Poster: A snowHead
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After the Dutchman in his keks, Yahoo News (link below) is reporting that Altitude Everest expedition has been testing 1920s-style clothing and replicas of the equipment used by British climbers George Mallory and Sandy Irvine on their ill-fated bid to scale the world's highest peak 83 years ago...
Mallory has been immortalized by his flippant response to a journalist when asked why he wanted to climb Everest: "Because it is there". The two climbers were last seen on June 8, 1924. Noel Odell caught a glimpse of the pair
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I saw the whole summit ridge and the final peak of Everest unveiled. I noticed far away on a snow slope leading up to what appeared to be the last step but one from the base of the final pyramid, a tiny object moving and approaching the rock step. A second object followed, and then the first climbed to the top of the step. As I stood intently watching this dramatic appearance, the scene became enveloped in cloud once more |
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Mallory and Irvine were never seen alive again. Irvine was relatively inexperienced but had impressed Mallory with his capacity at altitude. Mallory, a good climber, was on his last Expedition and was extremely driven. An ice ax belonging to the pair was found below the crux of the first step in 1933.
In 1999 a German researcher believed he had located the body of one of the climbers based on eye witness research (the "old English dead" reported by Chinese climbers and aerial photographs). Using this information Conrad Anker discovered Mallory's corpse high on the mountain. He had slid while descending the summit ridge and had broken a leg before dying of hypothermia.
Mallory and Irvine set out from the North Col
Did they make it?
Ever since climbers have been fascinated by the mystery and have attempted to answer the question, did they make it? George Bernard Shaw described the British 20s Everest Expeditions as "like a Connemara pick nick party caught in a snow storm" but in fact the many layers of silk underwear were well suited to high altitude climbing. A few days prior to the dissapearance Somervell and Norton made a push up the Great Couloir. Norton recalled
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Beyond the couloir the going got steadily worse; I found myself stepping from tile to tile, each tile sloping smoothly and steeply downwards. It was a dangerous place for a single, unroped climber. It was now 1pm and a rough calculation showed I had no chance of climbing the remaing 800 feet if I were to return safely |
Norton had reached 8570 meters. He rejoined Sommerville and they roped up. They were determined to push down to the North Col but it was now 5pm and dark. Fortunately Norton had a hand torch. They had set an altitude record without oxygen.
It should be noted that the team had fine woven cotton anoraks - very windproof and George Finch had already experimented with lightweight down clothing very similar to that used today but this was viewed as unsporting by the British Alpine Club. British Everest expeditions were lampooned by WE Bowman in his classic book, the Ascent of Rum Doodle.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070614/wl_sthasia_afp/nepalmountaineeringeveresthistorymystery
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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It is amazing as to now far we think we've come in textile science. I spent many happy Summers and a few Winters stomping around Westmorland and Cumberland (that dates me ), the Western Isles and chunks of the Alps even thought I was a reasonable climber till experience taught me otherwise. But in the early days it was silk long-johns and vest under woolen shirt and cut down wwII army breeks with Fairisle sweater and wax cotton cagoole, well Dubbined leather boots with metal cleats and wax cotton overmitts . We were warn and dry and even when a bit sweaty it did all breath. It's the 70's that boogered it all up with lots of polyester fabrics that were 'pants' . It's taken till the last decade to achieve synthetics that are as good (and ok... now) arguably better that the stuff I was wearing 40 years ago and to be perfectly honest, most of us don't need more than I was wearing then to enjoy a weeks recreational skiing in our favorite resort.
Bring back tweed I say . . . http://www.musto.co.uk/productdetail.aspx?productId=1619&fromSearch=true
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Silly old fools.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Masque, hmm. I have some fairly distinct memories of skiing in lace up leather boots ( yes I know that dates me as well ). Lets not bring those back please!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Mike Lawrie, I'm pretty certain you can still buy leather x-country ski boots
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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I have a few tweed jackets but I would not dream of going climbing in them - even if they had zips instead of football buttons.
However, as an article of clothing and considering the amount of work that goes into making the fabric, they seem very cheap compared to all these anoraks in technical materials.
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