"The achievement of climbers such as George Mallory and Andrew Irvine," Simonson told The Mountain Zone, "is not fully appreciated. To get within a few hundred feet of the summit in 1924, wearing tweed clothing and using extremely heavy and primitive oxygen gear, was incredible. Our expedition to Everest this year will conduct important historical research, but in a way it is a homage to those guys, and to all the climbers who have gone before us."

"On the Tibet side, the landscape is harsh and austere. Settlements are few and far between. It's high and windy and cold..."

As leader of the Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition, Simonson will head up a team of historians, climbers, filmmakers and even glaciologists who will endeavor to determine once and for all the fate of the two English climbers who disappeared on Everest 900 feet below the summit in 1924.
 [click to hear and read it]

Simonson, a high-altitude climber and guide who climbed to the summit of Everest in 1991 via the North Ridge, is uniquely qualified to lead the 1999 Expedition. Simonson, 43, of Ashford, Washington, operates a guide service near Mount Rainier. Despite a masters in geology, Simonson has been a professional guide since 1973, and has led more than 260 ascents of Mount Rainier. He has guided on Everest, Cho Oyu, and other 8000 meter peaks, as well as "seven summits" climbs such as Elbrus, Mount Vinson and Mount McKinley, on which he has made 16 ascents.

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But it's his experience on Everest that makes him uniquely qualified for the job at hand. A veteran of seven expeditions to the highest mountain on earth, and a master organizer and expedition leader, Simonson is equally familiar with both the north side climbing routes on the mountain, in Tibet, and with the south side routes, in Nepal.

For the past two years, Simonson participated in the Boston Museum of Science expeditions, which were engaged in GPS studies on the Nepal side; prior to that, he had participated in or lead six expeditions from the Tibetan side of Everest. With that deep background, Simonson knows the north side poses somewhat different problems than the south side.

"The north and south sides of Everest are completely different," said Simonson. "On the Nepal side, the approach goes through the lush and pleasant Khumbu valley, with its Sherpa villages and friendly people. On the Tibet side, the landscape is harsh and austere. Settlements are few and far between. It's high and windy and cold. And unlike the Khumbu, in Tibet, you drive to Base Camp in trucks and jeeps," he said.

"I've seen people die at the North Ridge Base Camp. It's a serious situation and one that requires experience and good judgement..."

While the North Ridge Base Camp is slightly lower than the better known Nepal Base Camp, the altitude dangers are greater. In Nepal, a climber stricken with altitude sickness can simply descend to 14,000 feet in a days walk. The high Tibetan plateau, on the other hand, demands that the stricken climber be driven for at least a day in a jeep before reaching a safer altitude.

"You can get real sick real fast," said Simonson. "I've seen people die at the North Ridge Base Camp. It's a serious situation and one that requires experience and good judgement."

Simonson explained that the route his expedition will climb in its search for the fate of Mallory & Irvine, the North Ridge, has five camps above Base Camp. Camps II and III (Advance Base Camp) are on a glacial moraine and present few technical problems. Camp IV, on the North Col, is approached via a steep ice slope that has been the scene of tragedies in the past. Simonson will fix thousands of feet of rope on this dangerous slope.
 [click to hear and read it]

From the North Col, the climbers are exposed to strong winds for the remainder of the route along the long, upper North Ridge. The final camps, Camp V (26,000 feet) and Camp VI (more than 27,000 feet) are high and exposed. But it's the summit day route from the High Camp to the top that presents the toughest obstacles: the notorious first and second "steps" which must be climbed or bypassed to reach the final slopes. The fact that summit day is more technical than the south, combined with the high altitude of the upper camps, means the climbers must spend more time in the so-called death zone above 26,000 feet.

The geography translates into one inescapable fact: climbers attempting Mount Everest from the north require a longer weather "window" than those attempting it from the south. On the north side we really need four good days of weather: "We need a good day to go from the North Col to Camp V, a good day to go to Camp VI, a good day to go to the summit, and a good day to get our fannies down off the mountain. That's four days of climbable conditions; on the south side, you only need two or three."
 [click to hear and read it]

It's the upper North Ridge, on the difficult "steps," that is perhaps the greatest obstacles for climbers approaching from Tibet. And somewhere among those steps is where two bold English climbers disappeared in 1924.

In 1933, an ice axe, identified as belonging to one of the missing English climbers, was found near the second step. And in 1975, a Chinese climber found a body he described as "old English dead," but he died before he could describe the exact location. That body is believed to be one of the missing climbers.

It's possible, although Simonson considers it unlikely, that the two may have reached the summit. Mallory & Irvine were known to have been carrying a camera. If the camera is recovered, experts say the film could still be salvageable.

"Who knows," said Simonson, "we might just surprise some people with what we find. But, whatever the outcome, it's an honor to be climbing in the footsteps of these men. This expedition is a testament to the drive and vision of Mallory and Irvine, who were well ahead of their time."

— Peter Potterfield, Mountain Zone Staff