On the 100th anniversary of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine's death on Mount Everest, I interviewed Dr. Robert Edwards, author of Mallory, Irvine, and Everest: The Last Step But One, which reexamined their mysterious story in extreme detail.
Watch my original interview with Dr. Edwards, my most popular interview in 2024. It provides an excellent background for today's interview.
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Today, Dr. Edwards returns to the WanderLearn Show to discuss Jimmy Chin's surprising October 2024 announcement that he found Andrew Comyn Irvine's foot! Andrew Irvine's nickname was Sandy.
National Geographic sponsored the expedition and announced the momentous news. The rest of Sandy's body has not been found yet.
Sandy died 100 years ago. In 1960, Chinese climber Wang Fuzhou claimed he spotted a dead European climber who had to be Sandy Irvine. Assuming that sighting was accurate, nobody has seen Irvine since then ... until now.
Famed mountaineer and photographer Jimmy Chin found Sandy's foot inside the 100-year-old boot.
Robert Edwards wrote his initial impressions of Sandy's discovery on Goodreads.
In this interview, we delve into greater detail, including the map Dr. Edwards made.
SUBTITLES: Are auto-generated and have some errors.
TIMELINE
00:00 The photo
04:00 What happened?
10:00 Can a dead body move?
17:10 Irvine's last sighting
24:00 Did Chinese push Irvine's body down?
25:50 How did Irvine die?
34:00 Where is the camera?
In the podcast, I struggled to understand why Dr. Edwards thought Sandy's foot may have been found either in pin v1 or v2.
After the interview, I reflected more carefully and realized that the Central Rongbuk Glacier is sliding west (right in the image). I initially assumed it was sliding north (down the image).
Dr. Edwards added in an email to me:
In case I didn't explain clearly the difference between the two pins in the Google Earth image: pin v1 is based on ice velocity of 10 meters/year; pin v2 is based on ice velocity of 27 meters/year (based on a range of Chinese estimates for the East Rongbuk Glaicier).
In both cases, the pin assumes movement of the remains over 100 years, i.e. assuming that Irvine fell all the way to the glacier in 1924. So Pin v1 is 1,000 meters downstream; pin v2 is 2,700 meters downstream.
If Irvine's remains fell after 1960 (which, given Wang's sighting, I'm inclined to think more probable), both pins would be much closer to the head of the glacier. Pin v1 would be at most 640 meters downstream; pin v2 would be at most 1,728 meters downstream.
Both pins hug the western rim of the glacier, since I'm inclined to think that objects starting near the rim will remain near the rim. (A glaciologist would know.)
National Geographic Article:
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Image of Irvine's foot:
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