A missing climber’s boot has reopened one of mountaineering’s oldest cold cases. In this Time & Tales dark history episode, we journey to Mount Everest through the story of George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, the 1924 British climbers who vanished high on the north side and may—or may not—have reached the summit decades before Hillary and Norgay. We trace the original expedition, Noel Odell’s last sighting in the storm, Conrad Anker’s 1999 discovery of Mallory’s body, and the recent boot find linked to Irvine that has revived the question: did they stand on the top of the world first, and what exactly happened up there?

If you’re drawn to Everest history, unsolved mountaineering mysteries, and the thin line between evidence and legend, this episode lives right on that ridge.

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Sources & Further Reading

• Wade Davis, Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest
• Walt Unsworth, Everest: The Mountaineering History
• Conrad Anker & David Roberts, The Lost Explorer: Finding Mallory on Mount Everest
• Jake Norton, reports and analyses on the 1924 Mallory & Irvine searches and recent Irvine-boot discovery
• Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster (for later Everest context)
• “George Mallory” and “1924 British Mount Everest expedition” – Wikipedia
• “Mount Everest” – Encyclopaedia Britannica