The Everest Mystery
Sandy Irvine, George Mallory, and the Truth Still Buried on Everest
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Aug 25, 2026
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
The unsolved mysteries of George Mallory, Sandy Irvine, and their legendary 1924 Everest expedition
There is no mystery more compelling in the history of mountaineering than the disappearance of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine close to the summit of Mount Everest on June 8, 1924. Over 100 years after they were last seen ‘going strong for the top,’ the question of exactly what happened to them on that fateful day has not been answered.
George Mallory’s frozen remains were discovered in 1999. But in September 2024, a climber found an old boot lying out in the open on the Central Rongbuk Glacier on Mount Everest, several miles from where Mallory lay. The boot contained a foot, and a sock bearing a nametape spelled out in red: A.C. IRVINE.
Did Mallory and Irvine reach the summit—becoming the first to do so—or did they perish while ascending? What happened to the camera that Irvine may have carried, which would have documented their climb? Written by Julie Summers, Sandy Irvine’s great-niece, and Jochen Hemmleb, the world’s leading authority on the Mallory and Irvine Everest expedition, The Everest Mystery explores the life of Sandy Irvine, his relationship with George Mallory, and the many theories about what happened to them so close to the summit of Mount Everest. Above all, it restores Sandy Irvine to his rightful place in the great mystery of Everest 1924.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A 1924 attempt to summit Mt. Everest in which fabled mountaineers Sandy Irvine and George Mallory went missing continues to offer clues over a century later as to the fate of the explorers—and whether they reached the mountain's peak. Historians Summers (Fearless on Everest) and Hemmleb (Ghosts of Everest) unpack a multilayered tale stretching across generations and involving strong personalities, conflicting interests, and grandiose ambitions. Thirty-seven-year-old Mallory, a veteran of previous Everest ascents, set out on June 6, 1924, with the expedition's youngest member, 21-year-old Sandy Irvine, on his first Everest climb. They left their group at a lower camp, including Noel Odell, who, in a moment that continues to be debated, claimed on June 8 to glimpse two "tiny black spot" cresting Everest's summit—which would have made Irvine and Mallory the first to do so. In revisiting these events, Summers, a great-niece of Irvine, brings "my knowledge of the family" to bear, while Hemmleb draws on his "nearly forty years of... involvement in the story," including his participation in the 1999 expedition that discovered Mallory's body. The authors lay out all the evidence in meticulous detail, which adds up to a fascinating history of Everest exploration itself, as they recount the exploits of subsequent expeditions that may or may not have spotted Irvine and Mallory's remains. Everest obsessives will be thrilled.
