George Mallory Biography

Also known as: George Herbert Leigh-Mallory

An expert mountaineer, George Mallory led three British expeditions to Mount Everest in the 1920s. On the third, in 1924, Mallory and climbing partner Andrew Irvine made an attempt at the summit but disappeared in heavy weather, never to return. It seemed certain they had perished on the mountain, but whether they reached the summit before they died was unknown. (Sir Edmund Hillary became the first man to officially reach the summit in 1953.) For decades, Mallory remained a famous and dramatic missing person. Then in 1999, an expedition found Mallory’s frozen body 27,000 feet up Everest’s north face. The body was remarkably well preserved, but offered no evidence that Mallory had made it to the summit before his death.