How Mount Everest was mapped a hundred years ago

On 5 June 1921, on a windswept plain in Tibet, Lt Col Howard-Bury, the leader of the Mount Everest Reconnaissance Expedition, had an unhappy task to perform. Mallory and Bullock would head south to the Rongbuk glacier below the huge north face of Everest, Morshead and his surveyors would map the region east of Everest and Wheeler and Heron would head to the western reaches of Everest. In Mallory’s words, “The highest of the world’s great mountains… has to make but a single gesture of its magnificence to be lord of all, vast in unchallenged and isolated supremacy.” Mallory and Bullock spent the next three weeks trying to find the route to the North Col, up the Rongbuk glacier that Mallory had realised was the key to the upper reaches of Everest. Finally, on 24 September 1921, over four months after the expedition had left Darjeeling, Mallory, Bullock and Wheeler reached the North Col, at a height of 23,031ft, at 11.30am. Further, despite the loss of two experienced climbers, first-timers Mallory and Bullock rose to the occasion, climbing to the North Col with determination and grit, paving the way for all subsequent attempts on Everest.