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Ghosts of Everest: The Search for Mallory & Irvine | 
 enlarge | Authors: Jochen Hemmleb, Larry A. Johnson, Eric R. Simonson, William E. Nothdurft
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  54 reviews
Sales Rank: 673394
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 205
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.4
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 8.8 x 0.9
ASIN: B0006IXL5M
Publication Date: October 1, 1999
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Amazon.com
For three quarters of a century, adventure enthusiasts around the globe have speculated about the fate of British mountaineers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine. Did they reach the peak of Mount Everest before disappearing on June 6, 1924? How did they die? What was their fatal mistake? In 1999, the Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition set out to answer these questions by retracing the steps of the doomed climbers, and in The Ghosts of Everest, they share their findings. William Nothdurft has gracefully woven the testimonies of expedition members Jochen Hemmleb, Eric Simonson, and Larry Johnson, all the while counterpointing the modern ascent with a captivating reconstruction of what befell the earlier one. There are also stunning photographs, which manage to be inspiring and beautiful and gruesome--occasionally all at once. And while it's impossible to establish exactly what happened to Mallory and Irvine, this account is persuasive enough to fascinate rock climbers and couch potatoes alike. --Melissa Asher
Book Description
GHOSTS OF EVEREST unravels one of the most puzzling and compelling adventure mysteries of all time. On June 6, 1924, George Leigh Mallory and Andrew Comyn Irvine were only a few hundred feet short of becoming the first men to reach the highest spot on earth when they simply walked into the mist, never to be seen again. Did they reach the summit of Mount Everest - nearly three decades before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay? This is the meticulous report of both the 1924 British Expedition and the 1999 Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition which found George Mallory's body and answers to the questions that have plagued historians and mountaineers alike: Did they make it? And, if they did, what happened to them? "...a work of historic importance that reads like a detective thriller..." (Publishers Weekly)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 49 more reviews...
 DID THEY OR DIDN'T THEY?... May 11, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a beautifully and lavishly illustrated, textually rich book. Its pages demand the reader's undivided attention and are sure to enthrall all mystery lovers, Everest aficionados, nostalgia junkies, history buffs, and climbing enthusiasts. This book is sure to provide the reader with many hours of enjoyment.
The book chronicles the search for George Mallory and Andrew Irvine by the 1999 Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition. It juxtaposes the dramatic turn of events during their expedition with those of the 1924 British Everest Expedition which saw Mallory and Irvine attempt a summit climb, only to disappear into the mists of Everest, never to be seen again. It makes for a spell binding narrative, as past events are woven through present day ones.
The 1999 Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition was a meticulously well prepared and well organized venture. With its discovery of George Leigh Mallory's body, it enjoyed much success. The research and analysis that went into its ultimate, well thought out conclusions were comprehensive and fascinating, with its strong reliance upon forensics and deductive reasoning. Their reconstruction of Mallory's and Irvine's last climb is riveting. Unfortunately, the ultimate question still remains unanswered. Did they or did they not reach the summit of Mount Everest back in 1924?
The beautiful photographs of the personal effects found upon Mallory's person underscore a certain poignancy about the discovery of Mallory's well preserved body. The photographs which memorialize this discovery are amazingly lovely and tasteful, considering its subject matter, and hauntingly illustrate the finality with which Everest may deal with mountaineers, no matter how accomplished.
The photographs also highlight how ill equipped for the harsh climatic conditions were the early Everest expeditions. It is amazing, and a credit to those early expeditioners' courage and fortitude, in braving such an inhospitable and harsh terrain with the inadequate clothing and equipment available to them at the time. Mallory and Irvine were certainly intrepid explorers!
This book is a fitting tribute to two men who sought to make a historic summit and, in their attempt, would forever be a part of Everest.
 Giving Up the Ghosts September 4, 2007
We were only expecting a crude documentary about the Mallory/Irvine climb and subsequent search. However, the authors provided a quality read - well organized and supported by quality color photographs. Respectability was added to the events from this book, offering varying possibilities of what might have happened on the mountain, minus the normal excitability surrounding Mallory/Irvine. We'll keep this as a good reference; almost coffee table quality.
A Celebration of Great Daring With Woeful Resources January 20, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
With their splendid book "Ghosts of Everest," the authors have taken up the gauntlet of attempting to determine whether or not Mallory & Irvine reached the summit of Mt. Everest on June 8th, 1924, before perishing on the descent. The authors provide a fascinating and hugely-detailed description of the fatal climb, and of the Simonson expedition which discovered Mallory. The layout, photography, graphical and sheer physical qualities of the book are to the highest standards.
The front half of the book describes the 1999 expedition, a tale that begins like many of this genre. The difference in Ghosts becomes quickly apparent. This is not your bunch of good old boys undertaking a task of simple conquest. Instead, they are only the second expedition since WW-II launched expressly to find the body and camera of the two British climbers, with the intent of finding out how far they got. The authors do their best, as have other researchers (including this reviewer) to put M&I on the summit. Historians--and scientists--are more like trial lawyers than we like to admit. In order to investigate anything complex, it is far more fruitful to assume an answer and try to prove it, than to disguise ones passion under the guise of unrealizable objectivity. Once your claims are out in the open, you hope they will prove sound. But there is no need to worry--there will always be plenty of critics who will try to deflate what they may see as overreaching theories.
In order for anyone to put M&I on the summit, three essential aspects of their climb must be proven, or at least shown to be reasonably possible:
1.Mallory & Irvine had to have taken three bottles of oxygen, otherwise they would not have had enough time to reach the top. On this all climbers, pro or con, agree, including the authors. At high attitudes oxygen doubles or triples climbing speed, and on the long route of their summit assault, they would have needed all of the twelve-hours of oxygen three bottles of their system was capable of delivering. While modern climbers have reached the summit without oxygen this, like the four-minute mile, is a recent feat, achieved by highly-trained and physically rare climbers in peak condition, fully hydrated, carrying/wearing the most modern equipment and--most importantly--following a known route that is roped over the difficult sections.
2.They had to be able to attain the summit pyramid, either by climbing the difficult Second Step, or via the Great Couloir and then to the summit during a bitter two-hour long snow squall, and then descent at night without lights or climbing hardware, using only their 100-ft rope in order to reach the site of their fall-Irvine's ice ax.
3.They had to be physically, mentally and materially capable of achieving this tremendously arduous task. According to this scenario, the entire climb would have taken at least 15 hours (~6 AM start, ~5 PM summit, ~9 PM fall)--and likely much longer--by climbers who were horribly under-equipped. Under-equipped not so much in the sense of inadequate preparation (although there was that), but so desperately under-equipped in the terrible paucity of their equipment--inadequate clothing against the frigid wind, chronically dehydrated due to pathetically inadequate stoves, all the while forging an uncharted route with no climbing aids other than rope and ice axes. During their climb they would have encountered a bitter two-hour snow squall and had to avoid getting lost in spite of having left their compass, flares and lights behind.
Put this way, and based on what the Simonson Expedition learned of the character of the Mallory route, it is difficult for today's Everesters to see how any arrangement of the known facts can be realistically arranged to put the men on top, but the authors have made a heavily researched attempt to do just that. They have done so by applying Jochen Hemmleb's encyclopedic store of knowledge and research about the early Everest climbs, and combined that with the new facts learned from the discovery of Mallory's body. Their technique is to take every possibility, no matter how faint or unlikely that is necessary for the two to have reached the top, and muster evidence to show that that is what could have happened. By cutting and pasting these snippets to fit their chosen scenario, they have painted a beguiling picture of possible success. Wisely, they publicly suggest only that the two may have made it to the top, or that they had every opportunity to have made it to the top. But their true belief is tipped when they assert:
"Is there any evidence to suggest that Mallory and Irvine reached the summit of Everest in 1924? And the answer was : No. What seemed to have escaped the attention of many observers, however, was that there was another equally salient question with an equally unequivocal answer: Is there any evidence to suggest that M&I did not reach the summit of Mt. Everest in 1924? The answer here too was: No."
Unfortunately, this type of reasoning--claiming as success the inability to disprove a negative--colors much of the authors' evidence. They sincerely believe that anything that would have helped M&I to the summit could have happen--because they could have got to the summit! By this means, The authors have constructed a complicated house of cards that crumbles when the missing and overwhelming reality of the mountain is restored to their blueprint.
The maddening thing is that in spite of all the new information so ably depicted in "Ghosts," the most the experts can say is that, if before the discovery it was only unlikely Mallory & Irvine made it to the top, now it seems unlikely in the extreme. Only the discovery of 1924 artifacts well above the Second Step could revive this slim possibility. Since the first oxygen bottle was purposefully wedged in a rock clef to be found as a marker of their progress, it seems more than likely that the two would have stashed their large oxygen carrying frame at the point these were abandoned--if such a lodgment were available. On the route Breashears suggests, there may have been no such outcropping. But given how desperately under-equipped they were, unless the oxygen apparatus' are found on the summit ridge itself, the chances of their having reached the summit seem very low indeed.
Before the discovery of the body and its confirmation that the two climbers were roped (and thus did not split up to give Mallory a better solo chance), one could surmise a 25% to 50% chance that at least one of them made it. Mallory gave himself only a 50 to 1 chance against success. With the discovery of the body and the confirmation that the two remained roped, and with the first objective calibration of the technical difficulty of the Second Step terrain determined, one is obliged by a clear and straightforward assessment of these hard facts to conclude, most reluctantly, that their chances for success were no better than 1000 to 1 against. Such a pity.
 A Lesson on How Money is Replacing Adventure February 16, 2004
5 out of 10 found this review helpful
This book allowed me to analyse why I have not read too many books on Mtn Climbing in the past few years. I am a climber and the genre was important to me for a big part of my life. Reading through this book made me realise how much climbing has not only changed from the days of Mallory, but even from the old siege operations in the 70s. Today the emphasis on gaining money and the machinations and business tactics that go into getting the dosh to go, take up not only the majority of the time making the ascent, but also the majority of the time (and lines of writing) in most mountain literature published these days. Gone is the old style adventure: 1) adventure-for-the-sheer-fun-of-it, Joe Brown, Don Whillans; 2) adventure-of-the-tortured-soul, Eric Shipton, Joe Simpson; 3) adventure for Imperial gain, Capt Noel, Sven Hedin, or the early British Expeditions to Everest, (though to be fair, it is hard to ressurect this particular genre) and; even the 4) adventure-to-be-the-first-to-do-something, Bonnington and Hertzog, is relegated to second place -- now adventure takes second place to how much money and designer deals for broadcast rights and publisher exclusives can be done before, during and after the point when all the adventure takes place. As such this book is very symptomatic of this new genre. There is all sorts of vignettes of the evil BBC and it reps and the business concerns of all the others who made crucial decisions tying their business fates to this expedition --- too much of this and too little detail both of the original British Expeditions the search expedition this books puports to write about. There is also precious little route description, how the route was put up and the actual "thrill" of the hunt to find Mallory. Fully one-third of the book deals with these machinations. Even the people that the authors palpably do not like get off lightly. All of the people they like are usually gifted with some god-like aspect of physical prowess --- eg. barrel-chested, large arms etc. For those who have read Chris Bonnington's books on any of his expeditions, the slow burning personality problems that manifest themselves on so many of these expeditions are conspicuous by their absence in this book. In sum I liked the book. The good parts are two, and only two in my estimation: 1) the find of Mallory's body and 2) the ascent of the last ridge by the search party members. It is no coincidence that these two subjects are raw adventure and have nothing to do with gaining money or searching to personally skewer someone's personality. I am glad I read it. But as an inspiration for further reading in the contemporary mountaineering genre, this book is symptomatic of how far the adventure genre has fallen, particularly in the past 10 yrs or so. Maybe you will like it. Maybe you will not. I am the kind of person who trekked the subsidiary valleys around Mt. Everest, but I would not go to Everest base camp --too many people, too much garbage and too many people following the populistic mantra of what passes for adventure writing these days... like the valleys around Everest these days, this genre has been tamed, beaten into submission, and transformed into a pablum for mass consumption. Better to settle down and re-read the Hertzog or Bonnington Classics.
INSPIRING STORY OF A MAN'S DREAM, MYSTERY OF HIS FATE March 23, 2003
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
The book is focused on the search conducted to find out what happened to Mallory and Irvine, the two British climbers who disappeared on Everest in the 1930s. Mallory is basically a legend in mountaineering.The authors tell the story of their own search expedition by making it parallel to Mallory's. For example, we see the logistics it took this expedition in 1999 to get everyhitng to Everest base camp. In contrast, we see the long trek the expedition in the 1930s had to face, with sickness and much more difficult terrain and logistics. It was amazing that they had the energy to climb once they got to base camp. The book switches between a technical archeology mystery and the history known of the expedition. It is very interesting to see the 1999 expedition trace back the steps of the earlier one. We see the tremendous difficulties they went through in the 1930s, with clothing that was hardly appropriate and the best equipment at the time. Ultimately, the authors find Mallory's body, but it is still not clear if he reached the summit before falling. He fell and broke a knee, which is a death sentence at that altitude. Irvine was not found. The book ends with the authors making their own summit bid, and only two of them making it. This is one of the best mountaineering books, especially as it brings in the mystery of what happened. I highly recommend it for the armchair mountaineer.
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