"The Epic of Everest" OR "Let's do some early 20th century English!" According to the official historiography of mountain climbing, Sir Edmund Hillary and the local Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were the first men to reach Mount Everest's summit. On 29. May 1953. The possibility can not be outruled, though, that already 29 years earlier, in 1924, George Mallory reached the mountain top. Him then being part of an extensive expedition heading for the massif from the Tibetan side. He never returned from his final approach to the summit. The following presents selected frames as filmed by a camera team. It accompanied the mountain climbers through their long, tedious approach and the first parts up Mount Everest itself. The footage, restored and digitised in 2015 by the BBC, sure represents a stunning document of outstanding early filmmaking. Each sequence of film was introduced by a corresponding textual depiction, filling the whole screen. As it was common at times before the talkies. To save space, these text frames are skipped here, instead, a transcription is simply put beneath the respective still. The words in bold seem to deserve particular attention: difficult, or bizarre, or odd expressions. Everest is more than the rock of which The Tibetans have named the great There is nowhere here any trace of life she is built. Everest, unconquered, mountain "CHOMO-LUNG-MA", or man. It is a glimpse into a world that stands for a principle, an attraction and meaning "GODDESS MOTHER OF knows him not. Grand, solemn, a spur to action to call out all that is THE WORLD." unutterably lonely, the Rongbuk best in men who are pioneers. Glacier of Everest reveals itself. An army of five hundred men and Beyond the dividing mountains on the The men and women exist from the animals collects itself and sets out over border of the Tibetan Plateau lies cradle to the stone slab. on which the 15,000 ft. snow-bound pass of the Phari-Dzong, the highest town in the their dead bodies are hacked to Jelep, that transports the traveller from world, beneath Chomolari's 10,000 ft. pieces, without a wash the whole of India to Tibet. cliffs of rock and ice their lives. And the jolliest of the lot is this old In contrast to all this, the cold purity of Mallory and Irvine find interest in beggar man, who owns nothing in the the snows of Chomolhari puts to watching the yaks - these shaggy oxen world but his drum and the rags upon eternal shame the dirt of Phari. of Central Asia, living up to 20,000 ft. his back. above the sea. While the men roam the plains with the The monotony of our long trek would In still more splendid isolation from the yaks and sheep, the women churn be relieved by the interest in the outer world stands the fortress butter and spin wool within the tents. scenery we passed. monastery of Shekar-Dzong. - "The Shining Crystal Monastery". On the trail again... The cliff-built cells of the hermit Though predicting that the Gods of Lamas warn us of the sacred nature of Lamaism would deny us the the valleys we are now entering, near attainment of our object, the kindly Everest itself. Rongbuk Lama gave us blessing, friendship and support in our great adventure. No better men than Norton, Somervell, No sturdier porters than these Sherpa- Everest looms seven miles ahead, Mallory, Irvine, Odell, Beetham, Bruce Nepalese, of whom we had brought veiling her precipices with frozen and Hazard could take up the stern sixty to carry the loads and build the mist. The men descend to the shelter of battle ahead. glacier camps. the little camp amid the glacial ice. A little glacial pool, where the men Above the great mountain frowns upon But at the first turn of better weather drew water from beneath the ice, gave us, angered that we should violate we must move on to build yet another the name to "FROZEN LAKE CAMP." these pure sanctuaries of ice and snow depot higher up the glacier. that never before had suffered the foot of man. It is of this Fairyland, that you shall The lower end of te ridge falls by a And it is up the cliff of a thousand feet now see, that the Tibetan legends speak sheer cliff of ice into the glacier below. of ice that we must now go, our lives of Imps, Gnomes, Goblins and Hairy entrusted to mountaincraft, step-cutting Men holding high revels during the and rope. frozen night. Physically incapable of carrying our The mountain above was smoking with Somervell having cut steps across the camera higher, we can only watch driven mist and snow. precipitous traverse - where a slip these supermen returning from would mean a fall of a thousand feet - building two higher camps after brea- the men frequently hesitating were able king all records of human endurance. to cross one by one. We will scramble up to "Eagle's Nest Norton and Sommervell's party head Two days later they returned to Point" whence we may observe the for this ridge at a height of 28,000 ft. Snowfield Camp, Norton snowblind, whole mountain from ice cliff to and both in absolute physical collapse. summit. The summit being now unattainable This was the historic climax of our Higher and higher the two men without the aid of science. Mallory and adventure - glorious because of the struggled. The summit nearly attained, Irvine took up the fight with the marvel of attainment... and because of they had conquered 28,400 ft. artificial breathing of oxygen gas the tragedy of death. Still climbing.. and then... no more. What happened? We know nothing... Or perhaps the summit attained, but With the mountain we must now leave a slip perhaps and their bodies hurled too exhausted to reach camp by the secret of their death. No more can down the 10,000 ft. precipice... nightfall, they had been frozen to we do, although much we may feel and death. think. If you had lived, as they had lived and Or to your memory would you ask died in the heart of nature, would you, more than the building of just a simple yourself, wish for any better grave than cairn of stones? a grave of pure white snow? George Mallory Andrew Irvine Mount Everest APPENDIX Only as late as 1999, Mallory's dead body, preserved by the high-mountain climate up there, has been finally found. But even by the discovering of his corpse, and what eventually caused death, a forehead wound apparently inflicted by his own ice axe - still it could not be verified if he indeed would have made it all the way to the top, or did not reach the summit, failing to master the final few hundred feet. Probably the truth will never be revealed, remaining in the realm of mere speculation. Difficult words attainment achievement, accomplishment cairn memorial monument churn stir hurled forcefully thrown looms appears, overshadows precipice face or brink of a rock revel celebration scramble climb shaggy furry, ragged she Mountains are regularly of no gender, this probably has in mind the Tibetan name for Mount Everest: "Mother of the World". spur motivation, stimulation The men and women exist from the cradle to the stone slab, Refers to a practice in the Tibetan burial ceremonies on which their dead bodies are hacked to pieces, without a ??? wash the whole of their live. veiling disguising whence from what or which place Links The expedition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1924_British_Mount_Ev erest_expedition George Mallory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mallory IMDB about the film http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0219671/ Trailer on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwuPmg68mKU About Mount Everest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Everest Hillarys 1953 Expedition on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9CNyNAMOxE Mallory or Hillary first? - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nBH6NeyFpw Complete List of Everest victims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_die d_climbing_Mount_Everest .