Le ombre dell'Everest (Ghosts of Everest) - Simonson, Hemmleb, Johnson, Nothdurft

The truth about the legendary Mallory and Irvine expedition

Le ombre dell'Everest. The truth about the legendary Mallory and Irvine expedition. Jochen Hemmleb, Larry A. Johnson, Eric R. Simonson with William E. Nothdurft. In the history of the myth of Everest, the highest mountain in the world, a special place is held by the English mountaineer George Mallory, who three times, between 1921 and 1924, tried to reach the summit, and who in the last attempt lost his life together with his young rope partner Andrew Irvine.

Even more than Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first to conquer Everest in 1953, the figure of Mallory is surrounded by an aura of myth, the myth that envelops noble, ill-fated heroes and the mountaineering of the early days. For seventy-five years a series of questions, so far unanswered, has accompanied the venture of Mallory and Irvine. Did the two Englishmen die 'before' or 'after' reaching the summit?

Should the conquest of Everest be moved back twenty-nine years? What evidence can be put forward to support one theory or the other? Is the prejudice of many of today's climbers reliable, according to whom those pioneers could never have reached the top because their technical means were too rudimentary? These questions could not be answered with the confused and contradictory testimony of the other members of the 1924 expedition alone. It was necessary to organise a mission to retrace the path of Mallory and Irvine, recover the equipment they had left behind and, perhaps, find their bodies. The authors of this book are the people who planned that mission, carried it out overcoming scepticism and organisational difficulties, and achieved the most unhoped-for result: on 1 May 1999, on a steep scree slope, they discovered the perfectly preserved body of George Mallory, like "one of those ancient Greek or Roman statues".

"Le ombre dell'Everest" is at once the moving narrative of the 1924 venture, the diary, kept by the protagonists, of an adventure that at first sight seemed 'impossible', and a gripping detective story which, thanks to a journey through space and time, has finally made it possible to gather the evidence to shed light on a mystery that had remained impenetrable for seventy-five years. And it is the best proof that, even in the era of cynical commercial expeditions and of mountaineering consumerism, there is still room for those ancient virtues that represent the true spirit of the mountains: courage, self-denial, the iron will to make dreams come true and to give substance to shadows.

Jochen Hemmleb, born in Germany in 1971, a geology student and mountaineer, has already published two articles on the mysteries of Everest. He was the first to believe it was possible to find Mallory and Irvine.

Larry A. Johnson, born in the United States in 1946, mountaineer and publisher of mountain books, is the organiser of this expedition.

Eric R. Simonson, born in the United States in 1955, has a degree in geology and has been a professional mountaineer since 1973. He has led over seventy expeditions all over the world, twenty of them in the Himalaya.

is a journalist specialising in mountaineering and extreme sports.

For another story linked to the highest mountain in the world, watch Everest Sea To Summit.