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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's your old pal Josh and for this

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Speaker 1: WEEK'SYSK Select, I've chosen our twenty twenty two episode, Did

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Speaker 1: Mallory make it to the top of Everest First? It's

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Speaker 1: a clunky title, but an amazing episode. It talks about

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Speaker 1: George Mallory, an unsung climber who may have been the

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Speaker 1: first European to ever summ at Everest, a full three

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Speaker 1: decades before Sir Edmund Hillary definitely did. The reason we

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Speaker 1: don't know. The reason it's still a mystery is because

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Speaker 1: he was lost for years and even once he was found,

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Speaker 1: still didn't quite answer the question. This is an amazing

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Speaker 1: history mystery podcast that also has a lot of human

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Speaker 1: spirit in it, and I hope you enjoy it.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's

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Speaker 1: Chuck and this is Stuff you Should Know Lost down

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Speaker 1: the Mountain op edition, but not in Tennessee because this

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Speaker 1: has nothing to do with the Beverly Hillbillies at all.

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Speaker 2: Wow. I thought that was a roundabout funny intro.

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Speaker 1: I didn't even know what was coming thirty seconds ago.

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Speaker 2: No, we are not talking about Tennessee. We are talking

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Speaker 2: about one of the heroes of mountaineering and mountain climbing, certainly,

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Speaker 2: mister George Mallory, and the great mystery to me, unsettled

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Speaker 2: mystery on whether or not he ever made it to

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Speaker 2: the top of Edvers Yes, Edvere.

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Speaker 1: So boy, yeah, this is a tough start, Chuck, because

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Speaker 1: I just realized what I reference was the Davy Crockett theme,

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Speaker 1: not Beverly Hillbilly. So everybody save your emails. Okay, Oh

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Speaker 1: that's right, all of you Beverly Hillbilly's cose players, save

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Speaker 1: your save your emails. So, okay, we're talking about Mount Everest.

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Speaker 1: We're not talking about Davy Crockett or the Beverly Hillbilly.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about George Mallory, and to a lesser extent,

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Speaker 1: kind of unfairly but also kind of fairly his climbing companion,

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Speaker 1: Sandy Irvine. And George Mallory is extraordinarily famous, not just

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Speaker 1: in the climbing community. He's a legend in the climbing community, Chuck.

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Speaker 1: But you and I know about him. I knew about Mallory,

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Speaker 1: didn't you before all this? Yeah, at least heard his

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Speaker 1: name had a general idea about him, right, sure, named

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Speaker 1: two other climbers exactly.

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Speaker 2: The guy from that free solo documentary, and well all

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Speaker 2: the Sherpa, I mean, we Ed makes his great pains

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Speaker 2: to point out the Sherpa, But suffice to say, all

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Speaker 2: you have to do is go back and listen to

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Speaker 2: our episode Sherpa Warm Friendly Living, in which we dedicate

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Speaker 2: an entire episode to the usually nameless Sherpa, who are

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Speaker 2: usually standing just out of frame of some white dude saying, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I climbed Everest again, but here, go ahead and get

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Speaker 2: your picture taken.

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Speaker 1: Right, And they just kind of slowly shoved them to

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Speaker 1: the side. But yeah, but despite your best efforts, you

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Speaker 1: still managed to prove my point. Yeah, George Mallory is

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Speaker 1: extremely famous, and up to his thirties, it did not

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Speaker 1: look like it was going to go that way because

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Speaker 1: he started out this very famous mountain climber and mountaineer

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Speaker 1: and early mountain climber mountaineer too. That's something that I

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Speaker 1: feel as a beat will hit throughout this episode that

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Speaker 1: these guys that Mallory was climbing with were using like

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Speaker 1: they were making some of their own gear. They were

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Speaker 1: figuring out mountaineering techniques as they went along. It was

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Speaker 1: like a brand new thing that people were doing, and

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Speaker 1: George Mallory was among the earliest people doing that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's that one. I don't know if it was

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Speaker 2: a journalist or somebody was talking about pictures of the

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Speaker 2: actual attempt to climb Everest and he said, these guys

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Speaker 2: look like they had gone out for a picnic and

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Speaker 2: were hit by a snowstorm, right, and just in how

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Speaker 2: they were dressed. You know, they were in like sweet

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Speaker 2: jackets and stuff.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and hobnail boots, so just like some leather boots

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Speaker 1: with some spikes attached to him. Like just nothing you

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Speaker 1: would even climb a hill in these days, let alone

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Speaker 1: Mount Everest. But that's what they were wearing. So George

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Speaker 1: Mallory didn't start out as showing signs he was going

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Speaker 1: to be famous. He was a kind of a left leaning,

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Speaker 1: progressive intellectual school teacher. He did rub elbows with John

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Speaker 1: Maynard Keynes and Virginia Wolf from the Bloomsberry group. Bloomsberry

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Speaker 1: pretty cool, yeah, but that was probably the greatest brush

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Speaker 1: with fame that he had up until he started hitting

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Speaker 1: Mount Everest and making that basically his stated goal. In life.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he got into hiking and mountaineering when

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Speaker 2: he was in his late teens and really fell in

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Speaker 2: loved with it. But you know, as Ed Keenley points out,

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Speaker 2: it was, you know, it was such a new sport

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Speaker 2: that people didn't even really know, Like they haven't even

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Speaker 2: charted like the highest mountains in the world up into

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Speaker 2: a very i mean what I consider a pretty late

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Speaker 2: point when you think about like expeditions at Lewis and

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Speaker 2: Clark made it was in eighteen fifty two when they

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Speaker 2: finally finally figured out that Everest was the tallest peak.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, like up to eighteen fifty two, they were basically

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Speaker 1: at the point of that one's tall. Oh look at

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Speaker 1: that one. That's a tall one too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I wish we could put him next to each other.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So there was actually a guy named Radan

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Speaker 1: Siktar who was an Indian surveyor who used data that

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Speaker 1: the English had produced during their occupation of India to

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Speaker 1: calculate just exactly how tall Mount Everest was, because they

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Speaker 1: really did settle on Everest just by sight, They're like,

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Speaker 1: that might be the tallest mountain we've ever seen, And

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Speaker 1: indeed it turned out at twenty nine thirty two feet.

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Speaker 1: Mount Everest was in the mid nineteenth century and still

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Speaker 1: is today the tallest mountain in the entire world. And

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Speaker 1: they named it Everest after the director of the survey

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Speaker 1: in India. Of course they did, Sir George Everest. But

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Speaker 1: if you asked a Tibetan what's the name of that

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Speaker 1: big old mountain over there, they would tell you Chomo Lungma,

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Speaker 1: which means mother goddess of the world in Tibetan. So

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Speaker 1: even the Tibetans were like, this is clearly the world's

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Speaker 1: tallest mountain.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And of course they had their own names for it,

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Speaker 2: but we generally don't know those names because they would

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Speaker 2: come along later and just name it after just some dude.

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Speaker 1: Right, but we some Englishmen. I mean Chomlongma, that's definitely

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Speaker 1: one of them.

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Speaker 2: No, I know, but ask ten people what Choe Malonga is.

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Speaker 1: Right, and name two other famous climbers.

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Speaker 2: Yes, but the long and short of it is, I

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Speaker 2: guess the tall and short of it is. They realized

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Speaker 2: that Everest was the tallest thing in eighteen fifty two,

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Speaker 2: but big deal. They couldn't do anything about it. They

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Speaker 2: could just kind of gaze upon it. It would be

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Speaker 2: decades and decades before anyone even thought that they might

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Speaker 2: be able to climb Everest, because here's the deal. Getting

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Speaker 2: to Everest and climbing it is like ascending the peak

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Speaker 2: is one thing, but just getting to that point is

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Speaker 2: I don't know, ninety percent of the battle.

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Speaker 1: I would say easily. Most people think you look at

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Speaker 1: a mountain, you just climb up the base and go

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Speaker 1: up to the side and you're done. But no, you

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Speaker 1: have to basically traverse mountain ranges. Mountains just don't exist

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Speaker 1: on their own. They're part of ranges and you don't

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Speaker 1: really think about it, but you have to climb all

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Speaker 1: these other little mini mountains to get to the big

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Speaker 1: mountain in the first place. And this can be walks

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Speaker 1: of you know, dozens or scores of miles and not

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Speaker 1: walk it's not a straight walk over a plane. And

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Speaker 1: then you get to the edge of the mountain and

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Speaker 1: you go up like you're going up and up and up,

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Speaker 1: and you're existing at higher and higher altitudes, which the

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Speaker 1: English people who were doing this at first were not

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Speaker 1: used to, so they were doing this with basically altitude

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Speaker 1: sickness and all the stuff that comes with that.

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Speaker 2: All right, so let's go to nineteen twenty and the

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Speaker 2: stages sort of set to where they feel like it

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Speaker 2: might be possible to actually accomplish something like this. And

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Speaker 2: the Royal Geographic Society got together with the Alpine Club

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Speaker 2: to form and they didn't like permanently come together, but

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Speaker 2: they worked together to form the Mount Everest Committee to say,

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Speaker 2: all right, let's give this a go, old boy, And

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Speaker 2: they got permissioned from Tibet in nineteen twenty one to

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Speaker 2: go on a scouting trip. And this was a trip

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Speaker 2: where they would just kind of figure out how to

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Speaker 2: climb Everest. Like it wasn't like they just said, all right,

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Speaker 2: let's give it a go and see if we can

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Speaker 2: get to the top. Like they had to take several

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Speaker 2: trips just to sort of map out what they thought

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Speaker 2: would be a feasible way to even try to get

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Speaker 2: to the top.

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Speaker 1: Right, Apparently no one from Europe had been within sixty

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Speaker 1: miles of Everest itself, so this was all new, uncharted

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Speaker 1: territory basically for these guys. And again it's really important

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Speaker 1: to say, like we're going to be telling the story

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Speaker 1: from the English point of view, and like you said,

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Speaker 1: the Sherpa rarely figure into that, with the big exception

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Speaker 1: of Tensing Norgay, who officially was the first to summ

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Speaker 1: at Everest with Edmund Hillary. But these guys weren't doing

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Speaker 1: this alone. They had, depending on the expedition and how

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Speaker 1: much money it had, scores to hundreds of sherpas like

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Speaker 1: attending them, helping them climb, moving their stuff, and just

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Speaker 1: basically making life much easier on these guys. That said,

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Speaker 1: I really don't want to undermine the amount of effort

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Speaker 1: and strenuousness that these guys, yeah, and talent that these

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Speaker 1: guys underwent in just figuring out how to get to

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Speaker 1: Everest to start on that first nineteen twenty one expedition.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really cool to read contemporary, yes, contemporary accounts

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Speaker 2: of what modern climbers think of Mallory and his not

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Speaker 2: just tenaciousness, but his actual talent level and his climbing

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Speaker 2: style was apparently very unique and just revered today by

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Speaker 2: modern climbers. Is And you know, it's not to take

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Speaker 2: anything away from what anyone does today, because what people

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Speaker 2: can accomplish day is amazing. But they accomplish these things

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Speaker 2: based generally on you know, they can be taught by

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Speaker 2: other people and like this is how it's done, Like

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Speaker 2: Mallory and the King. We're figuring this out for the

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Speaker 2: first time. And by the way, I might have said

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Speaker 2: Hillary instead of Mallory. Yeah, because I'm just thinking of

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Speaker 2: climbing hills.

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Speaker 1: Right, and we should just go ahead and say just

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Speaker 1: to get any confusion out of the way. Edmund Hillary

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Speaker 1: summitted evereston I think nineteen fifty three. We're talking about

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Speaker 1: the first expeditions to ever again in nineteen twenty Mallory

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Speaker 1: and Hillary, I don't believe ever met. They were of

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Speaker 1: different generations of climbers, but Mallory was considered one of

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Speaker 1: the pioneers, as were the other men in his expeditions

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Speaker 1: that he went on.

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Speaker 2: All right, So if I said Hillary, I meant Mallory.

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Speaker 2: Are we all good?

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Speaker 1: I think we're good?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, all right. So they got permission again for

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Speaker 2: this trip in nineteen twenty one, and Mallory was in

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Speaker 2: his early thirties. He was included in this first group

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Speaker 2: and I think was really chomping at the bit to

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Speaker 2: do so. He has a wife and three young kids

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Speaker 2: at home, but really nothing could stop him from going

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Speaker 2: on this first scouting trip.

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Speaker 1: No, and he was thirty three on the nineteen twenty

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Speaker 1: one trip, and he says, basically, hey, dear, I'm going

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Speaker 1: to quit my job and leave you and the children

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Speaker 1: for I don't know, seven months at least to go

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Speaker 1: on this expedition see you. And that's where he went.

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Speaker 2: But he did say to his wife, here's what I'll do.

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Speaker 2: I'll take this picture of you, babe, and I will

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Speaker 2: carry it with me always, and I will place you

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Speaker 2: at the top of Everest to live there forever, more

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Speaker 2: in case than ice when I get up there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm sure he probably took it with him

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Speaker 1: on the first expedition, But the first expedition wasn't planning

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Speaker 1: on summoning Everest. But from what I gather from Mallory,

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Speaker 1: he would have been down to give it a shot

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Speaker 1: that first time out. Like that's how obsessed with Everest

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Speaker 1: that man became, right, and he actually was really successful.

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Speaker 1: The expedition was this was again the first expedition by

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Speaker 1: the English to map Everest, and they managed to do it.

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Speaker 1: They managed to find a way onto Everest what's called

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Speaker 1: the North Call, which is a ridge that connects one

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Speaker 1: mountain to another, and they found that North Call which

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Speaker 1: is the way still today. If you're coming from the

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Speaker 1: north from the Tibetan side up Everest, you still use

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Speaker 1: that route that these guys mapped in nineteen twenty one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's important to point out which side that

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Speaker 2: they would have gone up then and what side you

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Speaker 2: go up now, because there is a route that China

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Speaker 2: kind of secured and basically has held that Americans can't go,

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Speaker 2: and that'll be a key sort of later on in

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Speaker 2: this mystery. So put it bin in that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because China invaded Tibet in nineteen fifty and said

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Speaker 1: this side of the mountain is closed to Westerners. But

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Speaker 1: this happened. That happened to three decades after Mallory and

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Speaker 1: his expeditions, so they were using that north route, and

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Speaker 1: still to this day. The north route is considered technically

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Speaker 1: more difficult because it requires you to spend more time

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Speaker 1: at higher elevations with its attendant lower oxygen concentration, which

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Speaker 1: makes the whole thing way harder. And then secondly, the

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Speaker 1: way in through the north route requires twenty two miles

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Speaker 1: of walking just to get from base camp to the top,

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Speaker 1: whereas the south route, which is what Westerners use today

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Speaker 1: coming from the Nepalese side is about twelve and three

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Speaker 1: quarter miles of walking. Nothing to sneeze that still, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: it just kind of underscores the just how hard the

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Speaker 1: things that these guys were doing with zero equipment.

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Speaker 2: All right, so I think it's a good time for

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Speaker 2: a break. Sure, I'm gonna finally sort out the difference

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Speaker 2: between Hillary and Mallory.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like an eighties sitcom.

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Speaker 2: No, all right, So I'm gonna work all that out

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Speaker 2: and we'll be right back.

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Speaker 3: Stuff you should know.

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Speaker 1: Okay, we're back, and I want to go over a

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Speaker 1: little more about when you how you get to a mountain.

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Speaker 1: And we don't have to go in great detail, but

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Speaker 1: you're basically going up one mountain to get to that

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Speaker 1: ridge that connects that small mountain to Everest, the taller mountain, right,

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Speaker 1: But to get there requires hiking, mountain climbing, ice climbing,

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Speaker 1: rock climbing, every kind of climbing you can imagine. And

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Speaker 1: one of the first things you have to do, no

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Speaker 1: matter whether you come from the north route or the

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Speaker 1: south rout is cross a glacier and that is way

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Speaker 1: harder than it sounds.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this thing is you know surrounded in

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Speaker 2: part by glaciers, and like you said, there are so

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Speaker 2: many different disciplines if you're going to do something like Everest,

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Speaker 2: and especially in nineteen twenty one twenty two, that I

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Speaker 2: just don't think we can overstate like the near impossibility

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Speaker 2: of this feet at the time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, especially with the glacier. There's crevasses. They can be

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Speaker 1: really deep, you know, one hundred or more feet deep,

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Speaker 1: and you can fall into that and die. There can

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Speaker 1: be ice slides it's also known as avalanches. They can

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Speaker 1: come and bury you. There's something called I think seacres,

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Speaker 1: which are how size blocks of ice that you sometimes

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Speaker 1: have to climb that you could also topple and be

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Speaker 1: crushed by. Like that's just the glacier. That's like the

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Speaker 1: first obstacle to get toward the mountain. And again they

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Speaker 1: were doing this with zero equipment.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we did. We did a whole episode

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Speaker 2: on ice climbing, right.

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Speaker 1: We totally did.

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Speaker 2: And I remember so we talked about sea coorse.

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Speaker 1: Okay, good, all right? Yeah, I thought it sounded familiar,

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Speaker 1: and I also was like, yeah, ice climbing is really hard.

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Speaker 1: I know that from experience and researching it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well I mean this one. The sharp episode was

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Speaker 2: really good. Ice climbing was good. I believe we did

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Speaker 2: one on dead bodies on Everest.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and a long time ago we did one on

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Speaker 1: altitude sickness too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So this all comes together. Point is it's really

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Speaker 2: really hard and there are so many ways to die.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, what else wants to kill you up there, Chuck?

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Speaker 1: That they weren't aware of until that nineteen twenty one expedition.

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Speaker 2: The yetti.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where the YETI was introduced, or at least

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Speaker 1: the concept was introduced to Westerners who brought it back,

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Speaker 1: and then I believe on a later, like nineteen fifty

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Speaker 1: one expedition, a guy named Eric Shipton took some photos

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Speaker 1: of what were supposed to be Yetti tracks, and that's

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Speaker 1: when like the West really went wild for the Yetti.

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Speaker 2: That's right, So let's catch ourselves up. It's September twenty fourth,

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Speaker 2: nineteen twenty one, when they reach the North Coal and

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Speaker 2: this is where they're like, all right, we think this

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Speaker 2: is it. We think we have found a path that

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Speaker 2: can actually get us. They didn't realize there would one

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Speaker 2: day be an easier path, probably, but they said, we

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Speaker 2: think this is the way to go. And it should

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Speaker 2: be noted that not only these expedition trips to sort

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Speaker 2: of map things out, but each subsequent attempt to ascend

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Speaker 2: Everest that ended up in I don't want to say failure,

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Speaker 2: but I guess it is failure if they didn't accomplish

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Speaker 2: it devastating. But each one of yet, each one of

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Speaker 2: those is really important too, because you know, every higher

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Speaker 2: peak that you get to, you're able to sort of

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Speaker 2: establish of course not everywhere, but you're able to establish

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Speaker 2: camps along the way, right, and these camps are then

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Speaker 2: used later on as you know, base camps like one, two, three, four, five, six,

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Speaker 2: et cetera. In fact, it maybe six might have been

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Speaker 2: the highest camp at the time, right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure.

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Speaker 2: And then so but it's super important to establish that

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Speaker 2: for like all the hikers to come. Just because it

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Speaker 2: was a failed attempt doesn't mean a lot of great

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Speaker 2: stuff wasn't accomplished.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because if you are hiking or you're climbing up

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Speaker 1: a mountain and there's a higher camp that you're coming

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Speaker 1: up to, you can make your way over the day

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Speaker 1: to that camp and then just stay there for the night.

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Speaker 1: If there's not a higher camp you have to turn

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Speaker 1: around at some point and make your way to that

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Speaker 1: next lower camp to survive. Yeah, you cannot be caught

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Speaker 1: overnight on Everest anywhere at these elevations that these guys

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Speaker 1: are hiking at without tent and or a sleeping bag,

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Speaker 1: or you're going to die. That's all there is to it.

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Speaker 1: A human being can't survive on the you know, the

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Speaker 1: higher altitudes of Everest without that kind of stuff. So, yes,

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Speaker 1: establishing a camp is an enormous thing. But also they're

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Speaker 1: learning stuff firsthand about how humans respond to low oxygen concentrations,

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Speaker 1: what the weather conditions are, like, what time of year

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Speaker 1: you can hike, Like every detail is a brand new

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Speaker 1: novel detail that is really crucial in understanding how to

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Speaker 1: get to the top eventually.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like what time of day you have to start

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Speaker 2: out in order to get up there and safely get

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Speaker 2: back down. Because some people, including Hillary, Yes, Hillary, and

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Speaker 2: it's a thorny subject, but some people, as far as

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Speaker 2: the Mystery of Mallory goes, some people don't consider it

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Speaker 2: a successful ascent unless you come back down. And that's

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Speaker 2: kind of the thing. And I think Hillary was one

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Speaker 2: of those, and his family also said, Hey, listen, not

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Speaker 2: to slag anyone, but we kind of only consider it

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Speaker 2: a success if you go up and you're able to

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Speaker 2: come back down and live to tell about it, essentially. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: And I think that was which is an interesting point.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think that point was made by Hillary himself,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of saying yeah, he's yeah, He's like, well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, even if you've made it to the top,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't count.

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Speaker 2: Like I'm doing this interview right now.

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Speaker 1: Right I'm sitting here. So there's one thing I want

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Speaker 1: to point out that I don't know has become clear yet.

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Speaker 1: It's clear to me because we did this research and

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Speaker 1: I found out what the deal was. But you might

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Speaker 1: be asking yourself why was mountain climbing so big at

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Speaker 1: this time? Why were these people doing this? And there's

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Speaker 1: a really good explanation for that. Ever, itself was considered

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Speaker 1: the third Pole because people had already made it to

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Speaker 1: the South Pole and the North Pole. We didn't yet

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Speaker 1: have the technology to explore the deep ocean or space,

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Speaker 1: and we had been almost everywhere else on Earth. So

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Speaker 1: this was like the last place for humans to I

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Speaker 1: guess basically conquer or pit their endurance against. And that's

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Speaker 1: why it was so attractive to people.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and that was a very eloquent way to say that.

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Speaker 2: I think we should mention that Mallory himself is the

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Speaker 2: very person who very famously coined the term because it's

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Speaker 2: there when asked why they would try to do something

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Speaker 2: like this, Yeah, why climb mountains because it's there?

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Speaker 1: That alone makes him just worth remembering. You know what

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Speaker 1: a cool response.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, why are you going to eat big mac because

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Speaker 2: it's there?

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Speaker 1: Everything that's ever come since then where somebody says because

390
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Speaker 1: it's there, you're actually quoting George Mallory, that's right.

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Speaker 2: All right. So let's talk for a second about oxygen.

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Speaker 2: Low oxygen is no good for the human body. And

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Speaker 2: we've mentioned several times that your oxygen levels are very

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Speaker 2: low when you're ascending Everest. And these days they make

395
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Speaker 2: it really easy on you, it's all. You know, the

396
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Speaker 2: kind of oxygen and they take is very easy to take.

397
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Speaker 2: They make it very user friendly. But back then they

398
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Speaker 2: had like glassed bottles of oxygen that were carried in

399
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Speaker 2: like wooden crates, and it was a real pain to

400
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Speaker 2: get there. It was super super heavy. But they knew

401
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Speaker 2: at the time, you know, well, they learned that they

402
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Speaker 2: would absolutely need this stuff, but Mallory was sort of,

403
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Speaker 2: I don't think indifferent. I think he was sort of

404
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Speaker 2: annoyed by the whole thing that you actually had to

405
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Speaker 2: take this stuff, to the point where he didn't even

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Speaker 2: use them, I believe in the nineteen twenty one test run, right.

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Speaker 1: No, I don't believe.

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Speaker 3: So.

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Speaker 1: I don't think he did either in the nineteen twenty

410
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Speaker 1: two expedition that followed where they actually did try to

411
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Speaker 1: make summit, and it wasn't for years before he was like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: maybe oxygen's a good idea. Some of them even thought

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Speaker 1: it was like a hindrance in general because it was

414
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Speaker 1: an extra thirty pounds that you had to carry, yeah,

415
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Speaker 1: up this mountain. And if you watch, if you watch

416
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Speaker 1: video of people climbing Everest today, especially as they get

417
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Speaker 1: closer and closer to the top and there's less and

418
00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:11,720
Speaker 1: less oxygen, yeah, they do even they seem to like

419
00:23:11,880 --> 00:23:15,119
Speaker 1: have regret for being where they are. But even with

420
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Speaker 1: oxygen on, if you watch them, they'll take a step

421
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Speaker 1: so one foot and then they'll bring the other foot

422
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Speaker 1: up and maybe they've traversed a foot of Everest right then,

423
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Speaker 1: and then they have to wait like fifteen thirty seconds

424
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Speaker 1: before they make the next one because they're that tired

425
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Speaker 1: because there's that little oxygen. And that's with oxygen on.

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Speaker 1: So these guys were trying these kind of a sense

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Speaker 1: without oxygen, I can't imagine, like, you know, how you

428
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Speaker 1: would even do that. And it's actually it's not clear

429
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Speaker 1: whether you really could some everest without oxygen, although I

430
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Speaker 1: think people have tried to maybe even been successful, so

431
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Speaker 1: I guess it would be clear.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So in twenty two, I believe Mallory and a

433
00:23:57,359 --> 00:24:01,440
Speaker 2: couple of other climbers hit twenty six eight hundred feet,

434
00:24:02,640 --> 00:24:06,359
Speaker 2: which is remarkable, before they decided to turn back. And

435
00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:10,040
Speaker 2: again this is without using oxygen on that twenty two try.

436
00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:12,200
Speaker 2: And then this is the part where I was a

437
00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:14,600
Speaker 2: little bit confused. Maybe you can clear it up. When

438
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:18,040
Speaker 2: did the avalanche happen? Was that in twenty one where

439
00:24:19,040 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 2: seven people were killed? Yeah?

440
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:25,719
Speaker 1: So no, in twenty one there was an avalanche that

441
00:24:25,760 --> 00:24:28,120
Speaker 1: wiped out some of the camps they'd established, but didn't

442
00:24:28,160 --> 00:24:31,960
Speaker 1: hurt anybody. Okay, twenty two they weren't as lucky, and

443
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:36,000
Speaker 1: seven Sherpa died in an avalanche, all right, And Mallory

444
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:39,320
Speaker 1: kind of considered himself that at least partially responsible. Even

445
00:24:39,359 --> 00:24:41,360
Speaker 1: though he wasn't the only person who pushed for this

446
00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:44,720
Speaker 1: last attempt for the summit, he was one of them.

447
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:48,200
Speaker 1: And an avalanche was triggered by that third attempt and

448
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:50,760
Speaker 1: killed some of the people further down on the mountain

449
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 1: when they were covered up by it.

450
00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:55,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there are people you know who have looked

451
00:24:55,359 --> 00:25:03,119
Speaker 2: back in kind of poop pooed Mallories poo poot his carelessness.

452
00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:05,640
Speaker 2: And I don't know if it was carelessness. I don't

453
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 2: think it was carelessness just because he was a careless person.

454
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:12,480
Speaker 2: I think it was a little more his tenacious attitude

455
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 2: sort of overrode good sense sometimes. Is the way I

456
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 2: took it? Is that how you took it? I think

457
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:20,000
Speaker 2: that was part of it.

458
00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:21,879
Speaker 1: But I also get the impression that he was like

459
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:26,200
Speaker 1: just downright flighty, Oh was he? Yeah? Like there was

460
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:28,320
Speaker 1: a he was in charge of the camera for the

461
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two expedition and apparently he put the film

462
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:34,360
Speaker 1: in backwards but was taking pictures the whole time and

463
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:37,080
Speaker 1: they didn't turn out because he didn't have the film incorrectly,

464
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:41,840
Speaker 1: Like that's a classico sure, but if you do that

465
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:44,119
Speaker 1: things like that over and over again, you start to

466
00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 1: develop a reputation as being flighty.

467
00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 2: I guess. So the thing I think is cameras, Like

468
00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:54,679
Speaker 2: operating a camera wasn't second nature at this point in history,

469
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 2: and it's like, just give this guy a camera. I

470
00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:00,639
Speaker 2: don't know. I could see him just being like I

471
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:02,119
Speaker 2: don't even know what this thing is or how to

472
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:05,439
Speaker 2: really operate it, Like, don't give it to me. They're like, well,

473
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:06,720
Speaker 2: you kind of have to take it, and he's like,

474
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 2: all right, I'll do my best.

475
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 1: I can't.

476
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:11,359
Speaker 2: I mean, I kind of created that narrative, but but

477
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 2: it was a good one. He was good at mountain climbing.

478
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:15,400
Speaker 2: He may not have been a good photographer.

479
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:18,720
Speaker 1: Okay, fair enough. But there's a very famous quote by

480
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 1: a doctor, Tom Longstaff, who was the doctor on the

481
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:26,119
Speaker 1: expedition in nineteen twenty two, said Mallory was quite unfit

482
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 1: to be placed in charge of anything, including himself. So,

483
00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 1: I mean people definitely thought of him. I'm going to

484
00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:34,960
Speaker 1: say flighty, and I'm not judging. I'm pretty flighty myself.

485
00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:39,399
Speaker 1: You me would certainly tell you that. But so I

486
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:41,960
Speaker 1: think I recognize it when I see it. Maybe that's what.

487
00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:45,119
Speaker 2: It is, as you me your doctor long Staff.

488
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:48,640
Speaker 1: Yep, I'm gonna start calling her that now.

489
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:50,879
Speaker 2: I should be like, what are you talking about?

490
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:53,200
Speaker 1: I look that up too, Remember our surname's episode. I

491
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:54,920
Speaker 1: was like, oh, is that a dirty last name?

492
00:26:55,520 --> 00:26:56,359
Speaker 2: No, that's what I thought.

493
00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 1: It turns out if you were a bailiff or somebody

494
00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:01,919
Speaker 1: involved in law enforcement, you would have carried like a

495
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 1: long stick, oh okay, to probably beat people with. And

496
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:08,359
Speaker 1: that's where they got that name. So his ancestor was

497
00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:11,160
Speaker 1: involved in law enforcement. I looked it up. I went

498
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:15,440
Speaker 1: long Staff, surname Penis and doctor Longstaff.

499
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:17,120
Speaker 2: Definiteast sounds like a born name.

500
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:17,960
Speaker 1: It definitely does.

501
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:22,040
Speaker 2: All right, So now let's go to nineteen twenty four.

502
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:27,120
Speaker 2: The test runs had happened, the real attempts had happened,

503
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:30,880
Speaker 2: and then finally nineteen twenty four rolls around. They didn't

504
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 2: just take the year off in nineteen twenty three because

505
00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 2: they were tired. They didn't get funding, like it costs

506
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 2: a lot of money and these people aren't like bankrolling themselves.

507
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:42,680
Speaker 2: So the Mount Everest Company could not raise the money

508
00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:45,560
Speaker 2: in twenty three, so they waited until nineteen twenty four.

509
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 2: When Mallory jumped up in class and said me, me, me, me,

510
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:53,280
Speaker 2: me again. Yeah, and almost didn't go though, because one

511
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:57,040
Speaker 2: of his mates, George Finch, a fellow climber, was I

512
00:27:57,040 --> 00:28:00,800
Speaker 2: believe left off the list, and Mallory was like, if

513
00:28:00,840 --> 00:28:02,679
Speaker 2: he's not going to go, I'm not there gonna go

514
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 2: And they said okay, and then he went, well, I

515
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:05,199
Speaker 2: still want to go.

516
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 1: He put on a fake mustache and put himself down

517
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:13,840
Speaker 1: as George Hallery exactly. So there was a guy who

518
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:16,800
Speaker 1: went who was kind of a surprise selection. His name

519
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 1: was Andrew Sandy Irving Irvine. Sorry, and Sandy Irvine was

520
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:25,720
Speaker 1: a student still. He was an engineering student. That's actually

521
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:27,720
Speaker 1: one of the reasons they brought him along. He wasn't

522
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:29,840
Speaker 1: a schlub as far as mountaineering goes. He just was

523
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:33,159
Speaker 1: not nearly as experienced as most of the people on

524
00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 1: that nineteen twenty four expedition. But being an engineering student,

525
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 1: he could fiddle and fuss with the oxygen apparatus which.

526
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:43,200
Speaker 2: Had in the cameras.

527
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 1: Maybe yeah, probably he knew how to put the film

528
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:50,160
Speaker 1: in the right direction. But since I get the impression

529
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: that since the nineteen twenty one and twenty two expeditions,

530
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 1: it had become clear to these these these people on

531
00:28:56,640 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 1: these expeditions, on the nineteen twenty four expedition that oxygen

532
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:03,080
Speaker 1: wasn't like really important and to have somebody who could

533
00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 1: make these these rigs more efficient would be really, really valuable.

534
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 1: So they brought Sandy Irvine along.

535
00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 2: Yeah. I also saw that Irvine was, you know, despite

536
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:18,840
Speaker 2: his fiddler's reputation, was strong as an ox.

537
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 1: Yeah.

538
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's another nice thing.

539
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 1: If you see there's a famous picture of he and

540
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 1: him and Mallory next to each other facing the camera

541
00:29:28,320 --> 00:29:31,480
Speaker 1: like posing for a picture. And he's easily a full

542
00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 1: head taller than Mallory was, and about his wide too,

543
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 1: so he was a big, big boy.

544
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 2: Yeah. And Mallory was very handsome too, if we should note, yes,

545
00:29:42,840 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 2: good looking dude.

546
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 1: He really was very pretty. I think you could.

547
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 2: Say pretty mad.

548
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 1: And then one other note about Mallory on this to

549
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 1: start off this nineteen twenty four expedition. Again, this is

550
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:57,480
Speaker 1: the third expedition to Everest, and he was the only

551
00:29:57,560 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 1: member of this entire expedition who had been on all

552
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 1: three expeditions, which again really underscores Mallory was obsessed with

553
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:07,440
Speaker 1: summiting Everest.

554
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:11,480
Speaker 2: That's right, So to June first, now, I think, so, man,

555
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 2: all right, Mallory and George Bruce make this first attempt.

556
00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 2: This one didn't work out when basically the sherpass said

557
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 2: all right, we're not going any further. It's too dangerous,

558
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:28,200
Speaker 2: and they basically dropped their stuff and turned back. So again,

559
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 2: this one didn't work out. But one of the positives

560
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:35,840
Speaker 2: is they established a camp at twenty five thousand feet,

561
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 2: which I believe was the tallest camp at the time

562
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:40,360
Speaker 2: or the highest camp.

563
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, so that's again that's a huge success for

564
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 1: a summit attempt, right, even more groundwork. The following day,

565
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 1: another couple climbers, Edward Norton and t Howard Somerville, made

566
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 1: their own attempt on the summit. Norton kept going beyond Summerville,

567
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:00,880
Speaker 1: and he made it within a thousand feet of the

568
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 1: summit of Everest, which, depending on your perspective, sounds really

569
00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:08,720
Speaker 1: close but actually isn't or is actually super close even

570
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:09,880
Speaker 1: though it sounds far away.

571
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 2: I think it's pretty close.

572
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 1: It is. But if you look at a map and

573
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 1: see where twenty eight thousand feet is and then where

574
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 1: twenty nine thousand feet is she had a way to go,

575
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 1: but far and away. That was the record, and it

576
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:26,600
Speaker 1: was a record that stood, at least officially until Hillary

577
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 1: and Norgay summitted Everest in nineteen fifty three. So it

578
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:34,400
Speaker 1: was a big deal. But Norton in Somerville really paid

579
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:41,080
Speaker 1: for their attempt Somerville. He almost suffocated from a high

580
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:45,800
Speaker 1: altitude cough. And then Norton developed snow blindness because they

581
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:50,239
Speaker 1: would wear goggles that were like basically sunglass goggles, and

582
00:31:50,320 --> 00:31:52,560
Speaker 1: you had to wear them during the day, not just

583
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:56,960
Speaker 1: from the wind, but because the UV was really really

584
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:00,720
Speaker 1: abundant because of the thin air up there, so you

585
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:03,600
Speaker 1: would get what's called snow blindness. You would get Caro

586
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 1: Titus on your corneas, and that's what happened to Norton.

587
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 1: He burned his corneas from the reflected sunlight because he

588
00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:14,080
Speaker 1: didn't keep his goggles on long enough. And on the

589
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:17,800
Speaker 1: way back down from twenty five thousand feet back down,

590
00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:21,320
Speaker 1: he had to be helped. Every footstep had to be

591
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 1: placed by shurpas and the doctor on the trip. Every foot,

592
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:29,960
Speaker 1: every footstep he made all the way back down out

593
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:31,800
Speaker 1: of the Everest area.

594
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:35,719
Speaker 2: That's amazing it really is all right. So on this

595
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:40,680
Speaker 2: third attempt, Mallory brought Irving. Sorry, why do you keep

596
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:41,920
Speaker 2: saying that? I said? Because you said it?

597
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:42,320
Speaker 1: Sorry?

598
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 2: Brought Irvine along, and they were sending notes down. You know,

599
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:51,400
Speaker 2: they're sending messages back down with Shurpas along the way,

600
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:57,080
Speaker 2: basically saying yeah, I love you. They were sending notes

601
00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 2: back down to the other camps, basically giving reports on

602
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 2: what's going on, saying things are going well, the weather

603
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 2: looks like we should be able to do it. We're gonna,

604
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:10,280
Speaker 2: we're gonna, you know, we're gonna try and do this

605
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:14,080
Speaker 2: like tomorrow or whatever. And so all the notes that

606
00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 2: were coming down were pretty positive, and basically everything we

607
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:23,720
Speaker 2: know about this comes from a gentleman, a gentleman geologist

608
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 2: named Noel O'Dell. It was actually a pretty big hero

609
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 2: in this story too.

610
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:31,480
Speaker 1: Yeah. He was pretty awesome actually, and he lived to

611
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 1: be a ripe old man, sorry ripe old age.

612
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:37,880
Speaker 2: He spelled really bad.

613
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's a really cool interview with him from

614
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:42,680
Speaker 1: a Nova episode. I can't remember what it's called, but

615
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 1: it's from like the eighties, and they interviewed Noel Odell

616
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 1: about this. So he factors in big time in a minute.

617
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:50,960
Speaker 1: But Odell was He went up to one of the

618
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:54,880
Speaker 1: high camps. He wanted to look for fossils. Being a geologist,

619
00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 1: he also brought up supplies of food and water to

620
00:33:57,680 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 1: those higher camps to help the climbers on their way

621
00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:02,840
Speaker 1: back down. And this was the third attempt. Remember, the

622
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: first attempt didn't work, second attempt didn't work. It kind

623
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:08,360
Speaker 1: of resulted in disaster. And then this third attempt was

624
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:12,000
Speaker 1: going to be the last one. And Mallory said, hey, Irvine,

625
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:14,120
Speaker 1: why don't you come with me. We're going to try

626
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:16,880
Speaker 1: to make the summit of Everest. And there's something that

627
00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 1: you need to know about this third attempt. Mallory was

628
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 1: I think thirty seven maybe by this time, and as

629
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:26,920
Speaker 1: far as mountaineers and climbers go, especially back then, he

630
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:30,040
Speaker 1: was old. This was probably going to be his last

631
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:33,600
Speaker 1: expedition to Everest, and this attempt for the summit was

632
00:34:33,680 --> 00:34:38,239
Speaker 1: the last attempt on this expedition ergo. This was Mallory's

633
00:34:38,360 --> 00:34:42,000
Speaker 1: last shot at summiting Everest, and he was setting out

634
00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:45,799
Speaker 1: from the highest camp that had ever been established. Basically,

635
00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:48,799
Speaker 1: I believe it's the highest camp still today on that

636
00:34:48,920 --> 00:34:49,719
Speaker 1: north route.

637
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:53,720
Speaker 2: All right. It sounds like a great cliffhanger, no pun intended.

638
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:57,520
Speaker 2: So let's take our final break here and we'll wrap

639
00:34:57,600 --> 00:34:58,800
Speaker 2: up the story right after.

640
00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:23,719
Speaker 3: This stuff you should know, all right.

641
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:27,760
Speaker 2: So Mallory is on his last attempt as a human

642
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:30,359
Speaker 2: to do the thing that he was obsessed with since

643
00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:35,799
Speaker 2: he was, you know, a young late teenager. Beautiful, beautiful.

644
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 2: So so handsome geologist Noel Odell is up there again.

645
00:35:40,719 --> 00:35:43,200
Speaker 2: He is. He is doing sort of the cool, groovy

646
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:47,919
Speaker 2: Appalachian trail hangout dude thing that is still for people. Yeah,

647
00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:52,320
Speaker 2: he's doing some trail magic up there. And at twelve

648
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:57,560
Speaker 2: fifty he sees Mallory and Irvine on the northeast ridge.

649
00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 2: But there are a few hours and this is really key,

650
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 2: there are a few hours behind schedule from where they

651
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:07,080
Speaker 2: should be, and there's a very narrow window again for

652
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:09,359
Speaker 2: like what time of day you can pull this off

653
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:11,960
Speaker 2: and then safely get back down. So to be a

654
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:14,680
Speaker 2: few hours behind schedule is a big deal on whether

655
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:18,920
Speaker 2: or not you're gonna survive basically. So what he says,

656
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:21,239
Speaker 2: and we'll just go ahead and read the quote. What

657
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:24,879
Speaker 2: he says he saw is the following the entire Summit Ridge,

658
00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 2: and final peak of Everest were unveiled. My eyes became

659
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:32,080
Speaker 2: fixed on one tiny black spot beneath a rock step

660
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:35,800
Speaker 2: in the ridge. The black spot moved. Another black spot

661
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:39,000
Speaker 2: became apparent and moved up the snow to join the

662
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:42,160
Speaker 2: other on the crest. The first then approached the great

663
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:46,400
Speaker 2: rock step and shortly emerged at the top. The second

664
00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 2: did likewise.

665
00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:50,879
Speaker 1: So right after that, Chuck apparently the clouds came back,

666
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:54,440
Speaker 1: and those two black spots that were he took to

667
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:58,359
Speaker 1: be Irvine and Mallory disappeared from view. And that was,

668
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:01,320
Speaker 1: if that was Irvine and Mallory, the last time anybody

669
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:03,520
Speaker 1: saw them, and Odell would have been the last to

670
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:05,880
Speaker 1: see them, which will become a crucial thing later on,

671
00:37:06,040 --> 00:37:10,640
Speaker 1: as we'll see. But Odell kind of waited for them

672
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:12,680
Speaker 1: to come back down to the camps. Remember he was

673
00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 1: in the high camps, and he waited and he waited

674
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:17,960
Speaker 1: and he waited, and then he started to get really worried.

675
00:37:18,040 --> 00:37:20,520
Speaker 1: And here's where he became a hero, like you were

676
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:21,240
Speaker 1: saying earlier.

677
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:26,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Odell is again he's not down there at

678
00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:29,200
Speaker 2: sea level. He is hanging out up there trying to

679
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:32,120
Speaker 2: do the trail magic thing. He's all of a sudden worried,

680
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:39,800
Speaker 2: and he basically from Camp six starts hiking around trying

681
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:44,840
Speaker 2: to find these guys and doesn't leave. He just keeps staying,

682
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:48,440
Speaker 2: and he keeps making these a cents, And I believe,

683
00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:52,600
Speaker 2: like two days in a row, made an assent over

684
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:54,520
Speaker 2: what like twenty six thousand feet.

685
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, a couple of them, and he'd go back to

686
00:37:56,680 --> 00:37:59,080
Speaker 1: camp because he had to again to survive, but then

687
00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:01,160
Speaker 1: he would strike out like as soon as he could

688
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 1: the next day to look for them.

689
00:38:04,760 --> 00:38:06,360
Speaker 2: I mean, that's why he's one of the heroes.

690
00:38:06,560 --> 00:38:08,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And like again, I don't even know if

691
00:38:08,760 --> 00:38:11,279
Speaker 1: he had oxygen at that point. So he spent a

692
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:14,319
Speaker 1: couple of days way up there looking for them, and

693
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 1: finally from the high camp he signaled back down to

694
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:20,800
Speaker 1: the lower camps, the base camp, and there was apparently

695
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:24,799
Speaker 1: a pre arranged signal that they had come up with

696
00:38:24,880 --> 00:38:30,399
Speaker 1: for this third summit attempt, and Odell laid it out.

697
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:33,280
Speaker 1: It was six sleeping bags laid out in a cross,

698
00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:36,240
Speaker 1: which meant death, that they had died, that they hadn't

699
00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:39,000
Speaker 1: made it. And so in reply, the guy who led

700
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:44,080
Speaker 1: the expedition had a return signal saying like, give up, hope,

701
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:47,600
Speaker 1: come back down, and very sadly, Odell did as he

702
00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:51,720
Speaker 1: was instructed and came back down without Irvine, without Mallory,

703
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:54,799
Speaker 1: who remained up on the mountain as far as anyone knew.

704
00:38:55,880 --> 00:38:59,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, and at this point he had been up there

705
00:38:59,680 --> 00:39:02,920
Speaker 2: for and this is over twenty three thousand feet. He

706
00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 2: had been up there for eleven days. And that's I mean,

707
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:10,040
Speaker 2: surely no, uh, I don't think that had been done before.

708
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:12,920
Speaker 1: Right, That's no picnic caught in a snowstorm. That's some

709
00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:13,720
Speaker 1: serious stuff.

710
00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:17,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's no way that these guys, I mean,

711
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:18,719
Speaker 2: they were up there for two nights and you're not

712
00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:21,680
Speaker 2: going to survive one night. So it was pretty clear

713
00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:23,439
Speaker 2: those sleeping bags had to come out at that point.

714
00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:26,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so they said, you know, they were really

715
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:29,759
Speaker 1: kind of unhappy on that way back down, which again

716
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:31,960
Speaker 1: I don't think we said if you're coming up a mountain,

717
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:34,759
Speaker 1: you have to acclimate over weeks, little by little, and

718
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 1: I believe you have to do roughly the same thing

719
00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:39,279
Speaker 1: coming back down. So these guys had to basically have

720
00:39:39,360 --> 00:39:41,520
Speaker 1: this party where two people had been lost on their

721
00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:44,279
Speaker 1: summit attempt, and they were glowmed but at the same time,

722
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:47,480
Speaker 1: they realized, like, you know, Mallory and Irvine had kind

723
00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:51,160
Speaker 1: of embodied this spirit of adventure and just trying and

724
00:39:51,239 --> 00:39:55,640
Speaker 1: even risking your life for you know, this this noble

725
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:58,480
Speaker 1: attempt that at something no one else had ever done.

726
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:00,719
Speaker 1: So it was kind of a bitter sweet thing. Their

727
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:04,560
Speaker 1: loss was. It wasn't entirely nothing but tragic. There was

728
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:06,840
Speaker 1: some silver lining to it in the way that Mallory

729
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 1: was remembered and thought of.

730
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:13,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and from that moment forward there you know

731
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:16,920
Speaker 2: ed kind of makes it sound like the consensuses that

732
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:19,600
Speaker 2: they never reached the top, And after reading all this

733
00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:21,800
Speaker 2: stuff and a lot of other opinions, I don't think

734
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 2: I don't think that's true at all. I think there

735
00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:28,200
Speaker 2: is still debate on whether or not they actually made

736
00:40:28,239 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 2: it to the top. And there are a bunch of

737
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:32,759
Speaker 2: cool little clues that kind of lead you down one

738
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 2: way or the other along the way.

739
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:38,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of them, Chuck, was Odell and what he saw.

740
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:40,200
Speaker 1: And there's a couple of things you need to know

741
00:40:40,239 --> 00:40:42,880
Speaker 1: about Odell. Number one, he was a geologist, and a

742
00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:45,399
Speaker 1: lot of people say he just mistook some rocks for

743
00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:48,400
Speaker 1: Irvine and Mallory. The little tiny dots he thought he

744
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:52,759
Speaker 1: saw moving. He's a geologist, making him very unlikely to

745
00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:56,560
Speaker 1: mistake rocks for people. And then secondly, he was well

746
00:40:56,600 --> 00:40:59,719
Speaker 1: known to have really good eyesight. Apparently he didn't need

747
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:02,759
Speaker 1: glass until he was in his nineties. So those two

748
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:05,839
Speaker 1: things combined make it seem like he was probably the

749
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:10,919
Speaker 1: best possible eyewitness around. And Odell went to his grave saying,

750
00:41:10,960 --> 00:41:13,400
Speaker 1: I saw them. They were moving. It was them, But

751
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:16,840
Speaker 1: exactly where he saw them kind of came up for grabs.

752
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there are these three cliffs sort of you know,

753
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 2: if you go this route, there are three cliffs to

754
00:41:25,600 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 2: get to the top, and they called them steps step one,

755
00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:31,080
Speaker 2: step two, step three. They didn't know about these steps

756
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:33,279
Speaker 2: until they got there, obviously, because no one had done

757
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:36,680
Speaker 2: this yet. And from what he was talking about, he

758
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:41,279
Speaker 2: saw them on the second step, But there are a

759
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:43,719
Speaker 2: lot of people today that said no. I think he

760
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 2: probably saw them on the first step. At one point

761
00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 2: in his life he said that it was the first step,

762
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:52,239
Speaker 2: but then he went back and said no. And I

763
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:54,800
Speaker 2: don't know if he was just sort of a victim

764
00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:57,839
Speaker 2: of kind of listening to what other people had to say.

765
00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:00,440
Speaker 2: But apparently later in life. He went back and was

766
00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:02,359
Speaker 2: adamant that it was the second step that he saw

767
00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 2: them on.

768
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:05,560
Speaker 1: Oh really, okay, cool. So here's the thing. If you

769
00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:09,200
Speaker 1: were in the climbing community and you believe that at

770
00:42:09,239 --> 00:42:12,839
Speaker 1: the very least Mallory, if not Mallory and Irvine made

771
00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 1: it to the top of Everest on that nineteen twenty

772
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:18,319
Speaker 1: four expedition on that third attempt. The reason you think

773
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:21,080
Speaker 1: that is because you believe that Odell did see them

774
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:24,400
Speaker 1: climb up that second step, Because that second step was

775
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:27,719
Speaker 1: the last great obstacle to the top, and had they

776
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:31,840
Speaker 1: made it up the second step, nothing would have stopped

777
00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:35,239
Speaker 1: Mallory from continuing on to hit the summit. Knowing that

778
00:42:35,520 --> 00:42:38,200
Speaker 1: he probably would not ever make it down alive, he

779
00:42:38,440 --> 00:42:41,560
Speaker 1: still would have kept going on. So that's what a

780
00:42:41,560 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 1: lot of people think, and the people who think that

781
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 1: he actually did make it kind of point to Odell's

782
00:42:46,719 --> 00:42:47,840
Speaker 1: eyewitness statements.

783
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:51,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's in that interview when he was what

784
00:42:51,440 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 2: he was ninety seven years old, Odell himself says that

785
00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:57,759
Speaker 2: you know, there would have been nothing that would have

786
00:42:57,760 --> 00:43:01,520
Speaker 2: stopped Mallory and Irvine. He believes even though dusk was

787
00:43:01,560 --> 00:43:04,239
Speaker 2: approaching and they probably knew it was, I guess a

788
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:07,799
Speaker 2: suicide mission at that point. His feeling was that there's

789
00:43:07,800 --> 00:43:09,080
Speaker 2: no way they would have stopped too.

790
00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:11,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, because we didn't say when those clouds came around,

791
00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:13,840
Speaker 1: they brought with them a blizzard too, so it was

792
00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 1: really terrible conditions. They were way late in the day.

793
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:19,440
Speaker 1: There was basically no chance if they submitted that they

794
00:43:19,440 --> 00:43:22,399
Speaker 1: could get back to that highest camp in time for

795
00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:25,439
Speaker 1: surviving the night. But that would not have stopped them,

796
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 1: because they would They just would have kept going. That's

797
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:31,200
Speaker 1: just what Mallory would have done. Pretty much everybody agrees

798
00:43:31,239 --> 00:43:33,600
Speaker 1: on that. The distinction is whether he was on the

799
00:43:33,640 --> 00:43:36,000
Speaker 1: first step or the second step, because if he was

800
00:43:36,080 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 1: just on the first step, he still had that second

801
00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 1: step ahead of him, he might not have made it.

802
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:42,719
Speaker 1: If he made the second step, he definitely summitted. That

803
00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:44,759
Speaker 1: seems to be what the consensus is.

804
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:48,279
Speaker 2: All right, so you've got that. We can park that

805
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 2: to the side. In the subsequent years, on different expeditions,

806
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:56,760
Speaker 2: there have been little bits and pieces of evidence found

807
00:43:56,840 --> 00:44:02,400
Speaker 2: along the way. One in nineteen thirty three, when Irvine's acts,

808
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:06,600
Speaker 2: his ice axe was found, and you know you're not

809
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 2: gonna just leave your ice ax behind r So basically

810
00:44:10,200 --> 00:44:14,480
Speaker 2: they concluded that something happened that made Irvine drop this

811
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:17,880
Speaker 2: ice axe, but they recovered it in thirty three. And

812
00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:22,560
Speaker 2: then in nineteen seventy five there were some Chinese Chinese

813
00:44:22,600 --> 00:44:25,600
Speaker 2: climbers who made a successful summit all the way to

814
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:28,960
Speaker 2: the top, and they were the only ones that could

815
00:44:28,960 --> 00:44:31,200
Speaker 2: have gone this way because, like we said earlier, the

816
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:35,160
Speaker 2: Chinese route was shut down basically to Americans, and so

817
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:38,600
Speaker 2: it's not like that people before the nineteen seventy five

818
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 2: would have been taking this route. I think there was

819
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 2: one American group that snuck in and did so illegally.

820
00:44:46,239 --> 00:44:49,759
Speaker 2: But one of the Chinese climbers said I found an

821
00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:54,520
Speaker 2: English dead to another climber. China has always denied this

822
00:44:54,719 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 2: and said that that's not true and that it was

823
00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 2: a misunderstanding, and that climber, actually his name was Wang

824
00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:07,080
Speaker 2: Hungboo died the next day in an avalanche, so there

825
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 2: was never like any follow up with him.

826
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:12,880
Speaker 1: In a really interesting ironic twist, Chuck hungbo translate to

827
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 1: so long staff in English. No, really, I thought I'd

828
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:18,759
Speaker 1: get a bigger laugh out of that.

829
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:22,480
Speaker 2: We'll just say that, well, it was believable enough to

830
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:23,560
Speaker 2: where I couldn't quite do it.

831
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:26,520
Speaker 1: So yeah, so there's all this intrigue that's kind of

832
00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:31,600
Speaker 1: gathering around this this idea that the Chinese had found

833
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:35,400
Speaker 1: at least one dead Englishman on their side of the mountain,

834
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:38,080
Speaker 1: the north side of the Tibetan side, where they shouldn't

835
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:40,040
Speaker 1: have been, which means that, yeah, it had to have

836
00:45:40,040 --> 00:45:44,799
Speaker 1: been Irvine or Mallory. So there was an expedition that

837
00:45:45,000 --> 00:45:47,960
Speaker 1: came well, there's a nineteen ninety one expedition that found

838
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:52,160
Speaker 1: an old oxygen bottle that was almost certainly Mallory or Irvines,

839
00:45:52,640 --> 00:45:55,080
Speaker 1: and then all of that information kind of came together

840
00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:59,960
Speaker 1: to support a nineteen ninety nine GEO expedition to actually

841
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 1: find Irvine or Mallory, and they actually did. They found

842
00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:06,440
Speaker 1: one of them, and at first they thought it was Irvine.

843
00:46:06,080 --> 00:46:12,840
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, they did, But they found Mallory. He was frozen,

844
00:46:13,040 --> 00:46:16,920
Speaker 2: he was sun bleached, his body was very well preserved,

845
00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:21,279
Speaker 2: the items on him were very well preserved. They found

846
00:46:21,320 --> 00:46:24,759
Speaker 2: him severely injured. Well, they found a couple of things.

847
00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:27,839
Speaker 2: They found that he had a severely broken leg and

848
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:33,120
Speaker 2: some rope trauma like ligature stuff around his waist. But

849
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:36,160
Speaker 2: what they really found that was severe was the cause

850
00:46:36,200 --> 00:46:39,640
Speaker 2: of death, which was a golf ball size hole in

851
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:40,320
Speaker 2: his forehead.

852
00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:42,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, they and it was a puncture wound. So they

853
00:46:42,640 --> 00:46:46,240
Speaker 1: think it's possible as he was falling that his ice

854
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:48,840
Speaker 1: axe bounced off of a rock and into his head,

855
00:46:49,120 --> 00:46:51,520
Speaker 1: which that'd be pretty merciful on the way down if

856
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:54,280
Speaker 1: you think about it, if that killed him instantly, Because

857
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:57,279
Speaker 1: they said that his foot was almost broken off. That

858
00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:02,080
Speaker 1: break was so bad trauma too. Imagine a rope yanking

859
00:47:02,120 --> 00:47:04,080
Speaker 1: on you, because they found the rope still tied around

860
00:47:04,080 --> 00:47:04,600
Speaker 1: his waist.

861
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:07,640
Speaker 2: But I had that happen, Actually, I can't imagine.

862
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:10,440
Speaker 1: I mean, it's awful, right, It's like falling on your tailbone,

863
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:13,160
Speaker 1: but times a million. And the other end of the

864
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:15,719
Speaker 1: rope was snapped off, and I saw a climber say

865
00:47:15,760 --> 00:47:18,719
Speaker 1: because of that snap, it must have been tied to

866
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:22,520
Speaker 1: something really immobile, like a rock, rather than Irvine. So

867
00:47:22,600 --> 00:47:25,239
Speaker 1: that suggested that Mallory had sent Irvine back and tried

868
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:28,320
Speaker 1: to make the summit himself, which a lot of people

869
00:47:28,680 --> 00:47:31,640
Speaker 1: kind of give to his credit that he wasn't willing

870
00:47:31,640 --> 00:47:33,479
Speaker 1: to risk Irvine's life, only his own.

871
00:47:34,760 --> 00:47:36,719
Speaker 2: I found it very strange that I said that that

872
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:38,799
Speaker 2: happened to me, and you didn't even ask what that

873
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:39,160
Speaker 2: was about.

874
00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:42,840
Speaker 1: I was on a roll. It's very strange what happened.

875
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:44,440
Speaker 2: I'm not even gonna I'm not gonna tell you now

876
00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:47,960
Speaker 2: what happened. No one gets to know, all right, that

877
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:51,400
Speaker 2: would be the great mystery of this episode. Okay, So

878
00:47:52,239 --> 00:47:54,520
Speaker 2: the two big clues here as to whether or not

879
00:47:54,560 --> 00:47:57,560
Speaker 2: he made it are well. One big clue was he

880
00:47:57,600 --> 00:47:59,839
Speaker 2: didn't have that picture of his wife on him. This

881
00:47:59,920 --> 00:48:02,440
Speaker 2: is the picture that he took with them everywhere that

882
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:04,560
Speaker 2: he vowed to place at the top of the mountain,

883
00:48:05,320 --> 00:48:07,520
Speaker 2: and it wasn't on him. So a lot of people

884
00:48:07,600 --> 00:48:09,799
Speaker 2: look at that and say, well, it's not on them,

885
00:48:09,880 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 2: because he actually did, maybe by himself or maybe with Irvine,

886
00:48:13,719 --> 00:48:16,200
Speaker 2: make it to the summit and place that picture there.

887
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 2: And it's not like you would have necessarily found that

888
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:22,520
Speaker 2: picture years later. It very probably would have blown away

889
00:48:22,600 --> 00:48:27,279
Speaker 2: or been destroyed by the elements over time. And you know,

890
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:31,520
Speaker 2: I don't know how I feel about that clue. I

891
00:48:31,560 --> 00:48:35,240
Speaker 2: think it's considering everything was found really in good condition

892
00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:38,600
Speaker 2: on him, and that he didn't have it is pretty

893
00:48:38,880 --> 00:48:39,799
Speaker 2: interesting to think about.

894
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:42,680
Speaker 1: I'll just say that I like that clue too. There's

895
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:46,480
Speaker 1: also a missing camera. They took a camera with them

896
00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:51,440
Speaker 1: for that third attempt, Kodak vest pocket camera VPK, and

897
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:54,560
Speaker 1: it's like one of those old cameras with the accordion

898
00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:56,640
Speaker 1: that you pull out, but it is a really small,

899
00:48:56,680 --> 00:48:59,840
Speaker 1: like pocket sized version. And had they made it to

900
00:48:59,920 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 1: the summit, they absolutely would have taken a photograph from

901
00:49:03,560 --> 00:49:06,080
Speaker 1: the summit. And if you could just find that camera,

902
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:09,480
Speaker 1: then you could conceivably, because it had been in deep

903
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:12,720
Speaker 1: freeze conditions for all these years, it's possible using modern

904
00:49:12,760 --> 00:49:15,759
Speaker 1: techniques that you could develop that film and solve this

905
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:18,600
Speaker 1: mystery once and for all. But the problem is this Chuck.

906
00:49:19,040 --> 00:49:22,320
Speaker 1: The camera's missing, and so is Irvine. Because there was

907
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:24,959
Speaker 1: an expedition not too long ago, a few years back

908
00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:28,080
Speaker 1: that set out to look for Irvine, this other guy.

909
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:32,480
Speaker 1: Because where the Chinese expedition said that they found the

910
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:35,600
Speaker 1: dead English that is nowhere near where Mallory was found,

911
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:38,520
Speaker 1: so they figure that they found Irvine. But when they

912
00:49:38,520 --> 00:49:41,160
Speaker 1: went when this expedition, I think a couple of years ago,

913
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:43,480
Speaker 1: went back to find Irvine, there was nothing there. His

914
00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:47,080
Speaker 1: body was not exactly where it should be. Nothing there,

915
00:49:47,400 --> 00:49:49,759
Speaker 1: And so this rumor has kind of come up over

916
00:49:49,800 --> 00:49:52,760
Speaker 1: the years that the Chinese actually found him and brought

917
00:49:52,800 --> 00:49:55,520
Speaker 1: him back down the mountain without telling anybody.

918
00:49:55,640 --> 00:49:58,680
Speaker 2: That's right, That is the rumor, and that they got

919
00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:02,720
Speaker 2: that camera and they they kind of botched the film

920
00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:06,200
Speaker 2: trying to get it developed and process those pictures, and

921
00:50:06,239 --> 00:50:09,520
Speaker 2: that was a big embarrassment. And so they will take

922
00:50:09,560 --> 00:50:10,720
Speaker 2: that secret to their graves.

923
00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:14,920
Speaker 1: Yeah. And another explanation is that the nineteen sixty Chinese

924
00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:17,759
Speaker 1: expedition to the top of the North Face was the

925
00:50:17,800 --> 00:50:21,000
Speaker 1: first to summit the North Face and that they were

926
00:50:21,040 --> 00:50:24,800
Speaker 1: protecting national pride because they found evidence on that camera,

927
00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:28,440
Speaker 1: on that film when they did develop it that Mallory

928
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:31,000
Speaker 1: had made it to the top. Who knows? The thing is,

929
00:50:31,120 --> 00:50:34,680
Speaker 1: we'll never know right ever. The thing that we will know,

930
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:37,960
Speaker 1: I think eventually, though, Chuck, hopefully, is what happened with

931
00:50:38,040 --> 00:50:38,880
Speaker 1: your rope trauma?

932
00:50:39,800 --> 00:50:41,680
Speaker 2: Ah, that will go to the grave with me.

933
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:45,480
Speaker 1: Oh man, I really botched that, like the Chinese mountain

934
00:50:45,480 --> 00:50:48,080
Speaker 1: climbers botched processing that film.

935
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:50,480
Speaker 2: Okay, long staff.

936
00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:54,080
Speaker 1: Long wind, It's more like it you got anything else?

937
00:50:54,880 --> 00:50:55,760
Speaker 2: I got nothing else?

938
00:50:56,280 --> 00:50:58,920
Speaker 1: All right, everybody? Well, since Chuck refuses to tell us

939
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:01,520
Speaker 1: about his rope traumas story. I guess we have nothing

940
00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:02,719
Speaker 1: left but listener mail.

941
00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:10,920
Speaker 2: This is from the Silly String up. This is myth busted. Hey, guys,

942
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:13,320
Speaker 2: just wanted to point out that Josh repeated a widely

943
00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 2: spread myth about telegrams in the Silly String episode that

944
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:21,400
Speaker 2: stop was used because punctuation cost extra. This myth has

945
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:24,440
Speaker 2: been busted. The real story is Morse code originally had

946
00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:27,960
Speaker 2: only capital letters and no punctuation. It's generally not much

947
00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:30,560
Speaker 2: of a problem, but during the First World War, when

948
00:51:30,600 --> 00:51:33,880
Speaker 2: the telegrams were widely used in the military, a misunderstood

949
00:51:33,880 --> 00:51:38,160
Speaker 2: Messa message could be disastrous, So the custom arose of

950
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:42,239
Speaker 2: using the word stop between sentences and military telegrams so

951
00:51:42,280 --> 00:51:45,799
Speaker 2: that any ambiguous phrases could not be misinterpreted called on

952
00:51:45,840 --> 00:51:49,480
Speaker 2: with the public. Even after punctuation was introduced, people continued

953
00:51:49,880 --> 00:51:53,600
Speaker 2: fashionably using stop between sentences even though they didn't have to.

954
00:51:54,719 --> 00:51:57,160
Speaker 2: I thought this was kind of interesting. Thanks for the

955
00:51:57,200 --> 00:51:58,919
Speaker 2: great show. And that is from Dave.

956
00:51:59,200 --> 00:52:01,440
Speaker 1: It is very interesting. I like both stories.

957
00:52:02,120 --> 00:52:04,720
Speaker 2: Okay, they're both great.

958
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:08,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, everyone wins. And also I'm going to posit that

959
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:10,920
Speaker 1: you have mentioned before that you've gone repelling as a

960
00:52:10,960 --> 00:52:15,080
Speaker 1: boy scout and that it happened somewhere on Stone Mountain.

961
00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:18,359
Speaker 2: Not true. The mystery continues.

962
00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:21,160
Speaker 1: Whatever. If you want to get in touch with us

963
00:52:21,200 --> 00:52:23,200
Speaker 1: like Dave did and maybe take a crack at what

964
00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:25,560
Speaker 1: happened with Chuck in the Rope and the trauma, you

965
00:52:25,600 --> 00:52:28,959
Speaker 1: can send us an email to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio

966
00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:35,160
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

967
00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:38,839
Speaker 2: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

968
00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:41,960
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.