According to National Geographic magazine on Friday, a documentary crew on Mount Everest found what appeared to be human bones on the mountain, which belonged to a man who vanished while attempting to reach the summit a century ago.
The bodies of mountaineers who perished while attempting to climb the highest mountain in the world are becoming more visible as a result of climate change’s shrinking of the snow and ice surrounding the Himalayas.
Together with climbing partner George Malcolm, British climber Andrew Irvine vanished in 1924 while attempting to become the first person to reach the peak of Everest, which is 8,848 meters (29,029 feet) above sea level.
When a boot, still covering the remains of a foot, was found by a National Geographic expedition on the peak’s Central Rongbuk Glacier, it provided much-needed insight about the fate of Irvine. Mallory’s body was located in 1999.
The magazine stated that upon closer examination, they discovered a sock with “a red label that has A.C. IRVINE stitched into it.”
The finding might provide more information about where the team’s personal belongings are located and possibly provide an answer to one of mountaineering’s longest-standing mysteries: whether Irvine and Mallory actually made it to the top.
That would validate Irvine and Mallory as the first people to reach the summit, some thirty years before climbers Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the first summit that is currently recognized, in 1953.
According to Julie Summers, Irvine’s great-niece, “it tells the whole story about what probably happened” to National Geographic.
It has been reported that Irvine family members offered to exchange DNA samples in order to verify the identity of the remains.
When Irvine vanished, he was 22 years old.
He and Mallory started their last ascent to the summit that morning, and one of the expedition members saw them for the last time that afternoon on June 8, 1924.
It is thought that Irvine was carrying a vest camera, whose discovery has the potential to completely alter the course of mountaineering history.
The National Geographic team member Jimmy Chin, a photographer and filmmaker, thinks the finding “certainly reduces the search area” for the elusive camera.
Since the beginning of expeditions on the mountain in the 1920s, more than 300 individuals have died there.
Some are buried in deep crevasses or concealed by snow.
Others, still sporting their bright climbing attire, have earned gallows humor monikers like “Green Boots” and “Sleeping Beauty” and have turned into notable locations along the way to the top.
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