After the discovery of George Mallory at nearly 27,000 feet or 8,200 meters on the north face of Everest on May 1 1999, the five who reached the body that day covered him up as best as they could. The surface up there is like steel hard ice and rock. So finding rocks to cover his remains was a challenge. It's not like burying something where you can actually dig. When you find a rock, then pry it from the grip of frozen ice and scree, it's a victory.

Our climbing team descended back down to base camp for an extended rest…and, a HUGE Base Camp party…..

the original plan is that the search and climbing team is going to go back up the mountain on May 12 or 13…then, tragically, on May 8th our next door neighbors and colleagues on the mountain, a strong and charismatic team of three from Ukraine, summited during horrible weather, on the descent, one of the climbers disappeared through a cornice on the ridge….and a rescue ensued where most of the teams pitched in to help save another Ukrainian climber in serious condition.

six of us went back up to Camp 5 to be in position for a search and summit bid, with the idea that TWO OF US would launch a search for Sandy Irvine while four would go tackle the Second Step and the summit. However, when we got back, we noticed that a lot of snow had fallen So the call was made that instead of a search for Andrew Irvine there would be a return to the site of George Mallory - with a metal detector.

When we arrived at Camp 5, at about 26,000 feet, or 7,925 meters, we were slammed by a terrific three day long Himalayam storm…it was nearly impossible to even stand up outside of the tents

May 16th dawned blue and calm….and so up we went….

In this segment I ask Andy Politz about his experience on 16 May 1999, where we went together to the site of George Mallory. While we’ve touched on this conversation since then, this is by far the longest conversation Andy and I have had about one of the most powerful days in my life.


Not unlike on the day of the discovery, 16 May revealed many new clues of the fate of Mallory & Irvine….the discovery of the watch for instance


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thom pollard conrad anker andrew irvine

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