Science secures Hillary's triumph

Reuters

Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Everest on May 29, 1953.

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Scientists have established with near certainty that Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first to reach the peak of Mt Everest after a study revealed that British adventurers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine probably did not make it in 1924.

Mallory and Irvine disappeared near the summit with Mallory's body found in 1999.

It has long been speculated that the two had reached the summit, but a study in weather, published by the Royal Geographical Society, has put paid to the idea.

The study says an extreme plunge in barometric pressure, a blinding blizzard and sudden oxygen deprivation killed Mallory and Irvine on the way up.

Atmospheric physicist Kent Moore of the University of Toronto, surgery chief John Semple of Women's College Hospital and Indian researcher Dev Raj Sikka studied long-overlooked meteorological records and other accounts of the weather on the day the British mountaineers vanished, according to the news agency. 

Moore says in the study that until now the "issue of the weather has never really been addressed."

The team analysed 1924 meteorological data from the Himalayas held at the Royal Geographical Society archives in London, and determined that Mallory and Irvine may have been subjected to a sudden drop in barometric pressure of as much as 18 millibars.

"Mount Everest is so high that there is barely enough oxygen near its summit to sustain life, and a drop of pressure of four millibars at the summit is sufficient to drive individuals into a hypoxic state," Semple said.

Given the "cumulative effects of hypoxia, fatigue and extreme cold, Mallory and Irvine would have been at the limit of their endurance as they moved along the Northeast Ridge of Everest", according to the researchers.

The deadly 1996 "Into Thin Air" storm which killed eight, including New Zealander Rob Hall, had occurred after a pressure drop of eight millibars.

Hillary and Norgay reached the summit on May 29, 1953.

Hillary was always relaxed over the prospect Mallory and Irvine may have beaten them to the top, noting that getting down was a vital part of mountaineering.

Hillary's first words to lifelong friend George Lowe on returning from Everest's summit were: "Well, George, we knocked the bastard off."

- © Fairfax NZ News