On 8th June 1924 Geroge Mallory and Andrew Irvine set off from camp at 26,700 feet, bound for the summit of Everest. They were watched by Noel Odell who, in a famous despatch to the Times, described how the clouds parted to unveil the summit ridge and final peak of the roof of the world. He watched as the two black dots made towards the top, but after five minutes the clouds rolled in. They were never seen alive again. Did Mallory and Irvine conquer Everest almost 30 years before Hillary and Tenzing? How did they die? Where yhey the Olympian heroes described by history? Was George Mallory - friend of Lytton Strachey, partner the inexperienced young Irvine? An authoratitive book...prepared to debunk one of mountaineerings most cherished beliefs. THE OBSERVER.

Author Biography

Tom Holzel graduated in Economics at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. In 1986 he organised and took part in an expedition to the north side of Mount Everest to search for new evidence of what became of Mallory and Irvine. He has invented and patented a new kind of oxygen 'rebreathing' apparatus for extended use at high altitude. He is the author on numerous articles for Summit, Mountain and American Alpine Journal. Audrey Salkeld has the most comprehensive archive in Britain on mountaineering. She has translated from the German books by Reinhold Messner and Kurt Diemberger and has written the scripts for a number of television documentaries, including Leo Dickinson's Eiger and David Breashear's film The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine, for which she took part in Holzel's 1986 expedition and climbed to the North Col on Everest. She contributes regularly to mountaineering journals and is the author of a highly praised book on her Himalayan travels in Mustang and Tibet, People in High Places.