Irvine's ice axe was found on the Northeast Ridge during the 1933 British Everest Expedition close to where the team was last seen struggling "strong for the top" at 28,230 feet on June 8, 1924. But was the axe lost during the summit bid, or did it mark an accident that occurred on the descent? In 1975, Chinese climber Wang Hongbao discovered the corpse of an "English dead" dressed in old-fashioned clothing on a snow terrace at 8,100 meters (26,575-ft.) on Everest's isolated North Face. He revealed the discovery while climbing Everest four years later, but died the next day in an avalanche below the North Col, taking the mystery with him.

In 1986, American researcher Tom Holzel and British historian Audrey Salkeld attempted to find the bodies. Their expedition was thwarted by unsettled weather and the death of Sherpa Dawa Nuru.

In 1995, Mallory's Australian grandson, George Mallory, 35 at the time, participated in an expedition to the North Ridge to complete his grandfather's route. He wondered whether Mallory and Irvine had the technical skills to surmount the difficult Second Step and climb the remaining 1,000 feet to the summit. The younger Mallory felt the challenge was only moderate and could have been possible in 1924, although his own successful bid via the Second Step was aided by a 15-ft. ladder placed there by Chinese climbers in 1975.

This May, on the 75th anniversary of Mallory and Irvine's attempt, the $300,000 Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition plans to return to the North Ridge to launch history's most exhaustive effort to solve the mystery. While metal detectors, subsurface imagers, and probes will be used in a grid pattern to cover the most likely location of the bodies, the obstacles are many.

First, the weather in mid-May must be conducive to a search and the bodies have to be located and, if found, identified as those of Mallory or Irvine. Assuming this occurs, how will they know if they reached the summit? The answer lies in Mallory and Irvine's Kodak Vest Pocket cameras, which, hopefully, will be found on the bodies. Film will be developed at an archival laboratory in the U.S., and examined for evidence that the summit of Everest was, in fact, reached.

George Leigh Mallory (1886-1924) was the most prominent of the British pre-war Everest pioneers and is known for his simple quip - "Because It Is There" - to explain the everlasting lure of Everest. Tenzing Norgay honors the British climber in his autobiography "After Everest": "When I think of Mallory in those very ordinary clothes, those very ordinary boots and equipment, and compare them with what I had on during the 1953 ascent, I am amazed and humbled."

Mallory & Irvine expedition leader is Eric Simonson, 43, of International Mountain Guides/Expedition 8000, LLC, Ashford, Wash. The Project Mallory research coordinator is Jochen Hemmleb, 27, a graduate student at the University of Frankfurt who has authored two recognized research papers on Everest mysteries, and will direct the search by radio from lower on the mountain. Climbing magazine has scheduled an August 1999 feature on Project Mallory; Hemmleb and Johnson plan a book; and The MountainZone.com will make this their featured Everest cybercast in spring 1999.

If the bodies are found, and if they contain conclusive photographic evidence, what then of the legacy of Hillary and Irvine? Larry Johnson, 52, expedition coordinator, told EN, "It changes exploration history. It would solve one of the last great mysteries in exploration. But in no way will it detract from Hillary and Norgay's feat ... as Hillary himself has said, 'the getting down is somewhat important.'"

EXPEDITION UPDATE
The Weather Outside is Frightful - New Zealander Peter Hillary and his team, Australians Jon Muir and Eric Philips, attempting to complete British explorer Robert Scott's ill-fated 1911-12 expedition, were forced by fierce weather to spend Christmas in a blizzard about 300 miles from the South Pole. They hope to ski 1,738 miles from New Zealand's Antarctic Scott Base to the South Pole and back while carrying all their own supplies and equipment (See EN, November 1998). Since leaving New Zealand's Scott base on Nov. 4, the trio has covered 555 miles.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH
"The U.S. would not send a ship to sea or a spacecraft into orbit in such condition." - Norman Augustine, the CEO of Lockheed Martin, referring to the quickly-deteriorating dome at the South Pole. He headed the blue-ribbon panel that recommended Antarctica's new $153 million Amundsen-Scott Research Station to Congress in 1997. To simplify matters, every piece of the new facility, expected to be completed by 2005, will be prefabricated and shipped in Hercules LC-130 cargo planes.

EXPEDITION NOTES
Blind Faith - Teacher and athlete Erik Weihenmayer, blind since age 13, has his eye on becoming the first blind person to reach the summit of Argentina's Mount Aconcagua (22,841 ft.). His expedition in January - Glaucoma Awareness Month - is sponsored by the San Francisco-based Glaucoma Research Foundation (GRF). UN Honors Mountains - The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed 2002 as the International Year of Mountains, intended to promote the sustainable development of mountain countries.

MEDIA MATTERS
20/20 Covers Breast Cancer Climb - Five breast cancer survivors on the Climb Against the Odds Expedition to Mt. McKinley (See EN, March 1998) were featured in a heart-wrenching segment of ABC-TV's 20/20 newsmagazine on Dec. 30. Viewers were offered a glimpse of the allure McKinley offers as a metaphor for life's challenges. Most poignant comment from a breast cancer survivor: "You know you've beaten breast cancer when you've died of something else." Said the team's professional guide to ailing climbers suffering from respiratory infections: "Seventeen thousand feet is a very serious place. It's no place to get better. It's no place to be unless you're at 100 percent capacity." All five reluctantly ended their summit bids due to illness and bad weather.

New Words - The Atlantic Monthly's popular "Word Watch" column last month picked up Jon Tierney's new catchphrase - "explornography" - that first appeared in the July 26 New York Times Magazine. The executive editor of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language calls it a noun meaning, "a consuming fascination with famous and, especially, dangerous explorations." So-called "explornographers" are, typically, 50-year-old outdoorsy amateurs of both sexes, many of whom live and work in urban settings.

EXPEDITION NEWS is published by Blumenfeld and Associates, Inc., 137 Rowayton Avenue, Suite 210, Rowayton, CT 06853 USA. USA. Tel. 203 855 9400, fax 203 855 9433, blumassoc@aol.com. Editor/publisher: Jeff Blumenfeld. c1998 Blumenfeld and Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.