Innovation for Extremes

I looked forward to watching Wildest Dream: The Conquest of Everest and was captivated by the photography. The  mysteries around Mallory and Irvine’s fated 1924 Everest attempt always fascinate and I enjoyed watching Leo Holding and Conrad Anker on the mountain and the footage from the 1920s Everest attempts. But why ignore the well researched facts and information produced in our Mountain Heritage Trust project.

Background

In 1922 George Bernard Shaw described the 1922 Everest expedition as looking like a ‘Connemara picnic surprised by a snowstorm’. Before we did the research every description about Mallory and Irvine’s clothing was negative; ‘poor’ ‘ill fitting’ ‘unsuitable’,  ‘inadequate’ and pitiful’ were some of the terms used. This view is embedded in the Everest mythology and taken for granted in the new film, even though our research disproved it . Every time the boots were mentioned they were described as hobnailed and Leo Houlding is shown trying desperately to restore circulation and in danger of frost bitten toes. Our understanding is that he had no choice but to replace the inadequate footwear with modern boots.

This was not surprising, the clothing and footwear used in this movie were not replicas of those used in 1924. They were costumes that added nothing to our understanding or enjoyment of this intriguing mountaineering story, rather they distracted and were misleading.

The film showed the clothing fragments, boot and clothing fragments -with George Mallory’s name clearly visible. The first sight of those is deeply moving and inspired us to undertake research, on behalf of Mountain Heritage Trust and supported by Heritage Lottery Fund, in collaboration with the Universities of Leeds, Derby and Southampton.

By analysing, testing and replicating the clothing fragments we were able to develop an improved understanding of the performance of George Mallory’s clothing. The work was completed in 2005 and tested on Everest up to Advanced Base Camp by Graham Hoyland, great nephew of Howard Somervell, in April 2006. He confirmed that they formed a lightweight, comfortable, effective and sophisticated clothing system, that would have been adequate for a summit bid, though not of course for unplanned bivouacs or an accident. The research did not show that Mallory’s gear was better than modern gear, but that much can be learned from the layering techniques used in 1924. We did not replicate the boot, but basic investigation shows it was a mainly felt boot covered in leather, with technical climbing nails of the period and not  ‘hobnailed’ or a single skin leather boot. This design, by 1922 Everester George Finch, was the lightest high altitude boot ever worn on Everest and included  not hobnails but sophisticated tricounis, specially designed for the trip.

As Chris Bonington commented back in 2006 on completion of our project:
‘While Mallory and Irvine remain mountaineering’s greatest mystery, the great thing about this project is that it has shown that they were well enough clad to have had the chance of reaching the summit…’

Watching the film last night it felt a bit like the case of ‘why spoil a good story with some facts’?

Click here to find out more about the findings from the Mallory clothing replica project .

Replica Team, 2005