First on Everest: The Life of Howard Somervell

In 1999, my expedition found George Mallory’s body on Mount Everest. The intense public interest in his tragic fate obscured the other actors in that dramatic story.

The pioneers who attempted the first climbs in 1922 and 1924 knew nothing about the mountain other than its height. They had to learn the hard way about the lack of oxygen, the jet-stream winds, the illnesses of altitude, and the vital importance of the Sherpas. They fought cerebral oedema, frostbite, hypothermia and raging t...