Summiting Everest: How a Photograph Celebrates Teamwork at the Top of the World
Alfred Gregory George Lowe and Ang Nyima had been climbing from a high camp on the mountain Below them at the lower camps the rest of the British expedition waited anxiously They had been on the mountain since April 12 Two team members had failed to reach the summit two days ago Now another pair’s chance had come In 1856 the Great Trigonometrical Survey of British India mapped Mount Everest and found that at just over 29,000 feet 8,840 m it was the highest place on Earth Ever since then climbers and adventurers had regarded the mountain with wonder and awe Would it be possible to climb it Could a person make it all the way to the top and quite literally stand on top of the world A British expedition trekked to Everest in 1921 to examine the mountain and try to determine a route to the top Another expedition tried to climb the mountain the next year and failed Other expeditions tried and failed in 1924 1933 1936 1938 and 1952 The mountain was proving a formidable opponent Now on this May afternoon the team of Brits New Zealanders and Sherpas would try to be the first to send climbers to the top of Mount Everest and have them return alive
THE DEADLY SUMMIT ATTEMPT Before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay a British team attempted the summit of Everest and never returned In 1924 Englishmen George Mallory and Andrew Sandy Irvine and the rest of the British expedition had been on Everest far longer than they had intended They were tired and cold Members of the team had twice tried to reach the top but had been forced to retreat One of them T Howard Somervell was coughing up the mucous lining of his larynx But Mallory was still determined to climb He had already been on two other expeditions to Everest This time he was determined to make the summit He chose Sandy Irvine as a companion Even though the young man had no high-altitude climbing experience Irvine was brilliant at fixing the essential but trouble-prone oxygen equipment As planned Sherpas helped Mallory and Irvine get settled then left them at their camp June 7 The next day another member of the team Noel Odell was gazing at the upper reaches of the mountain from a lower camp He saw two figures appear near a rock band that Mallory had said they would cross Odell only spied the tiny men for a moment and then drifting clouds hid them Mallory and Irvine were never heard from again For a long time no one knew what had happened to the climbers No one could find their bodies Did they reach the summit only to be killed on the descent Or did they fall or freeze on the way up Finally in 1999 an American team found Mallory’s frozen body near the dead climbers final camp Mallory had a broken leg and injuries to his head and the right side of his body He had suffered a fatal fall No sign of Irvine has ever been found In the years since most researchers have concluded that Mallory and Irvine never reached the summit Some still hope they did but no definitive evidence either way has ever been found Two members of the 1924 British team Andrew Irvine back row left and George Mallory back row second from left never returned
George Lowe a member of the support team climbs a steep ridge to the final camp Support team members George Lowe Sherpa Ang Nyima and team photographer Alfred Gregory had been working their way up the mountain since morning preparing the way for Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay the assault team Each was carrying a load of 65 pounds 30 kilograms the heaviest loads that have ever been carried that high All morning Lowe and Gregory had cut steps into the crusted snow with ice axes so Hillary and Norgay could have easier footing when they followed later that day The support team wouldn’t have the glory of making the assault attempt but they didn’t mind In 2007 Gregory told Australian Geographic magazine It has often been asked why didn’t we the support team then go to the top the next day In those days the whole idea was to get
somebody on top It was a team effort and we did just that Edmund Hillary left and Tenzing Norgay climb toward the waiting support team at 27,300 feet 8,320 m Hillary and Norgay a New Zealand beekeeper and a Tibetan mountain guide climbed up to meet the support team at midday The pair needed to find a place to camp for the night The next morning they would try for the summit but in the meantime they needed to rest sleep and eat to gather their strength But the slope was very steep and the team could not find a place flat enough for a tent In his book The Picture of Everest Alfred Gregory or Greg as he was often called wrote For a long time the ridge ran remorselessly upwards without hope of a platform for a tent But eventually we did find a place a slightly outward-sloping ledge at a height of
