Mount Everest Horror: The Lost Climbers of the Death Zone
Last year, a group of adventurers with National Geographic were hiking Mount Everest when they saw a human foot sticking out of the ice. Now, it is not rare to see dead bodies on the mountain, there are at least 200 of them scattered around Everest, and many of them act as markers for trails, frozen forever in time where they fell
But this human foot in particular, had been on the mountain for 100 years and solved a century old mystery…
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SOURCES
1996 climb summaries:
https://www.ultimatekilimanjaro.com/1996-everest-disaster-deaths/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12wXs70Y068
Altitude Sickness
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/high-altitude-pulmonary-edema
Francys
https://www.ultimatekilimanjaro.com/sleeping-beauty-of-mount-everest-francys-arsentiev/
https://allthatsinteresting.com/francys-arsentiev
David
https://www.ultimatekilimanjaro.com/david-sharp-of-mount-everest-who-was-he-how-did-he-die/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPsFsJtBjCk
Everest Climbing season
https://www.himalayanglacier.com/best-time-to-climb-mount-everest/
Everest facts:
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/mount-everest/
Expedition Preparation
https://www.expedreview.com/blog/2024/01/how-long-does-it-really-take-to-climb-mount-everest
https://adventureconsultants.com/world-renowned/news-and-media/blog/how-to-train-for-mount-everest
The Fight for Everest (Book):
https://books.google.com/books?id=So_VAAAAMAAJ
Gear/Provisions
https://www.expedreview.com/blog/2024/02/the-complete-mount-everest-equipment-gear-list
https://alpenglowexpeditions.com/blog/food-on-everest-what-to-eat-and-how-it-gets-to-the-mountain
https://www.havenholidaysnepal.com/blogs/foods-on-everest-base-camp-trek-what-s-on-the-menu-
https://alpenglowexpeditions.com/blog/food-on-everest-what-to-eat-and-how-it-gets-to-the-mountain
https://www.climbing.com/travel/how-much-does-it-cost-to-climb-everest-in-2025/
George Mallory:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/everest/lost/mystery/mallory.html
Jon Krakauer:
https://www.outsideonline.com/1915126/everest-year-later-false-summit
Sandy Irvine
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/sandy-irvine-body-found-everest
Sherpas
https://www.sherpaadventuregear.com/blogs/journal/who-are-the-sherpa-people-of-nepal
The Third Pole (Book):
Pictures of Sandy Irvine and George
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/sandy-irvine-body-found-everest
TRANSCRIPT
Last year, a group of adventurers with National Geographic were hiking mount everest when they saw a human foot sticking out of the ice. Now, it is not rare to see dead bodies on the mountain, there are at least 200 of them scattered around everest, and many of them act as markers for trails, frozen forever in time where they fell
But this human foot in particular, had been on the mountain for 100 years and solved a century old mystery…..
Welcome back to heart starts pounding, I’m your host Kaelyn Moore, and today, it feels great to be here inside the rogue detecting society headquarters, and not out on a mountain, Because today, we are talking about the bodies that are still stuck out there on mount everest. Who they belong to, and the mystery that was solved when that 100 year old foot was found.
Just a reminder, if you like true crime cases that read like gothic horror, mysteries that will keep you up all night, and…. Let me see here….. Reading about tragedy that happens on a totally optional hiking expedition, well then welcome, you’re in the right place because you’re just like me. Wherever you are, make sure you follow along, leave a comment, subscribe, all that good stuff.
Typically I like to shout out listeners here but today I want to ask a question. Would you guys hike Mount everest? Or if you have, please let me know, after reading so much about this I must hear from someone in this community about their experience.
I, personally, would never hike mount everest. I even get anxiety when I look at photos of the mountain. But I am deeply curious about the types of people that choose to make this hike, and so, today, in our episode, I also want to explore some of the motivations behind why these people do this extremely dangerous and optional feat that many of us find so unappealing. Let’s get into it.
Mount everest, located on the china-nepal border nestled in the Himalayas, is the tallest mountain in the world above sea level, coming in at 29,000 feet or 8,800 meters, right around cruising altitude for a plane.
Climbing mount everest, and I cannot stress this enough is an incredibly expensive endeavor. We’re talking about 50,000 dollars minimum if you want to get to the top. And a lot of people spend far more than that.
Among some of the most expensive things you’; need are at least three thousand dollars’ worth of oxygen, a three thousand dollar roundtrip plane ticket to Kathmandu, Nepal, and a thirty thousand dollar permit and guide package.
And that’s the cheap option. There are some very wealthy people that will pay Western guides a million dollars or more to make sure they have every amenity on the mountain. I mean, I found one company called Furtenbach expeditions that has a package at 200,000 euro that gets you up and down the mountain in just three weeks, includes a private luxury tent, VIP travel accommodations, and they’’ll even make you a personal documentary of the climb.
https://www.furtenbachadventures.com/en/everest-expedition/
And that’s the reality of this mountain. While there are people who make it their life’s mission to summit everest, they save up for years and years to be able to afford the chance, a recent criticism of the mountain is that it’s become another extreme adventure for the uber rich, honestly like the Titan submersible. Where some people feel like they can just pay whatever to get them to the top.
But what a lot of those people find out is being rich is not going to make you physically fit enough to survive once you're there. And that’s where accidents happen
And as you get into the death zone, prepare to see a lot of bodies. The first one being Hannelore Schmatz.
For years starting in 1979, as hikers passed 27,200 feet 8,300 meters going up the southern route of the mountain, the route 98% of hikers choose, a woman could be seen frozen and sitting in place. She was leaning against her backpack with her eyes open, her hair gently swaying in the wind.
This is Hannelore Schmatz, and according to many hikers, she looked like she could have just stood up and walked the few hundred feet back to the safety of her camp. But she died in a very preventable accident, and her body sat on the mountain, frozen and alone, for years.
Hannelore was a 39 year old German Mountaineer who wanted to become the fourth woman to ever summit Mount Everest.
By October 2nd, 1979, she had made it through the arduous climb towards the summit. 2-3 weeks acclimating to the altitude at a base camp around 17,000 feet, where her body started getting used to the lack of oxygen. There she would have checked her equipment, undergone medical evaluations to make sure she was physically fit, she may have even gotten a blessing from a monk.
Then, she would have made the arduous 3-4 day hike to camp 4, at 26,000 feet, where she would start her final push to the top the morning of October 2nd. The previous day, her husband, Gerhard Schmatz became the oldest man to summit the mountain at 50 years old, and Hannelore initially didn’t know if she was going to try for the top, but after watching her husband do it, she decided to go for it.
with hershe had an american climber named Ray Genet (sz-uhnay), and two Sherpa Guides named Sungdare and Ang Jangbu (ahng Jahngboo). Her husband was not going to be joining her, so she radioed him down at camp to say she’d see him when she made it back . But his voice sounded concerned. The weather is turning, maybe you should wait, he said.
But Hannelore was in what’s known as the Death Zone, the area of Everest above 26,000 feet. When you’re there, you are quite literally dying. The air doesn’t have enough oxygen to replenish your blood, so you need to rely on tanks of oxygen to supply you. Even then, you have about 20 hours in the zone before you’re dead. “Waiting” does not exist in the death zone, you either push to the summit, or you turn back.
Hannelore felt like this was her only chance.
So she decided she was going to press on.
By 1:30pm, she made it to the peak and officially became the fourth woman to ever make the journey up, an incredible feat, don’t get me wrong. But there’s one thing that every seasoned climber knows about Everest, something every sherpa will warn you about. You HAVE to start coming down from the peak at 2pm. No questions asked. The sun starts setting fast and you don’t want to be stranded up there in the cold. It’s already -30 degrees F during the day, and it gets worse at night. The descent down is also harder than climbing up, and after you’ve been starved of oxygen for a few hours, you don’t want to have to navigate rough terrain in the dark. Also, you’re not going to be rescued up there in the dark. No one is going to kill themselves trying to save you.
The point being, Hannalore had to essentially turn right around and head back down the mountain, she didn’t have time to rest. And as they started heading down the group got more and more tired, and the oxygen levels in their tank were dropping fast.
Once Hannelore and Ray got to about 28,000 feet, they decided to stop. Night was quickly approaching and they figured they’d sleep and continue in the morning. But their Sherpa guides begged them to keep going. No one survives a night in the death zone, especially without shelter, they said.
But ray and Hannelore chose to stay, even when one of the Sherpa guides turned and kept going to basecamp. Sungdare, the other sherpa, decided to risk his life and stay with them.
The next morning, Ray was dead. The cold had killed him, and Hannalore was barely hanging on. So Sungdare grabbed her and started helping her down the mountain, but they only made it about 100 meters before she fell. They were only a few hundred away from the safety of camp 4, if she could just get up, they’d make it. But it was too late. Hannalore looked at Sungdare and whispered “water”. Those were her last words.
Sungdare was able to make it back to basecamp, but because he had been exposed to such devastatingly cold temperatures for so long while trying to help Hannalore and Ray, he lost most of his fingers and toes to frostbite.
The bodies of Hannahlore and Ray remained on the mountain for years after their death. Ray was eventually covered by snowfall, but Hannah sat against her backpack near basecamp 4 for years, eyes open and glaring at the hikers who would pass, unable to help her.
In 1984, two Nepalese hikers in their 30s died while trying to recover her body. They wanted to bring her home to her husband, and lost their lives while doing so. And this is a huge reason why bodies on the mountain dont get recovered. Sometimes it’s just not safe. Another reason is that it is very expensive. It costs a LOT to get up the mountain, and if someone’s family can’t afford the tens of thousands of dollars it takes to safely send a recovery crew up to get a body, they’ll just stay there forever.
Eventually, the wind blew her from her position down the east face of the mountain where she still is today.
The higher you climb into the death zone, the more bodies you’re going to see. At first the bright patches in the snow along the path might look like garbage. But as you get closer, those patches take shape. They’re bodies, lying on their sides and half-obscured by snowdrift. Some of them are wrapped in yellow climbing rope like technicolor mummies.
Some are only partly visible, but others are just like how Hannahlore was, completely visible and in perfect condition. They look like they just laid down to take a nap. And that brings us to the next body I want to talk about in the Death Zone.
it’s a woman, dressed in purple insulating gear, and lying in perfect repose with her hands clasped on her chest. You can see her exposed face, which is icy white but serene. Today, the Sherpas call her Sleeping Beauty
Her name is Francys Arsentiev and she was an accountant from Colorado who became a climbing enthusiast after meeting her husband, world-renowned Russian climber Sergei Arsentiev. Sergei was known as the “Snow Leopard,” in Russia. He and Francys climbed many mountains together and even named one after themselves after they were the first to make it to the top.
Francys was the first American woman to summit several different mountains without oxygen. That was her and Sergei’s thing - they liked to challenge themselves as much as possible, relying on their bodies alone with no special equipment. Eventually, they set their sights on Everest.
Now, Some people have climbed the mountain without oxygen. I know we’ve talked about how deadly the Death Zone is without oxygen but it has been done. Some Sherpas can do it because they’re in better shape and more used to the altitude.
But to do it requires months of preparation. Fitness regimens including long sessions of uphill cardio with increasingly large loads on your back and strength training focusing on your legs and core. It essentially means becoming an olympic athlete. And even still, you are at least 5x more likely to die on the mountain if you try to do it without supplemental oxygen
Which is why, even with training, few Everest guides recommend climbing without oxygen. In fact, Francys had an 11 year old son from a previous relationship who was very concerned about her decision. This is a prime example of the psychology of many Everest climbers I’ve read about - to them, climbing the mountain is a calling, not just a hobby. It transcends their own safety, and also transcends their families.
In May of 1998, Francys and Sergei began their attempt. And it was immediately off to a bad start….
The couple spent far too much time at camp 4, the final camp before the summit near where Hannahlore died. They were burning a lot of calories and risking altitude sickness. They made two unsuccessful summit attempts, turning back after equipment issues. Finally, they made it to the top, and Francys became the first American woman to summit the mountain without Oxygen. She had achieved her lifelong goal.
But because they had so little oxygen in their system, they were moving VERY slowly and they didn’t start their descent until 4pm, way too late in the day. The sun was setting and it was getting dark FAST.
Once it was dark, they became separated. Sergei did ultimately make it down to camp 4 where he was devastated to learn that Francys hadn’t made it yet. She was somewhere up higher in the death zone, but he didn’t have the strength at that point to go back and help her.
By the next morning, a different group of climbers found Francys on the trail. She was convulsing. Her skin was frozen to where it looked porcelain white. They did their best to bring her further down the mountain, but had to give up as their own oxygen was low and they didn’t want to die trying to save her.
As the climbers descended, they encountered Sergei going back up after Francys holding a tank of oxygen.
The next morning, climbers from that same group came across Francys again. Somehow, she was still alive. And, in an eerie twist, she was repeating the phrases “Don’t leave me,” “How could you do this to me?,” and “I’m an American.” She passed away shortly after
They found Sergei’s axe next to her, but no sign of Sergei, maybe he left her to save himself.
Francys was unclipped from the climbing rope and moved off to the side, left in a peaceful pose. She stayed there for 10 years before being moved, and was a classic fixture, becoming known by her nickname.
Sergei was found in a crevasse the following year. In an attempt to save his wife’s life, he had somehow fallen to his death.
It’s tragic, but probably the most tragic thing I’ve seen on this is a quote from Francys’s young son, who was left without a mother after this climb. He later said “"I don't know why she decided she had to do it without oxygen, but I think she felt like she needed to prove something”. What that was, we may never know, i dont even think he knows. But it’s the thing that I’ve been trying to decode while reading about these stories..
As we continue our cold and horrible trek to the top of everest continues, soon, another body comes into view. This one is at 27,720 feet and it’s quite small. It’s a woman who doesn’t look like she could have weighed more than 100 pounds. Her death seems extra tragic when you see that base camp 4 is still in sight.
The body is also right next to the trail. If she could have made it just a little farther, she might have survived. But as we know, a thousand feet on Everest might as well be a hundred thousand. And unfortunately, this woman was also caught in what would become the deadliest season on Everest up to that point.
In 1996, 47-year-old Yasuko Namba aimed to become the second-ever Japanese woman and the oldest woman ever to summit Everest. She had that same drive that those other women had. But she had chosen to attempt the summit at the same time as four other groups
First was Adventure Consultants, led by a man named Rob Hall. Rob was a New Zealander, and He had climbed Everest 5 times, more than any other non-Sherpa. His tours were expensive but he was honestly the best guide you could have. He was Yasuko’s guide. Jon Krakauer, the author who would write the most famous account of this trip, Into The Void, was also in this group.
The Second group had a totally different vibe; they were Mountain Madness, led by this guy Scott Fischer. Scott has been described as the classic cocky American guide who basically only toured wealthy elites on the mountain. He had bragged to his clients “We’ve got the big E figured out, we’ve got it totally wired. These days, I’m telling you, we’ve built a yellow brick road to the summit.” In other words, he was starting to forget that no matter how well you map out the climb, Everest is still one of the most dangerous places in the world.
There were also two other, smaller tour groups from India and Taiwan summiting at this time.
As always, once you got to Camp 4 at 26,000 feet, you were in the Death Zone and in the most danger. You needed to summit quickly, within 20 hours, and then get back down.
But things were made even more complicated during the 1996 season when a storm began brewing in the Himalayas. Forecasters predicted that the storm would reach Everest and make it unclimbable for weeks - we’re talking Hurricane-force winds, and temperatures that can instantly freeze your eyeballs and blind you, or freeze your lungs when you try to breathe in.
By May 9th, 1996, the four groups had made it to Base Camp 4. They started their trek to the summit at 11pm, so as to get ahead of the storm. Temperatures were sub zero. Visibility was low and everyone was making a mad dash to the top.
And then, at 27,600 feet, the worst happened - a traffic jam. There were over 30 people lined up, waiting to climb the summit. Even worse, there had been a communication error between the Sherpas, Scott Fischer, and Rob Hall, and there were no ropes pre-installed to help the clients along the path. So much for that Yellow Brick Road, Scott.
But Scott had promised his clients he could take them easily to the top, and He already looked foolish now that they’d made it so close and would have to turn around because of his communication error. He’d look even worse if the nine people paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars had wasted their money.
They decided to wait a few hours, into the early morning hours of May 10, for the ropes to be installed. And once they were, the groups continued on.
Later that day, Yasuko and her expedition finally made it to the top…. At 2:30pm. She achieved her goal of becoming the second Japanese woman and the oldest woman to ever summit Everest up to that point, but she had to turn around and book it back
Scott Fischer and the last of his expedition didn’t even get up to the top until 3:45pm, as the sun was setting. Everyone in his group was excited to have made it all the way up….until they noticed that Scott looked really bad. He was nauseous and dizzy, barely staying up on his feet. The overconfident American expedition leader had really bad altitude sickness.
And even worse, the storm was still raging towards them. clouds soon filled the sky and snow flurries began tumbling down. The climbers, and the guides who led them there had allowed the storm to catch up with them.
By 4pm, just 15 minutes after Scott and his team summited, the storm hit, dropping the temperature to 40 degrees below zero and destroying visibility. Wind whipped around everyone at extreme speeds and the windchill made it feel like one hundred below. Breathing without oxygen or taking off any protective covering was now immediately deadly.
Scott Fischer’s condition was also deteriorating. Sherpas tried to help him down the mountain, but he could barely move, barely hold onto the ropes. Finally he told them to leave him and save themselves.
It was now on Rob Hall, the Sherpas, and a few other expedition company members to get clients from both expeditions down safely.
Yasuko struggled to see the rope lines ahead of her. She had no idea where she was, completely stuck in a white void, and soon, out of oxygen in her tank. She had no choice but to try and breathe the freezing air around her.
And when you do that, you begin to rapidly freeze as well. Her blood vessels constricted, desperate to get more oxygen. capillaries in her lungs and brain began to burst, filling her lungs and her cranium with blood.
Eventually She collapsed, the terrible winds whipping over her. But what’s horrible about being on the mountain freezing to death, is you’re conscious for a while and you slowly feel your body shut down.
Incredibly, she was still alive when the weather briefly cleared the next day, May 11th. Some of her team members came back up to find her and the other missing climbers. It was horrific - they literally had to crack a layer of ice off of her face to see if she was still alive. They found that she was breathing and had a pulse. It might have been better if she was already dead.
Because tragically, there was nothing they could do for her. There were other people to save, and she was already past the point of any realistic rescue.
Everyone was hurting on some level, either from frostbite or altitude sickness. Every trip back up put them at greater risk. They had to leave her and keep moving. Rob Hall and other expedition members kept going back and forth up the mountain until they’d saved everyone they could. Eventually, Rob’s body was pushed to its limit. He sat down, his breathing slowed, and soon…he passed away.
In the end, the May 1996 climbing season proved to be the deadliest in Everest history up to that point. 8 people from the combined expeditions died. Several others lost limbs to the frostbite.
Jon Krakauer was on the climb as a reporter for Outside magazine, and in his article and subsequent book he blasted the guides for their risky decision making. He highlighted for the general public how Everest had become a decadent endeavour for the rich, one which cost several their lives.
Yasuko’s husband eventually funded the expedition that brought her body down the mountain, but today, hikers that take the same route still see bodies all along the path, close enough to touch.
Which brings me to our next stop, just a few hundred feet up from where Yasuko sat for so long. A cave where two men sit side by side for all of eternity.
At this point, we’re now at 27,890 feet, just over 1,000 feet from the summit of Mount Everest.
A small, dark cave appears off to the right of the path, providing a nice overlook. The sherpas know this as Green Boots Cave.
There’s not one, but two bodies in the small cave. One is hunched over with its face obscured. The corpse has on a pair of bright, green hiking boots, hence the name of the cave.
Though no positive ID has ever been made, it’s believed that Green Boots was an Indian man named Tsewang Paljor. He loved to climb, and even became a member of the Indo-Tibetan border police so that he could work in the mountains. He, along with two of his fellow border policemen, died in the 1996 storm. There is some debate if the body is his or one of his friends.
Next to him is an even stranger body - it’s a man sitting with his knees pushed up to his chin. He looks lonely as he stares off at a vista he can no longer comprehend.
This is David Sharp, a man who tried to climb Everest without an oxygen tank, alone. His case is one of the more extreme instances of adventurism we’re going to cover today
David came from seemingly humble surroundings and felt the call of adventure. He was an engineer from England
He’d had a successful climbing career up to that point, climbing some of the world’s tallest mountains without oxygen. But Everest called to him.
David actually first tried to climb Everest with a guide in 2003, but he lost two toes to frostbite a mere 650 feet from the top.
He tried again in 2004, also with a guide, and supposedly clashed with the guide over not using oxygen. They didn’t make it to the top, and David was fed up.
This directly led to his May 2006 climb where he decided he was going to go alone. He booked through a company called Asian Trekking, which is run by Sherpas and would give a permit to basically anyone willing to pay. As a result, they were responsible for a majority of the climbers that needed to be rescued on the mountain.
But they gave David what he wanted - he only had to pay $6K as opposed to the $30K charged by other companies. And with that, he started his ascent. No oxygen, no sherpa to tell him to turn around, He didn’t even take a radio in case anything happened. To some it even comes across like he wanted to commit suicide. But from what we know he just wanted to prove he could do the climb all on his own.
But No one would ever report seeing David at the summit, it seems like he didn’t make it, and instead climbed inside the Green Boots cave for shelter the night of May 14th, the coldest night of the season.
Dozens of climbers found him there shivering, suffering from hypothermia and altitude sickness. Sitting next to the already dead body of green boots himself. He was muttering, “My name is David Sharp. I’m with Asian Trekking, and I just want to sleep.”
Some people criticized the other climbers when they learned how many had passed him without helping. But that’s the reality of the Death Zone. You cannot risk stopping to help others or you risk running out of oxygen and dying yourself, or not making it to the top. And how can you blame someone for not wanting to die for a man that didn’t take any safety precautions while climbing.
Asian Trekking also doesn’t necessarily have a responsibility to everyone who wants to test themselves against the mountain. They’re not babysitters- what people do once they have their permit is on them. David’s arrogance in climbing alone, without oxygen meant he gave up the right to expect anyone to save him.
For this last body, I want to tell you about the foot that was recovered last year.
When it was found, it was still wrapped in a shoe and sock that both look pretty old. The sock even has a name stitched into it: A.C. IRVINE.
Before there were a bunch of privileged elites climbing the mountain,there were simple adventurers just trying to see if it could be done. The first people to make it to the top and come back down alive were New Zealander Edmund Hillary, who is one of the most famous mountaineers of all time, and a Nepalese/Indian climbing enthusiast and Sherpa named Tenzing Norgay in 1953, who is also incredibly famous
But some of the first people to try to summit the mountain actually disappeared while doing so. They were a pair of Englishmen named George Leigh Mallory and one Andrew Comyn “Sandy” Irvine in 1924.
George Leigh Mallory was an English teacher, WW1 veteran, and adventurer. A real Indiana Jones type. He joined expeditions to Everest in 1921 and 1922, both of which ended in failure and the deaths of multiple Sherpas. He wasn’t very excited to go on the final expedition in 1924 but didn’t want to miss out on making it to the summit. He left behind a wife and three kids who he had barely seen in ten years of marriage. But before he left, he told his wife that he was bringing a photo of her with him, and if he made it to the top, he’d leave it there. And with that, he took off. He was 38 at the time.
He was joined by 22-year-old Sandy Irvine, among others. Sandy was an engineering student who had devised more efficient oxygen bottles and masks that could theoretically help the expedition reach the summit this time. Otherwise, they only had leather boots and cotton and wool jackets. They would have been incredibly cold throughout their journey.
There were 12 English explorers in total and dozens of Sherpas on this expedition.
They reached base camp in April, and had until June to make it to the top before the weather got bad, because there is a really small window of time each year where the weather wont automatically kill you.
By June 8th, 1924, 26,000 feet, around 8,000 meters or the area we’ve been calling the Death zone.
A storm was approaching the mountain, and the group wanted to descend to a lower camp, but George and Sandy decided to make a run for the top using Sandy’s new oxygen bottles. That was the last time they were ever seen alive, and it would actually be decades before either of their bodies were found.
In 1933, a new British expedition found an axe belonging to Sandy in the Death Zone. Though it was still far from the peak. Later that same year, a Chinese expedition found Sandy’s oxygen bottle.
George’s body was finally discovered in 1999–more than 70 years later– by an expedition that was specifically looking for it. He was found face down with his arms spread out, and you could still read his name on the back of his shirt.
And the saddest part was He had a rope tied around his waist - it seems he and Sandy were trying to get back down and were tethered together. Something must have happened - a storm or avalanche - that sent them falling and ultimately separated them. It looked like the rope squeezed the life out of him.
Sandy's foot wouldn’t be found for another 25 years in 2024
But we have to wonder - did they make it to the summit before they died? From the way that George was found, it seemed like they died on their way down, not on their way up. If they were coming down from the peak, then that would have made them the first two people to reach the top of Everest, 29 years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay..
Well, the team that found George’s body searched it, looking for the missing key, the photo of his wife. And they found that he did NOT have a picture of her on him when he died.
Is it possible that the photo of her is still up at the peak of mount everest frozen in ice, there forever. Thought I’m sure if we were able to ask his wife, who was left to raise their children alone after George’s disappearance, and who never knew what happened to her husband, she’d probably say it wasn’t worth it…..
So what do you guys think? What is it about Everest that calls to people? I’m genuinely curious what you think, and you can leave me a comment wherever you listen. Is it blind confidence? Is it hubris? Do some people just not care what happens to them?
If you want to join me over on footnotes on patreon, I’m going to discuss with producer matt a few more bodies that didn’t make it into the episode. That’s available to the high council tier so please join me over there.
And then next week we’re going to switch it up. I want to talk to you about cults. Specifically, about some real people who had very scary real run ins with cults. And the cult expert herself, Amanda Montell, author of CULTISH is going to join me for that.
Until then, stay warm, you guys. OOOoooOOOOoooO