Fearless on Everest: The Quest for Sandy Irvine* Includes never-before-published letters and photographs * Written by an Irvine family member Mallory and Irvine. These two names have been inextricably joined since the two climbers disappeared on Mount Everest more than 75 years ago. Could they have been the first to reach the summit of the world's highest mountains-some 30 years earlier than Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay? Mallory's story has been well chronicled, but Irvine has always been overshadowed by his more famous climbing partner and little has been written about him. Who was he? Why was he invited by the British Everest Committee to join the 1924 expedition despite his limited mountaineering experience? And why did Mallory, 16 years his senior, select Irvine as his partner for the final assault on the summit? Julie Summers, great niece of Sandy Irvine, has been fascinated since childhood by the story of Uncle Sandy. In May 2000, Julie made an astonishing discovery: a long forgotten and unopened trunk containing Irvine's letters and photographs from Everest. Drawing on these and other material, Julie writes a revealing story of a fearless young adventurer whose life and death linked him with one of the greatest mountaineering legends of all time. |
Contents
Prologue | 1 |
A Family Legend | 7 |
No Soap in the Bath | 15 |
Into the Blue | 50 |
The Fight with Everest | 89 |
Walking on Metaphorical Air | 114 |
Bound for Darjeeling The TittleTattle of Travel | 142 |
Under the Finest Possible Auspices The Trek across Tibet | 167 |
In the Shadow of the Peak | 251 |
Epilogue | 263 |
Rowing Crews | 271 |
Everest Team Members | 274 |
Base Camp Diary Everest 1924 | 276 |
Bibliography | 278 |
Acknowledgements | 281 |
| 285 | |