By Free Republic | Created at 2024-10-19 13:22:21 | Updated at 2024-10-19 15:30:09
2 hours ago
Family tells of 'relief' after 1924 climber’s foot found on Everest
BBC News ^ | October 11, 2024 | Tessa Wong and Flora Drury
Posted on 10/19/2024 6:13:18 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
It was the call the family of a young British climber who went missing on Everest 100 years ago had given up hope of ever getting.Last month, a team of climbers filming a National Geographic documentary stumbled on a preserved boot, revealed by melting ice on a glacier.
This boot was believed to belong to Andrew Comyn "Sandy" Irvine, who disappeared while attempting to climb Everest in June 1924 with his partner George Mallory.
What's more, it could potentially help solve one of mountaineering's biggest mysteries: whether or not the pair succeeded in becoming the first people to summit Everest, 29 years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the top.
Well-known adventurer Jimmy Chin, who led the team for National Geographic, hailed the discovery of the boot - with a foot inside it - as a "monumental and emotional moment".
But for Irvine's great-niece Julie Summers it was simply "extraordinary".
"I just froze.... We had all given up any hope any trace of him would be found," she told the BBC.
A number of people have searched for Irvine's body over the years, partly because the 22-year-old is said to have been carrying a camera with an undeveloped film inside, potentially with a photograph of the pair at the summit.
Could the discovery of the boot be the first step to finding his body - and the camera?
The family have now given a DNA sample to help confirm the foot is indeed Irvine - but the filmmaking team is fairly confident it belongs to the mountaineer. The sock found inside the boot has a name tag stitched into it with the words "A.C. Irvine".
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: doingwhatheloved; everest; floradrury; georgemallory; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; mounteverest; nationalgeographic; sandyirvine; tessawong
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A sock tagged with "A.C. Irvine", along with a boot, has been discovered on the Central Rongbuk Glacier below the North Face of Mount Everest by a team led by Jimmy Chin.Jimmy Chin
1 posted on 10/19/2024 6:13:18 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...
2 posted on 10/19/2024 6:14:29 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
3 posted on 10/19/2024 6:15:19 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
To: SunkenCiv
4 posted on 10/19/2024 6:19:42 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire, or both.)
Mystery solved
5 posted on 10/19/2024 6:21:57 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire, or both.)
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