[Gutenberg 39421] • Mount Everest, the Reconnaissance, 1921

In 1921, the British Reconnaissance Expedition, led by Colonel Charles Howard-Bury, ascended the northern and eastern slopes of Mount Everest, the world's "third pole." Spearheading the fateful adventure was George Mallory, the famous mountaineer whose body was discovered on Everest in 1999. Their mission: to discover if an ascent to the peak were possible from Tibet, the Western world's only access at the time. This is the chronicle of the obstacles they surmounted, as well as early mountaineering techniques that paved the way for the 1922 expedition.