AP News, June 11th, 2007
An American climber is leading an expedition up Mount Everest to resolve the debate about who was the first to scale the world's highest peak.
Conrad Anker of Big Oakflag, Calif., and his team are trying to retrace the 1924 climb of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine on the northern side of the mountain in China.
The two Englishmen were last seen alive about 900 feet, or just a few hours, from the summit. They were spotted from below as swirling mists closed in.
That was 29 years before New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay successfully scaled the mountain on May 29, 1953.
History books recognize Hillary and Norgay's climb as the first to the top of the world. Yet many mountaineers have speculated that Mallory and Irvine conquered Everest but died on the way down.
Irvine's body has never been found. Mallory's body was discovered by Anker in a similar 1999 expedition that persuaded some he and Irvine had reached the summit.
The 1999 expedition recovered handwritten letters addressed to Mallory, goggles, an altimeter, a pocketknife and a piece of rope, but did not find a camera the climbers were believed to be carrying.
Anker and his team set out from the advance base camp on Sunday and hope to reach the 29,035-foot peak around June 14, according to dispatches on their Web site.
"The 2007 expedition team will investigate Mallory and Irvine's last journey in forensic detail; test the durability of their clothing and equipment in the unforgiving conditions of Everest; and piece together eyewitness accounts _ all to reconstruct Mallory and Irvine's final, fateful hours."
In interviews with The Associated Press after the 1999 expedition, members of the team appeared divided over whether the two climbers ever made it to the summit.
"The two could not have made it to the summit due to the length of time they were gone and depth of difficulty," Anker had said.
But another team member, Andy Politz of Columbus, Ohio, disagreed. "I still think they made it to the top," he said.
Unable to remove Mallory's body, the team buried it
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On the Net:
The expedition Web site: http://www.ueverest.com
