Two Dots on the Ridge: The Last Hours of Mallory and Irvine

2026-09-03 · Vanished Without a Trace · 8 min read

On the morning of 8 June 1924, Noel Odell was climbing alone up the north side of Mount Everest at around 26,000 feet, without oxygen, in support of the two men somewhere above him. The mountain was wrapped in cloud. At ten minutes to one the cloud tore open.

That night he wrote in his diary that he had seen M and I on the ridge, nearing the base of the final pyramid. In the fuller account he gave later, he described a tiny black dot moving on a snow crest beneath a rock step, and a second dot moving up to join it. The mist closed again within a few minutes. Nobody has ever seen George Mallory or Andrew Comyn Irvine alive since.

Reader comments (0)