... second step goes free suggesting 'Mallory and Irvine could have made it'
The Mallory-replica Altitude Everest expedition led by
Conrad Anker has put six expedition members including
Anker and Houlding on top of the mountain this morning
- Thursday - in the process reinforcing the possibility that Mallory
and Irvine could have succeeded.
The climbers managed to reach the summit without using a fixed
ladder high on the north side of the mountain, which wouldn't have
been present in 1924. Houlding and Anker succeeded in free climbing
the Second Step, the difficulty of which has always been held to be a
major obstacle to the 1924 team.
The team removed the fixed ladders on the step to recreate the
conditions faced by their predecessors. It was by no means easy
though and Anker reportedly commented 'that was hard' after freeing
the section.
Replica But Not Replica...
There's some confusion over the clothing worn by the team on
Everest. The team behind the exact replicas made of Mallory's
clothing were hoping that a team using it would succeed on the
mountain, proving that the clothing system could have worked.
In tests it seems to have been very mobile and reasonably warm,
though not in the same class as modern equipment. However, while the
Altitude Everest team have been using look-alike outfits for filming,
these are not exact copies of the replica clothing and the fabrics
are not to the same specifications as the originals.
Moreover, as we understand it, the 1924 clothing was not used on
the summit bid, though we're not 100 per-cent certain of that. In a
diary extract published on the expedition web-site last week,
Houlding says: ''Got dressed in period (costume). Walked around
corner onto North Face in hobnail-less boots -- Did one take and
nearly froze,...'
So, as far as we can see, while freeing the second step is
certainly an impressive achievement, there's no answer to whether the
1920s clothing would really have been up to the conditions.
And no, they didn't find Mallory's camera either...
More information from www.ueverest.com
where you can listen to Anker's confirmation that he successfully
free-climbed the step.
