Why climb Everest? Because it's there.

[The Joker]

George Mallory was an English mountaineer who took part in the first three British expeditions to Mount Everest in the early 1920s.




During the 1924 British Mount Everest Expedition, Mallory and his climbing partner Andrew "Sandy" Irvine both disappeared somewhere high on the North-East ridge during their attempt to make the first ascent of the world's highest mountain. The pair's last known sighting was only a few hundred metres from the summit.

Mallory's ultimate fate was unknown for 75 years, until his body was finally discovered in 1999 by an expedition that had set out to search for the climbers' remains. Whether or not Mallory and Irvine reached the summit before they died remains a subject of speculation and continuing research.



His Rolex watch was found amongst his possessions, it was rusted in at 5.10pm. But one very significant item was missing. A photo of his wife that he promised to leave on the summit.

Sandy Irvine's body still hasn't been discovered. Several search parties have set out during the past decade in search of him, because he was carrying the Kodak camera in his trouser pocket - that could hold photographic proof of what happened.

Young George Mallory II also followed in his grandfather's footsteps, and in 1995 stood at the point his grandfather had last been seen before heading for the top. It took George Mallory II an hour and a half to reach the summit. 'I'm a pretty useful climber, but I was never in the same class as my grandfather.'

Did George Mallory reach the summit three decades before Edmund Hillary?

Was this the first watch to reach the summit of Mount Everest?