COLD CASE

Foot Provides Major Clue in 100-Year-Old Everest Mystery

Climbers hoped the remains would offer a clue as to whether the mountaineer reached the summit in 1924.

There was little doubt as to the identity of the remains found on Mount Everest even though it was 100 years since mountaineer Andrew “Sandy” Irvine vanished. “I lifted up the sock and there’s a red label that has A.C. IRVINE stitched into it,” said Jimmy Chin, part of a National Geographic documentary team who spotted a cracked leather boot sticking out of the ice just below the mountain’s north face. Irvine and George Mallory were last seen on June 8, 1924 making their way up Everest. Nobody ever knew if they managed to make it to the top. If they were, indeed, on their way down when they got into difficulties, they would have preceded Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s summit success by 29 years. Mallory’s remains were found in 1999, and Chin said: “It’s the first real evidence of where Sandy ended up.” But the mystery remains. Irvine was carrying a camera on the exhibition, but the crew saw no sign of it with the recovered foot.

PEAK MYSTERY

New Twist as Bodies of Mt. Everest Climbers Go Missing

Amanda Yen