[HN Gopher] How Mount Everest killed George Mallory
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How Mount Everest killed George Mallory
Author : nobet
Score : 17 points
Date : 2024-06-07 17:51 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thespectator.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thespectator.com)
| bell-cot wrote:
| > However, Mallory had a fatal flaw, well known to his
| companions. He was one of those people who are both absent-minded
| and clumsy with equipment. [...] above 21,000 feet in the death
| zone of Everest [...] intricacies of using the large, awkward
| oxygen bottles...
|
| One really wonders about the competence of the committee which
| was selecting climbers for the fatal attempt.
| jupp0r wrote:
| Nobody had ever climbed mountains that high. There were no
| truly competent people around at that time, at least not
| competent in high altitude mountaineering.
| ProAm wrote:
| Except the Sherpa's.
| ItCouldBeWorse wrote:
| The day napoleon was defeated, europe was filled with generals
| who knew it better and would have won. We know much more in
| hindsight - and every game is easier with perfect information.
|
| We have send people to space in space-suits, which when under
| pressure would extend there arms and were no longer able to
| fold them back in. We know better now, but back then we didn't
| know. So the art to prepare for such "adventures" is very
| different to what we imagine. No endless information gathering,
| instead you select a person that can improvise on the spot with
| the spotty information you have. You give them tools to
| improvise: Knifes to cut the spacesuit open, duct-tape and
| rubber-tourniquets to keep the helmet pressurized. Not great,
| not terrible. Oh, and in hindsight, do the first spacewalk
| unmanned?
| mjb wrote:
| > One really wonders about the competence of the committee
| which was selecting climbers for the fatal attempt.
|
| That's not really what happened. There wasn't some committee
| deciding that Mallory and Irvine should go up that day - it was
| the result of health, weather, conditions, injuries, and
| politics inside the group. They were months of travel away from
| anything resembling a committee!
| mitchbob wrote:
| https://archive.ph/2024.05.25-133045/https://thespectator.co...
| neonate wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20240524163355/https://thespecta...
| mjb wrote:
| I haven't read this one yet, it's on my list. If you're
| interested in learning a lot more about the background and
| context, I'd recommend:
|
| - "Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of
| Everest" by Wade Davis. I've read a lot of books on this period,
| and this one is the best at providing context to why they were
| there, how Mallory got picked, the team dynamics, and other key
| folks like Norton.
|
| - "Everest - The First Ascent" by Harriet Tuckey. This one is
| very biased, and really about the 1952 expedition, but I like it
| because it really gets into what was different in the 50s vs the
| 20s (especially little things, like keeping healthy and properly
| hydrated, and cultural things like feeling like it's OK and not
| ungentlemanly to practice and train).
|
| There's this idea that the '24 expedition went with the goal of
| getting Mallory up the mountain, but that's not really what
| happened at all. Mallory and Sandy Irvine (a distant relative of
| mine) ended up on their attempt as the result of a lot of game-
| time decisions made by them and the leaders of the expedition.
| The same decisions lead to Edward F. Norton holding the world
| altitude record for 30+ years, despite being far from the best
| mountaineer in the world, or on the expedition.
| cubefox wrote:
| Related, the horror story of climbing the Eigerwand:
|
| https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/J3wemDGtsy5gzD3xa/toni-kurz-...
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