Mount Everest as seen from an aircraft over Nepal on September 14, 2013. A documentary team said it found the remains of a foot belonging to climber Andrew “Sandy” Irvine on a slope along Mount Everest, where it has been for 100 years. File Photo by Narendra Shrestha/EPA-EFE
A National Geographic documentary team said Friday that in September, members found a boot and the remains of a foot that belonged to legendary mountaineer Andrew “Sandy” Irvine on the slope of Mount Everest 100 years after he and George Mallory died scaling the summit.
The evidence was the first indication that Irvine ended up near the summit. Irwin and Mallory’s expedition in 1924 came 29 years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first-ever confirmed to have climbed Everest’s summit and made it back down alive. Advertisement
Irvine and Mallory were part of a British expedition team trying to climb the northeastern ridge of Everest and were making a push for the summit on June 8, 1924, when they were never heard from again. It had always been a mystery if the men died on their way up or on their way down after reaching the summit.
The boot was found on the northern side of Everest’s Central Rongbuk Glacier with a sock inside indicating it belonged to Irvine.
“I lifted up the sock and there’s a red label that has “AC Irvine” stitched into it,” documentary film director Jimmy Chin told National Geographic. “We were all literally running in circles dropping f-bombs.” Advertisement
It was the first clear presence of Irvine at the site, at a lower elevation from where Mallory’s remains were found in the area in 1999. The deep rope marks indicated a possible fall, but not conclusively.
British authorities are examining DNA samples of the foot to positively identify Irvine. The boot and remains were removed for fear that ravens in the area would disturb the exposed article in the melted glacier.
One of Irvine’s descendants, Julie Summers, said the news of the climber’s discovery moved her to tears.
“It was and will remain an extraordinary and poignant moment,” she said, according to the BBC News.
