Footnotes

'ONE OF THE GREAT DAYS OF DISCOVERY': PHOTOGRAPH OF THE EASTERN OR KANGSHUNG FACE OF EVEREST, SIGNED AND ANNOTATED BY GEORGE MALLORY, who, with his climbing companion, Guy Bullock, was the first westerner to set eyes on the great eastern face and its glacier, viewed from the Tibetan side which had hitherto been off-limit to foreigners. This is, therefore, one of the very earliest photographs of this aspect of Everest in existence.

The Dalai Lama had granted a permit to the British to explore and climb Everest early in 1921, and the first Everest Expedition mounted that year was intended more in the spirit of an exploratory mission than an attempt on the mountain itself. By mid July 1921, Mallory and Bullock had already come to the conclusion that the North Col offered the best route to the top, but no Westerner had as yet seen, let alone surveyed, the eastern face: 'After four days' rest and recuperation, George and Bullock set off with a team of porters to begin their quest for a glacier that would provide an alternative route to the North Col... When they set off on 2 August Everest was hidden by cloud. The next morning dawn broke to reveal the entire eastern cirque of Everest and its great neighbour Makalu rising from the basin of what they now knew to be Kangshung Glacier. George was awestruck. "Even before the first glimmer of dawn, the white mountains were somehow touched to life by a feint blue light – a light that changed, as the day grew, to a rich, yellow on Everest and then a bright grey blue before it blazed all golden when the sun hit it, while Makalu, even more beautiful, gave us the redder shades, the flush of pink and purple shadows." At that moment, George admitted, he was for once "beaten for words". As for Everest's giant east or Kangshung face itself, a vast ice slope pitted with crevasses and threatened by avalanches, it offered no possible route: "Other men, less wise, might attempt this way if they would, but emphatically, it was not for us"' (Peter and Leni Gillman, The Wildest Dream, 2000, p. 188). (This face was not to be climbed until 1983.) Later that month, they spotted the glacier that was to give them access to the North Col and, as Mallory wrote to his wife on 22 August, 'we have found our way to the great mountain' (David Robertson, George Mallory, 1969, p.169).