News about George Mallory

British mountaineers who vanished during a 1924 expedition to the top of Mount Everest are unlikely to have reached the top before they died, an author has claimed. George Mallory, 37, (left) and Sandy Irvine, 22, (right) were last seen alive on the northeast ridge of the mountain at around 12pm on June 8 1924. Now, 100 years on from their death, author Graham Hoyland has claimed in his forthcoming book 'First on Everest', that the two explorers never made it to the summit because a sudden drop in atmospheric pressure meant they were walking into an 'invisible death trap'. The 66-year old is a descendant of one of Mallory and Irvine fellow expeditioners, the meteorologist on the mission, Howard Somervell, who kept a detailed log in a handwritten diary.

Letters from the British climber George Mallory, who disappeared on Mount Everest in 1924, to his wife Ruth, revealing his anxiety over the climb have been published online by his former Cambridge University college. The mountaineer and explorer was 37 years old when he and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine vanished close to the summit of the highest mountain in the world. Mallory's body was found 75 years later in 1999 and there is still debate about whether the pair made it to the top of the mountain. Mallory studied at Magdalene College in Cambridge before becoming a schoolmaster, serving in France during the First World War before returning to England in 1919.

George Mallory, 37, (top inset) and Andrew 'Sandy' Irvine, 22, (right), went missing after the 1924 trip to scale the world's highest mountain (top right). In 1999, Mallory's body was discovered 2,000 feet from the summit, but the body of his climbing partner was not found. The two mountaineers survived difficulties with their oxygen tanks (left) during their mission, according to Mick Conefrey's forthcoming book Fallen, George Mallory: the Man, the Myth, and the 1924 Everest Tragedy. The author also stated that British organisers were aware that Mallory and Irvine's oxygen units did not function properly.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS: Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and New Zealand beekeeper Edmund Hillary were on top of the world at 11.30 a.m. on May 29, 1953, becoming the first man to scale Mount Everest's summit at 11.30 a.m. Before Norgay accepted his wife, the two shook hands. Hillary photographed four flags he had tied together by string and wrapped around his ice axe's handle. Both looked for signs that George Mallory, a British climber who lost on Everest in 1924, was on the summit. The two then made their summit bids. According to reports, Hillary left a small crucifix and Norgay, a Buddhist, made a food offering. Fr. John Hunt, an expedition leader of the Benedictine Abbey of Ampleforth, Yorkshire, had the cross and returned to Hillary.

Anytime since George Mallory's death in 1924, British attempts to scale Mount Everest had a new sense of poignancy. So when Colonel John Hunt's crew successfully completed the feat seven years ago on this day, the excitement in the United Kingdom was understandable. Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay of Nepalese (pictured inset on Everest's summit) were among Hunt's crew's men who planted the Union jack on the 29,000-ft peak. They became household names as a result of the Queen's Coronation, June 2, 1953. 'Everest is conquered,' The Daily Mail announced at the time: "Everest is king." On the 29,000-ft summit, a Union Jack has flown, led by a New Zealand beekeeper. This Coronation morning, nature's most coveted award goes to the Queen.'

DIRECT CONTENT WARNING: Many of the bodies fell into the ether, or completely swept off the mountain's face by ferocious winds. However, the sun-bleached bodies that remain frozen in time and place are often used as macabre guide posts for new climbers. Some people make their intentions explicit: if they die on the mountain, they want to remain on the mountain. For those that are not, grieving families are left struggling to raise upwards of £61,000 to bring them home. In some situations, it simply isn't possible.