Unlocking a Century-Old Secret: New Book Sheds Light on George Mallory and Sandy Irvine’s Legendary 1924 Everest Expedition

There is no mystery more compelling than the unsolved enigma of George Mallory, Sandy Irvine, and their legendary 1924 expedition to Mount Everest. Over the past century, countless theories have been proposed regarding what happened in the final, fateful hours of their climb, but the definitive answer to whether they became the first people to successfully reach the summit remains unknown.

Now, a new book titled The Everest Mystery brings together two leading authorities on the subject to reexamine the historical record. The volume is co-authored by Julie Summers, the great-niece of Sandy Irvine, and Jochen Hemmleb, widely regarded as the world’s foremost authority on the 1924 Everest expedition. Together, they explore the life of Sandy Irvine, his close and complex relationship with George Mallory, and the myriad theories that have swirled around their disappearance for generations. In the following account shared with The History Reader, Summers and Hemmleb detail the remarkable chain of events that brought them together to write a book that proved to be a fitting partnership, much like the one shared by Irvine and Mallory a century ago.

The news that catalyzed their collaboration came as an absolute shock. On October 8, 2024, Julie Summers received a phone call at her home in Oxford from award-winning American filmmaker Jimmy Chin. Chin delivered the startling revelation that he and his climbing team had recently discovered an old leather mountaineering boot emerging from a glacier at the base of Mount Everest’s treacherous north face. The boot contained a human foot and a sock bearing a distinct name tape reading "A.C. Irvine."

This was Julie’s great-uncle, who had vanished near the summit of the world’s highest mountain alongside his climbing partner, George Mallory, a century earlier. While Mallory’s frozen body had famously been discovered higher up the mountain in 1999 by an expedition team, this marked the very first time that any physical remains belonging to Sandy Irvine had ever been recovered.

Just three days after receiving that life-changing phone call, Jochen Hemmleb experienced a similar emotional rollercoaster when he learned of the discovery via the internet. Hemmleb, an accomplished writer and filmmaker specializing in mountaineering history, had been utterly fascinated by the mystery of Mallory and Irvine since his teenage years. His dedication to the subject went far beyond mere academic interest; he had been one of the primary instigators and members of the 1999 expedition that successfully located Mallory’s remains, and he had subsequently undertaken three separate, dedicated searches specifically aimed at finding Sandy Irvine. Furthermore, Hemmleb and Summers had shared a close friendship for a quarter of a century.

Roughly a fortnight after the news broke, Summers suggested to Hemmleb that they should combine their unique perspectives and undertake a long, fresh, and all-encompassing examination of Sandy Irvine’s life, as well as mountaineering’s greatest and most enduring riddle.

To properly start their collaborative journey, the authors felt it was essential to go back in time, getting as close to the historical reality of 1924 as possible. They began at the library of Merton College, which was Irvine’s alma mater and conveniently served as Summers’s home ground. Pouring over his surviving diary, personal letters, and intricate drawings of the oxygen apparatus he had personally improved and modified for the Everest expedition provided them with renewed and intimate insights into Sandy’s true character and the dramatic events that unfolded 100 years ago.

Their research extended deep into Irvine’s personal social circle through interviews and conversations. They spoke with the grandson of Noel Odell, the geologist and mountaineer who had recommended Sandy for the expedition and who remained among his closest friends. They also connected with the granddaughter of John Hazard, one of Irvine’s expedition colleagues. These personal connections helped illuminate the social and emotional world that shaped the young climber before he departed for the Himalayas.

At Oxford’s nearby Museum of Natural History and the famed Bodleian Library, the authors consulted the personal letters, journals, and memoirs of Lawrence Wager and Percy Wyn-Harris. These two climbers were the men who famously discovered Sandy’s wooden-handled ice-axe high on the slopes of Mount Everest back in 1933. Reviewing their records granted Summers and Hemmleb crucial insights into the severe terrain, weather conditions, and tactical decision-making processes that both Sandy and Mallory inevitably would have encountered during their final push.

To carry their readers further up the mountain and across the span of a century, the project drew extensively upon Hemmleb’s nearly forty years of specialized research into the Mallory and Irvine mystery. This deep reservoir of knowledge included investigating the history of an early Chinese reconnaissance and climbing expedition that reportedly discovered the bodies of both climbers in 1960 and 1975, the landmark discovery of Mallory in 1999, the subsequent findings of the 1924 Camp VI site, and the discovery of an old, pre-war woolen mitten high on Everest in 2001. It also incorporated the recently revealed recovery of an old crampon found at an elevation of 8,580 meters, which currently stands as potentially the highest physical trace of Sandy discovered so far.

A major breakthrough in their research, however, came from a personal conversation with Christopher Norton, one of the grandsons of Edward Norton, who served as the leader of the 1924 Everest expedition. Speaking with Christopher felt almost as though he was channeling the direct thoughts of his grandfather. This conversation provided a hitherto overlooked, profound insight into the inner minds of expedition leader Norton, Mallory, and Irvine during the tense and exhausting final days of the expedition.

This vital perspective gave substantial weight to previous educated guesses, academic assumptions, and long-standing historical theories. Suddenly, viewed through the perspective of over a century, the entire narrative could be told with an unprecedented level of narrative detail. The chain of events became far more streamlined and obvious than it had ever seemed to the authors before, renewing their profound respect not only for the extraordinary physical feats the climbers accomplished in 1924, but also for the sharp intelligence and keen observation skills that went into planning such a massive, high-altitude undertaking.

The ultimate result of their shared journey as authors outlines what they believe is the most historically plausible scenario regarding what truly happened to Sandy Irvine and George Mallory in the summer of 1924. Beyond solving tactical mysteries, the book successfully establishes Sandy Irvine’s rightful place in mountaineering history as a fully-fledged expedition member, a skilled engineer who made tangible technical contributions, and an adventurous, fun-loving young man living life at his absolute prime.

Reflecting on the project, the authors note how deeply satisfying it was to combine their respective areas of expertise: Julie Summers’s personal and intimate knowledge of Sandy Irvine’s family history, and Jochen Hemmleb’s meticulous, detective-like inquiry into the disappearance of the two climbers. It proved to be a remarkably perfect partnership, matching the synergy of the two historical protagonists whose lives they set out to understand a century later.