The Third Pole: Mystery, Obsession, and Death on Mount Everest (Unabridged)
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4.4 • 24 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
*One of the 57 Most Anticipated Books Of 2021—Elle
Shivering, exhausted, gasping for oxygen, beyond doubt . . .
A hundred-year mystery lured veteran climber Mark Synnott into an unlikely expedition up Mount Everest during the spring 2019 season that came to be known as “the Year Everest Broke.” What he found was a gripping human story of impassioned characters from around the globe and a mountain that will consume your soul—and your life—if you let it.
The mystery? On June 8, 1924, George Mallory and Sandy Irvine set out to stand on the roof of the world, where no one had stood before. They were last seen eight hundred feet shy of Everest’s summit still “going strong” for the top. Could they have succeeded decades before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay? Irvine is believed to have carried a Kodak camera with him to record their attempt, but it, along with his body, had never been found. Did the frozen film in that camera have a photograph of Mallory and Irvine on the summit before they disappeared into the clouds, never to be seen again? Kodak says the film might still be viable. . . .
Mark Synnott made his own ascent up the infamous North Face along with his friend Renan Ozturk, a filmmaker using drones higher than any had previously flown. Readers witness first-hand how Synnott’s quest led him from oxygen-deprivation training to archives and museums in England, to Kathmandu, the Tibetan high plateau, and up the North Face into a massive storm. The infamous traffic jams of climbers at the very summit immediately resulted in tragic deaths. Sherpas revolted. Chinese officials turned on Synnott’s team. An Indian woman miraculously crawled her way to frostbitten survival. Synnott himself went off the safety rope—one slip and no one would have been able to save him—committed to solving the mystery.
Eleven climbers died on Everest that season, all of them mesmerized by an irresistible magic. The Third Pole is a rapidly accelerating ride to the limitless joy and horror of human obsession.
*This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF containing maps, notes on sources, and acknowledgments from the printed book.
Customer Reviews
4.5
I became interested in this book after watching the Nat Geo video on YouTube featuring the author (Mark Synnott) on his search for Sandy Irvine. I wondered how much more insight the book would give into the project, but it delivered much more than that.
Synnott does an exceptional job intertwining the Mallory/Irving expedition with his own summit of Everest. It also gives more history to previous Everest summits that are relevant, background to some who met their fate on the mountain, and the day that Everest broke. Synnott was there the day that Everest broke and gives detailed accounts of what he saw that day, stories from several people who summited, and of those who didn’t make it back alive.
Given that I’m interested in what potentially happened to the VPK camera that Irving had with him, the last chapter and postscript were particularly fascinating.
Having only been familiar with Synnott from climbing videos (and the Nat Geo documentary), I’m really impressed with his writing. He does an extraordinary job depicting events, telling the stories of others and keeping the reader engaged. As another reader noted, he doesn’t give a boring history lesson, and his own account on the mountain is riveting.
I did not find this book difficult to follow like the other reviewer.
Skips all around and hardly about the main subject
Skips all around and hardly about the subject. If you want to hear the life stories of people 10 time removed from those who might have heard something about Everest, have a read. If you’re expecting an exciting book about the lost history of the first explorers and mountaineering in general, skip it.