lot of grey areas on that one is because just the sheer energy of the climb at that altitude alone would make that scenario more difficult. It was what, 70 odd years for Malory body to be found so if Irvine is there, sooner or later he’ll be found assuming he didn’t fall in a cravese.
Irvine was removed away by the Chinese around 2015-2018 because since that time Mallory‘s grave is also empty.
How can you say that his grave is empty??
Even his clothes are probably decaying at this point even with the temperature 100 years bro
5:02 At first I thought there was someone sitting in the middle/top left of the picture, legs stretched out and crossed, but I'm wrong, it's probably just an optical illusion 🤣🤣