Winchester College

Above the Clouds

An exhibition entitled ‘Above the Clouds - Mallory and Irvine and the Quest for Everest’ is taking place at The Salt Museum, Northwich, Cheshire, from 11th  September to the 8th November 2009, and from November to January at the Williamson Art Gallery in Birkenhead.
   
The exhibition reflects on the lives and achievements of Mallory (Coll, 1900-05) and Irvine who were both born in Cheshire. The focus of the display will be the 1924 expedition and will include items loaned by Win Coll, the Alpine Club, Merton College, the Royal Geographical Society and some of the items found when Mallory’s body was found in 1999.
   
Winchester College has loaned a letter written by Mallory at 17,000 feet during the 1921 Everest Expedition. This expedition was organised by the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club, and set out to explore the whole Himalayan range and find a route up Everest.
   
   
Two other Wykehamists took part in the expedition, Guy Bullock (College, 1901-1906) and Major Henry Morshead (E 1896-1900). Mallory and the rest of the team explored the northern approaches of Mt Everest, and the high exploration devolved almost entirely upon Mallory and Bullock. They explored the Rongbuk valley, and ascended the Central Rongbuk Glacier, missing the narrower opening of the eastern branch and the possible line up Everest. The saddle north of Everest, despite its forbidding appearance, was climbed on September 24, but a bitter wind prevented them from going higher. However, Mallory had from there traced a potential route to the summit.

His letter, written on 21 July, says there is work to last them all summer. He describes the glacier in some detail and the difficulty in moving on it, ‘getting along is a bad business at present. One is paid out so heavily for the smallest loss of balance or strength. By breathing like a steam engine I find I can get up hill quite well ...... but the descent was more infernally exhausting than you can imagine’. He describes Everest as ‘a prodigious rock peak plastered with snow except for the East face which has hanging glaciers at impossible angles’ and sets out the difficulties of an ascent from each direction. He thinks an approach via the NW buttress the most likely, but comments that any climb will be ‘sweaty, sweaty, a long grim business’. Mallory ends the letter with a P.S., ‘I was cutting steps in ice quite happily at 21,000 ft today – so we won’t say die yet’.