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Was Mallory First To Conquer Everest?

  • Yes

    Votes: 8 21.6%
  • No, they didn't make it to the summit

    Votes: 2 5.4%
  • It doesn't matter. They didn't survive so it doesn't count anyway.

    Votes: 5 13.5%
  • No, it was Sherpa Tensing

    Votes: 4 10.8%
  • We'll never know for sure, so Hillary should get the credit

    Votes: 8 21.6%
  • No, it was probably some levitating monk

    Votes: 10 27.0%

  • Total voters
    37
I think the poll needs more options, e.g.

Would like to think they made it but don't believe they did.
 
ChrisBoardman said:
I don't think we will ever get proof, just more theories.

Probably, but the thought that the camera might be found with a retrievable picture is always going to be tantalising until someone actually finds it and proves it either way.

As for the possibly-mythical photograph of his wife to be left at the summit; that would constitute proof too, but then again, so many people have been there since, I'm pretty sure it would've been found by now. Having said that, here are some other possibilities to consider, to keep tyhe dream alive eternally:

1) The photograph of his wife was left at the summit but is now under layers of ice and snow and will never be found.

2) The photograph of his wife was at the summit when Hillary and Tenzing arrived, but they chucked it off. (Sorry, unfunny black humour! Sterling chaps the pair of them! ) ;)
 
Caveat: I haven't read the full work.

A curiosity here:

The Psychic Life of George Herbert Leigh Mallory
By Ray Eugene Harkleroad, Junior

Screen%20Shot%202015-09-22%20at%2002.10.31.png
Screen%20Shot%202015-09-22%20at%2002.10.31.png


https://books.google.co.kr/books?id=bzbyAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=George - A Life so Well Lived&source=bl&ots=K0vYfLyOFu&sig=TnquQ0lJ9zW-HvdCVJXZOdLkqBg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDYQ6AEwBGoVChMIzoyouMuIyAIVSJCUCh1AYA6o#v=onepage&q&f=false
 
Caveat: I haven't read the full work.

A curiosity here:

The Psychic Life of George Herbert Leigh Mallory

By Ray Eugene Harkleroad, Junior
I've just read all of it, as available on that web page.

Fascinating stuff, but it doesn't really belong on this thread - it adds almost nothing to our knowledge of climbing Everest, but is mainly about Reincarnation.

No doubt George Mallory would have been surprised to find that he would be reincarnated as a Gay (or Queer, as he would have probably known it)! Or that one of his many occupations would be as the owner of a biker bar!

Nevertheless an interesting read - I found some parallels with my own life (apart from being gay and running a biker bar, that is!), and with a significant anniversary coming up, "What's life all about?" is a thought constantly in my mind right now.
 
I can't find any reference to this story having been noted before ...

According to this 2013 Guardian article, fellow mountaineer Frank Smythe spotted Mallory's remains in 1936, but kept it a secret. Smythe's son Tony discovered mention of this in reading his father's diaries while writing a book about him and his exploits.
Lifelong secret of Everest pioneer: I discovered Mallory's body in 1936

Tony Smythe knew he might find secrets when he came to write a book about his father, the 1930s Everest pioneer Frank Smythe. But he hadn't anticipated they might include Frank's discovery of George Mallory's body in 1936. "I found it in the back of a diary," Smythe says. "He'd written out a sequence of letters he'd sent, so he would have a copy." ...

The crucial letter was addressed to Edward Norton, leader of the 1924 expedition when Mallory and Irvine disappeared, apparently going for the summit. An ice axe, assumed to belong to Irvine, had been discovered in 1933 by the fourth British expedition to the mountain. It was lying on rock, as though placed there, at 27,760ft, the only trace of either man above their last camp. Smythe ... felt sure it marked the scene of an accident and told Norton why. "I was scanning the face from base camp through a high-powered telescope last year," his letter read, "when I saw something queer in a gully below the scree shelf. Of course it was a long way away and very small, but I've a six/six eyesight and do not believe it was a rock. This object was at precisely the point where Mallory and Irvine would have fallen had they rolled on over the scree slopes."

... "It's not to be written about," Smythe told Norton, "as the press would make an unpleasant sensation." ...

FULL STORY: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/23/mallory-body-everest-secret-frank-smythe
 
As an aside, I find it curious that Tenzing Norgay is almost never given his full name. He's referred to as Sherpa Tenzing - a bit like calling Edmund Hillary 'Climber Edmund' or 'Client Edmund'.

Sherpa is a job description title but is also a Nepalese caste name/surname; ie. one can be a Sherpa but not named Sherpa and vice-versa.

Tenzing's sons Tashi and Jamling also successfully climed Everest (Chomolungma in Tibetan dialect, Sagarmartha in Nepalese)
 
... Sherpa is a job description title but is also a Nepalese caste name/surname; ie. one can be a Sherpa but not named Sherpa and vice-versa. ...

Both the job description / title and the formally documented surname usages were projected onto the Sherpa people by outsiders.

'Sherpa' is the name of the ethnic group. This ethnic group was traditionally very tightly integrated. The group consists of 18 family clans, each of which has a clan name.

However, the Sherpa people did not use their clan names in personal identification owing to the group being small and closely interlinked enough that everybody knew which clan a particular individual belonged to. In other words, the Sherpa people didn't bother with surnames in the Western sense.

If pressed to specify a surname equivalent, Sherpas would conventionally use 'Sherpa' rather than their clan name. In other words, 'Sherpa' was the preferred affiliation reflected in a virtual surname presumed and recorded by others / outsiders rather than Sherpas themselves.

Owing to their mountaineering abilities, outsiders (especially Western mountaineers) began using the term 'Sherpa' in the colloquial sense of a mountain guide or porter.

Circa 1960 Nepal conducted a census. The census format required specification of given name(s) and surnames. The Sherpa population either demurred from specifying a surname or followed the convention of using 'Sherpa'. Whether by personal attestation or census-takers' frustrated default, 'Sherpa' was documented as the surname for most of the group.

As such, 'Tenzing Norgay' is a pair of given names, and no clan / surname is contained therein. As it happens, this wasn't even Tenzing's original birth name.

Norgay was originally called "Namgyal Wangdi", but as a child his name was changed on the advice of the head lama and founder of Rongbuk Monastery, Ngawang Tenzin Norbu. "Tenzing Norgay" translates as "wealthy-fortunate-follower-of-religion". His father, a yak herder, was Ghang La Mingma (d. 1949), and his mother was Dokmo Kinzom (who lived to see him climb Everest); he was the 11th of 13 children, most of whom died young.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenzing_Norgay

Being called 'Sherpa Tenzing' wasn't a condescending 'Guide Tenzing' nickname akin to (e.g.) 'Mechanic Joe'. It was more like 'Tenzing of the Sherpa People', and accurately reflects the manner in which he would have given a surname equivalent in accordance with prevailing custom.

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherpa_people
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=608715
https://andyoneverest.weebly.com/blog/sherpa-whats-in-a-name
 
I think they summited. The often cited reasons - snow goggles in pocket and wife's photo, which he said he'd leave on summit, not found on the body - although other documents were. Although many authorities think they got close but turned back before the final push. This story has fascinated me for years, have to say.
 
I'm sure I'd seen this story before (about Mallory's body being discovered by Smythe) probably either here, or in FT itself.

It rang a bell with me, too, but I couldn't locate any mention of it here on the forum.
 
How pervasive might thar "unindexed effect" be? Or does it (frustratingly) form a Rumsfeldian unknown unknown?

No more than 1 - 2% by my estimates (exclusive of retired / damaged threads withheld from public view and inaccessible to search engine bots).

In the specific 'Smythe' (vis a vis Mallory / Everest) case, I'm confident nothing was ever posted here in the first place.
 
Both the job description / title and the formally documented surname usages were projected onto the Sherpa people by outsiders.

'Sherpa' is the name of the ethnic group. This ethnic group was traditionally very tightly integrated. The group consists of 18 family clans, each of which has a clan name.

However, the Sherpa people did not use their clan names in personal identification owing to the group being small and closely interlinked enough that everybody knew which clan a particular individual belonged to. In other words, the Sherpa people didn't bother with surnames in the Western sense.

If pressed to specify a surname equivalent, Sherpas would conventionally use 'Sherpa' rather than their clan name. In other words, 'Sherpa' was the preferred affiliation reflected in a virtual surname presumed and recorded by others / outsiders rather than Sherpas themselves.

Owing to their mountaineering abilities, outsiders (especially Western mountaineers) began using the term 'Sherpa' in the colloquial sense of a mountain guide or porter.

Circa 1960 Nepal conducted a census. The census format required specification of given name(s) and surnames. The Sherpa population either demurred from specifying a surname or followed the convention of using 'Sherpa'. Whether by personal attestation or census-takers' frustrated default, 'Sherpa' was documented as the surname for most of the group.

As such, 'Tenzing Norgay' is a pair of given names, and no clan / surname is contained therein. As it happens, this wasn't even Tenzing's original birth name.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenzing_Norgay

Being called 'Sherpa Tenzing' wasn't a condescending 'Guide Tenzing' nickname akin to (e.g.) 'Mechanic Joe'. It was more like 'Tenzing of the Sherpa People', and accurately reflects the manner in which he would have given a surname equivalent in accordance with prevailing custom.

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherpa_people
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=608715
https://andyoneverest.weebly.com/blog/sherpa-whats-in-a-name


I used to have a Leyland Sherpa.

Just sayin'...
 
A Great Mystery. Do we want them solved, or do we want to ponder and theorize forever? Did Mallory summit, Who was Jack the Ripper, what the hell was on the 18 minutes Nixon erased? Do we want them solved? I do.
 
This new essay in National Geographic reports the author's experience in attempting to locate Irvine's remains. His objective was a location that analyses had pinpointed as the likely spot where a Chinese climber claimed to have seen Irvine's body in 1960.
Climbing Everest – to try to solve its greatest mystery

Were Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay really the first to conquer the world’s highest peak? We searched for a camera that could rewrite history. ...

I had long known the theory that Mallory and Irvine might have been the first to scale Everest. But I had caught the fever to find Irvine only two years before, after attending a lecture by my friend Thom Pollard, an Everest veteran who lives a few miles from my home in the White Mountains of northern New Hampshire. He called me a few days later.

“You don’t think you could actually find him, do you?” I asked.

He chuckled. “What if I had a critical piece of information that no one else has?”

“Like what?” I shot back.

He paused for a few seconds. “Like the exact location of the body.” ...

FULL STORY: https://www.nationalgeographic.co.u...everest-to-try-to-solve-its-greatest-mystery?
 
Im reading a book by M Conefrey.

Ghosts of K2

Such prima donnas! So many lawsuits!

It makes you unsympathetic with mountaineers...But its a good account of a notorious peak which will never suffer a conga line.
 
I think they summited. The often cited reasons - snow goggles in pocket and wife's photo, which he said he'd leave on summit, not found on the body - although other documents were. Although many authorities think they got close but turned back before the final push. This story has fascinated me for years, have to say.

If you didn't make it down you didn't conquer Everest.
 
If you didn't make it down you didn't conquer Everest.

Debatable!

One of the longest cycle trips I did was with a mate to Winchester, around 5 years ago.
Around 38 miles, but a fair bit of it was off-road, so pretty exhausting stuff.

After stopping to eat and a few beers, we cheated and decided to get the train back.

Still think that counts as cycling to Winchester though!

On a far more intrepid scale than my humble exertions, I would argue that Captain Scott and his team made it to the South Pole, even though they died trying to get home.
 
Would you say you conquered Winchester, though? Or only half of it?
 
Debatable!

One of the longest cycle trips I did was with a mate to Winchester, around 5 years ago.
Around 38 miles, but a fair bit of it was off-road, so pretty exhausting stuff.

After stopping to eat and a few beers, we cheated and decided to get the train back.

Still think that counts as cycling to Winchester though!

On a far more intrepid scale than my humble exertions, I would argue that Captain Scott and his team made it to the South Pole, even though they died trying to get home.

Scott didn't conquer the south pole - what he did was far, far more important with his expedition. Scott a complete legend and the greatest of the explorers of that time even if he had his faults. Should have told the military to fuck off over Oates. Should have had Crean onboard in that final push.
 
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