Mallory, Irvine and Everest, page 19
‘Soon after I had started on my task banks of cloud began to form … Now and then there would be an accompaniment of sleet and light snow. I could see above me frequently during these squalls that there was a glow of light, indicating clearness at a higher altitude, …’8
We know however that Odell had the intention to arrive at Camp VI. For a moment, let us fast-forward to his arrival.
‘I continued my way up to Camp VI., and [arrived] there two o’clock.’9
But which Camp VI? Odell’s accounts tell us that he found only one, and (as we shall see shortly) he found oxygen cylinders inside and pieces of oxygen apparatus outside, testifying that Mallory and Irvine had occupied it. As we calculated in Chapter 9, Mallory’s Camp VI was probably just under the Northeast Shoulder, at 27,300 feet.
There is one piece of Odell’s account that implies that he knew that Mallory’s Camp VI was at 27,300 feet. Of his night at Camp V at 25,300 feet, on 7 June 1924, he wrote:
‘I knew with what hopeful feelings and exultant cheer Mallory and Irvine would take their last look around before closing themselves in their tiny tent at [Camp] VI that night. … I was 2,000 feet lower down the mountain-side than they …’10
Odell did indeed arrive at Mallory’s Camp VI; and in so doing, he made a vertical ascent of 2,000 feet in six hours or a little less. He therefore climbed at an average of 340 feet per hour, or more: a brisk pace for a climb with mainly geological objectives, but not extraordinary, and not difficult for a man of Odell’s strength and fitness. This rate of ascent is significant because in a moment, it will help us delimit the location of Odell’s sighting, to which we now return.
The break in the clouds
In contemporary reports, Odell related his sighting of Mallory and Irvine on at least four occasions: in ‘The Mount Everest Dispatches’, No. 9, dated 14 June 1924 and reprinted in The Geographical Journal of August 1924; in The Alpine Journal with the same dateline (and with almost identical wording); again in The Geographical Journal of December 1924, with additional recollections and a subtly different wording; and in a chapter of Norton’s The Fight For Everest 1924, published in 1925, wherein Odell largely retained his wording of December 1924. This author’s view is that what Odell wrote on 14 June 1924 is as authoritative a version as we shall ever see.
With that, we can find no better words than those of Odell:
‘At 12.50, just after I had emerged in a state of jubilation at finding the first definite fossils on Everest, there was a sudden clearing of the atmosphere, and the entire summit ridge and final peak of Everest were unveiled. My eyes became fixed on one tiny black spot silhouetted on a small snowcrest beneath a rock-step in the ridge, and the black spot moved. Another black spot became apparent and moved up the snow to join the other on the crest. The first then approached the great rock-step and shortly emerged at the top; the second did likewise. Then the whole fascinating vision vanished, enveloped in cloud once more.’11
Odell went on to describe what seemed a quite specific location for the climbers:
‘… The place on the ridge mentioned is a prominent rock-step at a very short distance from the base of the final pyramid, …’12
However, by December 1924, Odell’s narrative had acquired a certain hesitancy about the second climber, and a note of alarm:
‘I noticed far away on a snow-slope leading up to 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, and I could not actually be certain that I saw the second figure join the first. I was surprised above all to see them so late as this, namely 12.50, at a point that according to Mallory’s schedule should have been reached by 10 a.m. at latest.’
Odell’s reference to ‘10 am’ is presumably an extrapolation from Mallory’s mention of ‘8.0’ [am]. There is no surviving document in which Mallory proposed to be anywhere at 10 am on 8 June.
Moreover, the references to a ‘prominent rock step’ and ‘a very short distance’ had disappeared; and Odell now took issue with a previous interpretation of his sighting. The asterisk in his report led to a footnote where he insisted:
‘* Not the position indicated in illustration Geogr. Journ. [Geographical Journal] Vol.64 No.2 [August 1924], opposite p. 160, but the rock step to the left of this beyond the snow patch.’13
Here we reproduce the relevant part of the illustration to which Odell objected. It was indeed in The Geographical Journal of August 1924, opposite page 160. The caption reads in part: ‘Telephotograph of the summit of Mount Everest taken from the Base Camp in 1922’. In other words, the underlying photograph was more than two years old when it was published.
Odell had originally said that he had seen two tiny figures crossing a snowfield and then climbing a rock step; the last position (or at least that of one of them) had been at the crest of the step. He now identified that step as the Second Step. He was implying that there had been a snowfield below the Second Step. There is no such snowfield in the 1922 telephoto; but that does not exclude a snowfield there in 1924.
Had he wished, Odell could have added that The Geographical Journal had also mis-identified the high point reached by Norton and Somervell on 4 June 1924. Norton’s high point was not on the Northeast Ridge, but in the Great Couloir, about 1,000 feet west of the point shown in the Geographical Journal.
Mallory and Irvine’s last known position, as seen by Odell, was later assigned an altitude of 28,227 feet, on the basis of measurements with the theodolite, taken by Hazard from Base Camp.14 This was consistent with later measurements of the altitude of the Second Step. The 1924 expedition did not calibrate the Second Step, but Michael Spender’s map of 1936 placed the base of the Second Step at 28,140 feet. Since the Step is conventionally viewed as about 100 feet high (depending on where one defines the base), the crest would have been at about 28,240 feet by Spender’s calibration.
Figure 10.2. Mallory's and Irvine's last known location, as published by The Geographical Journal, Vol.64, No.2 (August 1924), and as corrected or disputed by Odell. (Base image and original annotations by (probably) John Noel; additional graphics by author)
In short, Odell’s early narrations of his sighting placed the climbers squarely at the crest of the Second Step, though without ever naming the step. Then why the controversy?
Firstly, Odell’s identification of the Second Step would open a debate as to what he meant by the distance from the base of the pyramid. The Second Step is about 1,620 feet horizontally from the summit15. Reasonable persons may differ on the location of the base of the pyramid; this author would use the Third Step as a reference and would locate the eastern base of the pyramid about 1,050 feet horizontally from the summit. In that case, the Second Step is about 570 feet horizontally from the base of the pyramid. Could that be considered ‘a very short distance’?
Secondly, there began, and there remains, a more virulent debate about Mallory’s climbing abilities. Many contemporary climbers believed, and many modern climbers believe, that Mallory could not have climbed the Second Step.
If Odell saw one of the climbers at the crest of the Second Step, it would follow that at least one of them must have climbed it. To diverge from that inference, we would have to disprove Odell’s sighting; or to reinterpret it, or to relocate it.
The last step but one
Here, we come to our titular ‘last step but one’.
Odell did not use this expression in his dispatch of 14 June 1924 when, as we may imagine, the events were fresh in his mind. He introduced it for the first time in his report ‘The Last Climb of Mallory and Irvine’, published in The Geographical Journal of December 1924. There, as we noted above, he referred to ‘a snow-slope leading up to the last step but one from the base of the final pyramid’; and he was at pains to imply in the footnote that he meant the Second Step. We might nevertheless wonder why, if only for the avoidance of doubt, he did not name the step; the term ‘Second Step’ was certainly part of the 1924 climbers’ vocabulary.
In The Fight For Everest 1924, to which Odell contributed Chapter 6, a further note of hesitancy appeared. Here he wrote of ‘a snow slope leading up to what seemed to me to be the last step but one from the base of the final pyramid’ (this author’s italics). He went on to set the stage for what would become, in Everest legend, the scenario of Mallory’s quixotic march to his doom:
‘I was surprised above all to see them so late as this, namely 12.50, at a point which, if the ‘second rock step,’ they should have reached according to Mallory’s schedule by 8 a.m. at latest, and if the ‘first rock step’ proportionately earlier.’16
Odell here introduced the idea that possibly he had seen Mallory and Irvine, not at the Second Step about which he had been so emphatic in December 1924, but at the First Step. This location also was not calibrated in 1924, but in Spender’s map of 1936, the base of the First Step was placed at 27,950 feet.
Odell could not know at what time Mallory and Irvine had left their Camp VI. Sunrise at Mount Everest on 8 June 1924 was at 4:41 am. by Darjeeling time (and we suppose, although it is nowhere stated, that the expedition members had kept their watches on that time).17 He would be aware that there had been no moon before sunrise; so he might have assumed that the climbers had set off at about 5 am. An earlier time would have made no sense; the climbers would have had to make decisions on which route to adopt, and for that they would have needed light. A later departure would have eroded the margins of safety for a summit attempt: and Odell might wonder whether, in that situation, Mallory would have postponed the attempt until 9 June.
Odell evidently believed that Mallory intended to be at the final pyramid at 8 am.
‘Before … he left Camp VI Mallory had sent a note to Noel at Camp III saying he hoped to reach the foot of the final pyramid (about 28,300 feet odd) by 8 a.m.’
But as we argued in Chapter 9, Mallory’s note had not necessarily referred to the final pyramid; this was an assumption on the part of Odell; and the note had made no reference to any altitude.
Odell was a geologist and we may credit him with a mathematical mind. It may be productive to reconstruct his mental calculations in the aftermath of his sighting:
• He may have known, or had reason to believe, that Mallory’s Camp VI was at 27,300 feet.
• He could reasonably have estimated Mallory’s and Irvine’s start time at 5 am.
• He believed that he had seen the climbers at between 28,200 and 28,400 feet at 12:50 pm.
• Therefore they had apparently climbed 900 to 1,100 vertical feet in seven hours and fifty minutes; an average ascent rate of 115 to 140 feet per hour. Such speeds were well below the slowest achieved on the expedition’s previous climbs (although much faster than the last hour of Norton’s high climb).
In this light, it is logical that Odell should be surprised to see the climbers where he saw them. Yet there is no sign that he was concerned for their safety. Perhaps there was nothing that he could do; he had no means of communication either with the climbers or with Camp IV. Perhaps he assumed that they would turn around at a logical moment.
What is more difficult to understand is why Odell should later introduce the Second Step and the First Step into the narrative. In all the records of the 1924 expedition, there is no discussion about the two Steps. We would surely surmise that there was no serious consideration of climbing them; they were obstacles to be avoided at all costs. Norton said as much:
‘… a feature on the skyline ridge which we called the second step … looked so formidable an obstacle where it crossed the ridge that we had chosen the lower route rather than try and surmount it at its highest point.’18
For Odell to suggest that he had seen Mallory and Irvine at the Second Step was to imply, firstly, that they were taking a route that had no precedent and had not even been contemplated, much less debated, by other climbers; and secondly, that their ascent rate was even slower than if they had reached the base of the final pyramid. Suggesting the First Step would further amplify the mystery.
The narrative of the Steps would inevitably open a debate wherein others would perform similar calculations, and would extrapolate them. Those who favoured a sighting at the Second Step would conclude that Mallory and Irvine had been at about 28,140 feet19; at their average climb rate, they would need six and three quarter hours to reach the summit. That would place them at the top at 7:35 pm. It would be dark; sunset on 8 June 1924 would have been at 6.29 pm20. Those who favoured the First Step would posit a climb from 27,950 feet, requiring eight and a quarter hours, and implying an arrival at the summit at 9:05 pm. In both cases, the return to Camp VI (or to any other camp) would have to be by moonlight. On that day on Mount Everest, the moon would have risen at 9:25 am and would set at 11:47 pm.21
However, three crucial elements of data were missing: the time of Mallory’s and Irvine’s departure from their Camp VI; Odell’s location when he made his sighting; and an unequivocal identification of the rock step which the climbers had surmounted. Absent these data, the debate could only become a contest of preconceived narratives. In that state, it has remained to this day.
The snowfield
Odell’s narratives of June 1924 and December 1924 both left an anomaly unexplained. In both narratives, he spoke of the two tiny figures crossing a snowfield (he used the terms ‘snow crest’ and ‘snow slope’ respectively) before reaching the rock step. They were moving from east to west (from left to right from Odell’s viewpoint, and in the illustration in The Geographical Journal). Therefore, the snowfield should have been to the east of the rock step (on the left in the illustration). But in that illustration, there is no snowfield to the east of the Second Step. There is however a prominent snowfield to the west of, and above, the Second Step, and this is where the designers of the illustration had placed Mallory and Irvine, to Odell’s evident consternation.
Snowfields on Mount Everest are stable; they persist from year to year. John Noel, in 1922, took a telephoto of the North Face from Base Camp. In 1924, he annotated the photograph with his estimate of where Odell had seen Mallory and Irvine. That point looks like the crest of the Second Step, as Odell had said. He published the photograph, with his annotations, in his 1927 book Through Tibet to Everest, on page 285; we reproduce an extract in Figure 10.3. The snowfield from 1922 is above the Second Step and below what we now call the Third Step (a formation which, in 1924, had no name).
If therefore we treat the snowfield as the central element in Odell’s observation, we are compelled to conclude that the rock step that he saw was not the Second Step, but (in modern terminology) the Third Step. His narrative then makes sense: the climbers cross the snowfield below the Third Step, and then they approach the crest of the Third Step.
If we wanted to run with that ball, it would be a new ball game. The Third Step is no obstacle for climbers; it is an easy scramble. No modern climber would doubt that Mallory and Irvine could have surmounted it. But if at the same time we were to insist that they did not climb, or could not have climbed, the Second Step, that we would be compelled into another inference: that they reached the Third Step by another route.
Figure 10.3. Telephoto of the North Face of Mount Everest (probably from 1922), with John Noel’s superimposed graphic of Mallory’s and Irvine’s last known position, on the basis of Odell’s sighting on 8 June 1924. (John Noel: additional graphics by author)
The Third Step: A, B and C
In the context of our consideration of the Third Step, we are indebted to Michael Tracy for a concept that we have seen expressed only on his YouTube channel and nowhere else: the idea that what we call the Third Step is not one step but three.
In Tracy’s video ‘Odell’s view of Mallory & Irvine at 12:50’, the narration includes the following:
‘[18m48s] … the [Third Step] is broken down into three parts, there’s sort of an Alpha, a Bravo and a Charlie.
[22m00s] … and here you can clearly, more clearly see the Alpha, the Bravo and the Charlie. … there’s essentially three little mini steps in here; and he’s [Odell is] just referring to them as ridge rock steps. That means a rock step that’s on the ridge. And there are, …, the Charlie’s kind of small, but Alpha sticks out, Bravo sticks out.’ 22
Below is Tracy’s image of the Third Step formations, taken from approximately due north. The implication of Tracy’s narration are as follows:
• that the last step before the final pyramid is not the whole of the Third Step but part of it, probably ‘Bravo’ since ‘Charlie’ is indistinct;
• and that Odell’s ‘last step but one’ was not the Second Step, but the distinctive ‘Alpha’ section of the Third Step.
Figure 10.4. The Second Step and Third Step, viewed from approximately due north, showing the components of the Third Step formation. (Michael Tracy: graphics and legend by author)
Tracy’s interpretation is consonant with Odell’s reports in the following respects:
• It places Mallory and Irvine on a ‘prominent’ rock step.
• The step may be perceived as ‘the last step but one’ from the final pyramid.
• The step is certainly ‘a very short distance’ from the base of the final pyramid (probably a few tens of yards, depending on one’s view of where the base begins).
This interpretation completely removes the Second Step from the equation, and thereby eschews all debate about whether Mallory and Irvine could have climbed the Second Step.
Where was Odell?
In the Mount Everest Dispatches, as published in July and August 1924, Odell gave no specific location for his own position at the moment of the sighting. From his contemporary reports, we can only infer that it was on or near the North Ridge, between Camp V and Mallory’s Camp VI in terms of altitude, and that, given his ‘circuitous route’ onto the North Face, it might not be on the crest of the North Ridge, but some way to the west (to climber’s right). It was not until six months later, in December 1924, that he gave a clue to the altitude for the sighting:
