It was the call that the family of a young British mountaineer who disappeared on Everest 100 years ago had given up hope of receiving.
Last month, a team of mountaineers filming a documentary about National Geographic He came across a boot that was kept there and that appeared when the ice of a glacier melted.
This boot is believed to have belonged to Andrew Comyn “Sandy” Irvinewho disappeared while attempting to climb Everest in June 1924 with his partner George Mallory.
Furthermore, it could help resolve one of the greatest mysteries of mountaineering: if both managed to become the first people to reach the summit of Everest, 29 years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay They will reach the top.
The renowned adventurer Jimmy Chinwho led the team National Geographicdescribed the discovery as a “monumental and emotional moment.”
For Irvine’s great-niece, Julie Summers, it was simply “extraordinary.”
“I was frozen (…) We had all lost hope of finding any trace of him”he told the BBC.
Numerous people have searched for Irvine’s body over the years, in part because the 22-year-old was allegedly carrying a camera with undeveloped film inside, possibly containing a photo of the two at the summit.
“Dude, there’s a label there.”
Could the discovery of the boot be the first step in finding his body and the camera?
The family provided a DNA sample to help confirm that it is indeed Irvine, but the filmmaking team is pretty sure it belongs to him because The sock found inside the boot has the words “AC Irvine” embroidered on it..
“I mean, dude, there’s a label there,” said Chin, known for making the Oscar-winning climbing documentary Free Solo with his wife.
The label on the stocking has the initials of the climber’s two names and his last name embroidered. (Jimmy Chin).
The team made the discovery while descending from the Rongbuk glacier central route along the north face of Everest in September.
Along the way, they found an oxygen bottle marked with the date 1933. An expedition to Everest that year had found an object that belonged to Irvine.
Encouraged by this possible sign that Irvine’s body might be nearby, the team searched the glacier for several days, before one of them spotted the boot emerging from the melting ice.
It was a chance discovery: they estimated that the ice had melted only a week before its discovery.
The foot has since been removed from the mountain due to concerns that crows were stalking it, according to reports, and handed over to the Chinese mountaineering authorities who govern the north face of Everest.
Uncle Sandy
Sandy Irvine, as he was popularly known, was 22 years old when he disappeared. (Getty Images).
For Irvine’s descendants, the discovery is emotional, especially this year, which marks the 100th anniversary of his disappearance.
Summers grew up hearing stories of her grandmother’s adventurous, Oxford-educated younger brother, who was known as “Uncle Sandy”.
“My grandmother had a photo of him next to her bed until the day she died,” he recalled.
“He said he was a better man than anyone could ever be,” he added.
Irvine – born in Birkenhead, a city next to Liverpool – was only 22 years old when he disappeared, and was the youngest member of an expedition that has intrigued the mountaineering world for a century.
He and Mallory were last seen alive on June 8, 1924, as they left for the summit.
Mallory’s body was found in 1999 by an American mountaineer.
In recent decades, the search for the climbers’ remains has been mired in controversy amid suspicions that the bodies were moved.
Summers has always dismissed such stories and suspicions as highly improbable, and revealed his feeling of “relief” after Chin called him to tell him that “he was still there on the mountain.”
The photo of truth
What if it could now be proven that Irvine and Mallory reached the summit, being the first to do so, an idea that, Summers estimated, “it would turn the history of mountaineering upside down”?
“It would be great, we would all feel very proud,” he said.
“But the family has always kept the mystery, and the story of how far they came and how brave they were, was what really mattered,” he said.
“The only way we know is if we find a photo in the camera that he is believed to have been carrying,” his great-niece warned.
The last photo of Mallory (left) and Irvine (right) before leaving for their climb in 1924. (Getty Images).
Summers assumes the search for that camera will continue now. “I think it will be irresistible,” he said.
It remains to be seen if they will find her.
Chin, for his part, hopes that the discovery of the boot – “a monumental and emotional moment for us and our entire team on the ground” – “will finally bring peace of mind to his family and to the climbing world in general.”
For Summers, it’s a chance to remind the world of that young man “who took life and lived it,” taking advantage of every opportunity and, above all, “was having fun.”
But, perhaps surprisingly, she and her cousins are grateful that the older generation wasn’t here for this discovery.
“For them, Everest is his grave“he explained.
