Camera May Reveal The First Person To Reach Mount Everest Summit

The Search For a Frozen Camera Could Rewrite the History Books On Mt. Everest's First Climbers

[Mallory and Irvine in their camp preparing for their ascent]

In June 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine left their camp just 800 feet from the summit of Mount Everest on a mission to be the first mountaineers to ascend the world's highest peak (29,035 feet). They were never heard from again. Whether either man reached the summit — almost three decades before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's historic 1953 climb — has been an open question for 85 years.

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The key to solving the mystery, many climbers say, is finding Irvine's remains and with it the missing Vest Pocket Kodak (VPK) camera he was supposedly carrying with him on that fateful journey.

Now, Everest historian Tom Holzel believes he has pinpointed the location of Andrew Irvine's body, showing up as an "oblong blob" on high-resolution photographs of the mountain. Recovering Irvine's body might mean recovering his Kodak camera, as well as the film that could fill in the blanks on their historic climb.

[George Mallory and Andrew Irvine]

Holzel plans to launch an expedition to investigate the location and hopefully recover the camera next month. In the event they do find the 90 year old Vest Pocket Kodak, Holzel has prepared an extensive guide on how to handle the very delicate and important photographic equipment.

Scientific American

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