Audiobook (abridged)4 hours
The Lost Explorer: Finding Mallory on Mount Everest
Written by Conrad Anker and David Roberts
Narrated by Jeffrey DeMunn and Michael McGlone
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
This is the adventure story of the year -- how Conrad Anker found the body of George Mallory on Mount Everest, casting an entirely new light on the mystery of the explorer who may have conquered Everest seventy-five years ago.
On June 8, 1924, George Leigh Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine were last seen climbing toward the summit of Mount Everest. Clouds soon closed around them, and they vanished into history. Ever since, mountaineers have wondered whether they reached the summit twenty-nine years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.
On May 1, 1999, Conrad Anker, one of the world's strongest mountaineers, discovered Mallory's body lying facedown, frozen into the scree and naturally mummified at 27,000 feet on Everest's north face. The condition of the body, as well as the artifacts found with Mallory, including goggles, an altimeter, and a carefully wrapped bundle of personal letters, are important clues in determining his fate. Seventeen days later, Anker free-climbed the Second Step, a 90-foot sheer cliff that is the single hardest obstacle on the north ridge. The first expedition known to have conquered the Second Step, a Chinese team in 1975, had tied a ladder to the cliff, leaving unanswered the question of whether Mallory could have climbed it in 1924. Anker's climb was the first test since Mallory's of the cliff's true difficulty. In treacherous conditions, Anker led teammate Dave Hahn from the Second Step to the summit.
Reflecting on the climb, Anker explains why he thinks Mallory and Irvine failed to make the summit, but at the same time, he expresses his awe at Mallory's achievement with the primitive equipment of the time. Stunningly handsome and charismatic, Mallory charmed everyone who met him during his lifetime and continues to fascinate mountaineers today. He was an able writer, a favorite of the Bloomsbury circle, and a climber of legendary gracefulness. The Lost Explorer is the remarkable story of this extraordinarily talented man and of the equally talented modern climber who spearheaded a discovery that may ultimately help solve the mystery of Mallory's disappearance.
On June 8, 1924, George Leigh Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine were last seen climbing toward the summit of Mount Everest. Clouds soon closed around them, and they vanished into history. Ever since, mountaineers have wondered whether they reached the summit twenty-nine years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.
On May 1, 1999, Conrad Anker, one of the world's strongest mountaineers, discovered Mallory's body lying facedown, frozen into the scree and naturally mummified at 27,000 feet on Everest's north face. The condition of the body, as well as the artifacts found with Mallory, including goggles, an altimeter, and a carefully wrapped bundle of personal letters, are important clues in determining his fate. Seventeen days later, Anker free-climbed the Second Step, a 90-foot sheer cliff that is the single hardest obstacle on the north ridge. The first expedition known to have conquered the Second Step, a Chinese team in 1975, had tied a ladder to the cliff, leaving unanswered the question of whether Mallory could have climbed it in 1924. Anker's climb was the first test since Mallory's of the cliff's true difficulty. In treacherous conditions, Anker led teammate Dave Hahn from the Second Step to the summit.
Reflecting on the climb, Anker explains why he thinks Mallory and Irvine failed to make the summit, but at the same time, he expresses his awe at Mallory's achievement with the primitive equipment of the time. Stunningly handsome and charismatic, Mallory charmed everyone who met him during his lifetime and continues to fascinate mountaineers today. He was an able writer, a favorite of the Bloomsbury circle, and a climber of legendary gracefulness. The Lost Explorer is the remarkable story of this extraordinarily talented man and of the equally talented modern climber who spearheaded a discovery that may ultimately help solve the mystery of Mallory's disappearance.
Author
Conrad Anker
CONRAD ANKER is famous for succeeding at death-defying ascents in the Himalaya and Antarctica. In 1999 he discovered George Mallory's body, the legendary British climber who disappeared on Everest. BERNADETTE MCDONALD is a prizewinning Canadian writer who has authored or contributed to eight books including National Geographic's Voices from the Summit and Extreme Landscape. MARK JENKINS writes about remote expeditions for National Geographic, Outside, Men's Health, Playboy, and many other magazines. His dispatches from Everest on the legacy climb will form part of this book's narrative.
Reviews for The Lost Explorer
Rating: 4.481481481481482 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
27 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is my current favorite genre. I really enjoyed it!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a companion book to The Ghosts of Everest, which tries to present as unsensationalised an account of the discovery of George Mallory's body as possible. Although the book has dated, Anker now believes that it is possible that Mallory and Irvine reached the summit, it is still an interesting addition to the Everest canon, and does at least attempt to separate the facts, as remembered by Anker, from the fiction, and provide some context to the decisions made at the time. By alternating the chapters between 1999 and 1924, whether deliberately or not, Anker and Roberts are able to reinforce Anker?s point that Everest is not a mountain to be underestimated and that the best equipped, most experienced climbers, can still get into serious trouble on the mountain.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book is a nice companion to Ghosts of Everest - it takes a less romanticized view of the same project, and comes to what feels to me like a more likely conclusion. Ghosts of Everest brought me to my fascination with Everest, but I really like Anker's style and impressions. If you read one, I very much suggest reading the other.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The story of the disappearance of George Mallory and his climbing partner, Sandy Irvine, while ascending or descending Mount Everest on June 8, 1924 has fascinated mountain fans for decades. They were last seen ascending the upper reaches somewhere between the "First" and "Second Steps." Did they make it to the summit? Did the accident which took their lives occur on the way up or on the way down? Ultimately these questions cannot be answered; however, until the May 1999 NOVA/BBC sponsered search for Mallory's and Irvine's remains there was little evidence on which to base speculation. This book tells the story of Conrad's Anker's discovery of Mallory's body, his carefully reasoned suggestions about whether they were the first to summit Everest and the scenario of their demise; and it tells the story of George Mallory, the most gifted mountaineer of the first half of the twentieth century and the only man to have been a part of all three British reconnaissance and summit attempts of the 1920s. It's a good quick read for the armchair adventurist.