Jake Norton reflects on the discovery of George Mallory on Everest in 1999

by jakedai | February 7, 2007 at 04:48 pm

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I just came across this the other day - my immediate reaction on May 3, 1999, to our discovery 2 days earlier of George Mallory's remains at 27,000 feet on the North Face of Everest. I made the call in to our internet sponsor, MountainZone, via a satellite phone. Sadly, the audio no longer functions on the MountainZone site, but the transcript of the phone call is there.

If you are interested in learning more about the story of Everest pioneers Mallory and Irvine, their disappearance in 1924, and the expeditions I was a part of to try and solve the mystery in 1999, 2001, and 2004, here are some informative links:

MountainZone's coverage of the 1999 expedition
Lost on Everest website by NOVA
Everest 2001 coverage by International Mountain Guides
Information from The MountainWorld Blog
Squidoo Lens on Mallory & Irvine
Pete Poston's fabulous site on the story of Mallory & Irvine

Enjoy!

Daily Dispatches [CLICK FOR INDEX]

Climber Jake Norton: Kind of an Eerie Job

Mon, May 3, 1999 — Advanced Base Camp (21,300')

CLICK TO HEAR THE CALL:

Satellite phones for Everest provided by MVS/USA

This copyrighted content is exclusive to MountainZone.com and may not be used on any other website or news media. © 1999 MountainZone.com

Hi this is Jake Norton calling from Advanced Base Camp. It's May 3rd, we just came down from the search area from a few days up high and it was a pretty interesting time. On the first of May we woke up at about 3am and started brewing up, started walking around a little after 5am. It was a beautiful morning up there at over 26,000ft by the time the sun started coming up and just gorgeous.

Search Area There was a long walk up into the search area itself to the west of Camp VI on the North Face, and we all split up as soon as we got to Camp VI and started spreading out along the North Face, fanning out, trying to look for spots that someone like Mallory and Irvine could maybe have rested for 75 years. And for me it was very interesting — it was higher than I'd ever been before and walking around, looking for bodies is kind of an eerie job — especially when you're on slopes where a slight misstep could turn you into another search victim.

High up And then eventually I saw Conrad way down below in the search area and heard through my radio in my jacket that we needed to have a team meeting and went down and met up with Conrad and sure enough, he had made a discovery. It was a pretty amazing time. So we did some work there and then started, after a long day, for a long walk back down to Camp V. It was not a fun task, a lot of downsloping shale and crappy rock, and after a good 13 full hours we arrived back at Camp V pretty exhausted and all crawled into the tent, and not just because of altitude, but also with everything that we had done that day, not many of us had a very productive night's sleep — a lot of tossing and turning and thoughts whirring in our heads.

But it was a great day and really amazing. Hope everyone is doing well and hope you're enjoying following this trip on Mountain Zone. Thanks a lot. Bye.

—Jake Norton, Climber