Happy New Year, everyone! (I think we can say that through the end of January. It’s a long year, after all.) And it’s the first post of the year, though barely.

Well, as if every year isn’t treated as the Year of Everest by folks other than me, here is yet another Year of Everest. But this one has a little more historical context. Historical context beats conga lines, finding frozen bodies, and learning about how much trash is still up there. Well, it’s not that Mount Everest isn’t interesting, it’s just the context. The contemporary context of commercial expeditions, and folks that are solely interested in the climb because it is highest point above sea level or the “third pole,” has been first real-world entertainment before Survivor. (Of course, if you’re trying to climb the 14 eight-thousand-meter peaks, then that’s interesting, and at a significant scale. But if you’re just aiming for the third pole and toting a camera crew with yourself every step of the way, however, I’ll follow you a little but I assure you that I will have some snide, yet professionally tempered, remarks to share.)

So why does 2024 have some historical context? It has been 100 years, this June, since George Leigh Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine made it to the summit of Everest.

Well, I doubt they made it to the summit, but I like to daydream that they did. Back in 2016, someone posted on Kairn.com, a French mountain website, an elaborate April Fool’s Day prank about Elizabeth Hawley keeping it secret that they made it to the top. It included a funny instance where the writer (I think) stumbled on something left open from one of her filing cabinets. The Hawley sees that the writer saw what she meant to hide and slams it shut and shouts at him to get out of her stuff. Some people think it was my friend Bob Schelfhout-Aubertijn, but he’ll never formally admit to it. Well, it’s not on the website any longer for us to dissect it and find clues.

BOOKS ON THE YEAR OF EVEREST

So this year, mountain publishers will be trying to use this anniversary to publish and increase sales of mountain related books. Two are actually about Mount Everest. The first is Everest, Inc. The Renegades and Rogues Who Built an Industry at the Top of the World by Will Cockrell and will be published by Simon & Shuster. It will be available on April 16, 2024. Cockrell took the viral photo I mentioned. He and the publisher are now finishing a book on the history of guided climbing on Everest and its influence on climbing. I agree that it’s a unique lens for a book, but there have been several books that all discuss commercial climbing, usually criticizing it. Commercial guiding on Everest is its own business model, and it deserves attention, but not a book. I turned down the preview.

The second book is Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor’s Unlikely Adventure by Mimi Zieman, MD, and being published by Falcon Guides. It will also be available in April, on April 2, 2024. I had no idea who Zieman was, but apparently has lived quite the creative life after becoming an OBGYN and being part of what I suspect was the 1988 Kangshung oxygenless climb on Everest. Zieman isn’t mentioned in the article I link, but from the angle, I think it will be the deep and introspective type of stuff we read for — you know, the longueurs in between the action. After some due diligence, I requested a hard copy and am in the middle of reading it now.

Dawn Hollis’ book Mountains before Mountaineering is being released this spring on May 1, 2024 by The History Press. It explains how our belief that mountains were things we avoided until sport of walking and seeking the sublime were “invented,” is not at all the case. With chapter after chapter of clear and thorough explanation, it will change how we discuss our human relationship with mountains. The publishers were aiming for 2024, Hollis told me, because of the expected consumer trend around Everest and tangentially mountains.

RUMORS AND TRUTHS

Mallory’s body discovered by Conrad Anker in May 1999. He was looking for Sandy Irvine and the camera he was believed to be carrying — and could have some photographic evidence of the summit. He and the team didn’t expect to find Mallory. Mallory’s body was face down, gripping the ground as if to stop a slide. It added to the allure of the mystery because now we found Mallory’s remains but there was nothing conclusive about whether he made it to the top. And he was below, more or less, the last point they were last seen through the mist, not under the summit. Could he have been descending? We just don’t know.

Irvine’s body — the elusive camera — has not been found. Mark Synnot’s book The Third Pole, has a curious conspiracy theory involving the a coverup, but there’s little else than hearsay to go on. It’s worth reading for that and other subjects, but even if we find Sandy Irvine, we may never learn what happened.

WHAT WE DO KNOW

My favorite book about this period of time was by David Brashears and Audrey Salked titled Last Climb: The Legendary Expeditions of George Mallory (1999*) published by National Geographic. It’s a coffee table book that is rich in photographs, maps, and artifacts found on the mountainside. Speaking in movie terms, it’s production costs might mean they’ll never make a book like this one about Mallory again. Paper is expensive and difficult to ask consumers to pay the premium for a special book like this with fold out maps and a mix of black and white and color photographs and text nestled together in one work of art.

It was one of those books, when I discovered the climbing books that gave me sense of heritage, that I was partaking in something not novel but with tradition, even if participation wasn’t wide. It’s clear from the book, that the expedition was something special in its day, like the moon landings were in the 1960s.

I enjoy the words and the maps, but the photographs of Mallory and his companions through his life make me jump through time. The early British expeditions to Everest were well documented, and the 1924 climb where Mallory and Irvine vanished while attempting to reach the summit, at a minimum, is the one with the lack of closure. Closure, psychologists explain, is what allows us to forget success and accomplishments than what-ifs. The lack of closure with Mallory and Irvine has kept generations alert for any sign of clarity.

SHOULD WE LIGHT CANDLES?

Lastly, I have to say that this is a strange centennial commemoration. In fact I have conflicting thoughts over it (which probably makes me human.) This centennial is not the anniversary of a historic success. It’s not the anniversary of a true tragedy. Well, I am actually not sure that it’s a tragedy because they weren’t suffering on their quest and suffering is a necessary lead-up to a sorrowful ending for the heroes, at least in literature. Well, all alpinists suffer, but they’ll tell you that to actually suffer is a choice. Their higher purpose and resolve transcends it. So I suppose we, or those that choose to celebrate this event, are really reflecting on the mystique. I doubt anyone other than descended family will light any candles on June 8, 2024. Well, maybe I would, if no other reason than to make a statement than George and Sandy were important and their retelling of the story means something to me. And I wish they made it. So if not family, does that make us kin?

Well, thanks for dropping by. If you enjoyed this post, please sign up for my newsletter, which is the best way to get updates. And please tell a friend too; I am a humble hobbyist and don’t pay for advertising so organic search engine traffic and word-of-mouth referrals are all I’ve got. I just believe that climbing matters and you do too.

*Some book sellers online list Last Climb as published in 2000, but my copy clearly says 1999. There may have been a later second printing in 2000, but I am unaware of that fact.