Because It's There

When George Mallory and Andrew 'Sandy' Irvine disappeared high upon Mount Everest on June 8, 1924 so began one of the greatest mysteries in all of mountaineering? Did they reach the summit of the world's highest peak first? They were last seen on the final ridge to the summit 'going strong for the top'. What happened to them. George Mallory was discovered in 1999 by an international team of climbers and filmmakers, answering some questions but giving rise to so many more. 

My guest today is Adrian Ballinger. 
Part I of my conversation with Adrian on Mount Everest is here:
https://youtu.be/l9MwNvLnWrw

In 2019, I was with a National Geographic crew that went to look for the body of Sandy Irvine on tips that we had received from historian Tom Holzel. There was also a team there from Discovery Channel, one of my friends Jake Norton was there. And the expedition was led by none other than Adrian Ballinger, who has summited Everest eight times one of those times without the use of bottled oxygen. If anybody can attest to the difficulty of climbing the Second Step it would be Adrian, a photograph included in the video depicts him at the Second Step on a ladder and trying to surmount the obstacles of getting to the summit of Mount Everest. 

So if anybody knows about how hard it would be for Mallory and Irvine to have made it over the Second Step, it's Adrian. So when this very short conversation I asked Adrian how the expedition managed in 2019 to look for the body where they spent many days above 8000 meters looking for clues. Coincidentally, Adrian and I spoke on the 99th anniversary of the disappearance of Mallory and Irvine. 

For more on the Mystery of Mallory and Irvine, here is a fantastic interview with climber and historian Jake Norton: 
https://youtu.be/5ZRacaWu8U4

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Everest Mystery

The age of commercial mountaineering  is upon us, and while the results are impressive with a a staggering number of successful ascents on Mount Everest in Nepal and K2 in Pakistan, the downside is an unacceptable loss of life….with no end in sight. Nepal in 2023 issued a record number of climbing permits and all one needs to get that permit is the $11,000 fee…doesn’t even matter if you have a pacemaker and have never climbed a mountain, 

In the first of several segments I speak with esteemed  mountaineer and guide Adrian Ballinger of Alpenglow Expeditions. We discuss in this segment just how preventable most of the 17 deaths on Everest in 2023 were.

We also discuss Arian Ballinger's unparalleled plan for success on Mount Everest and the 8000 meter peaks of the world . 

Indian climber Anurag Maloo was miraculously found alive last week after spending three days inside a crevasse on Annapurna. The remarkable rescue required a team to brave one of the most dangerous spots on the mountain amidst bad weather to airlift him out. 

What began as a body retrieval effort on Annapurna last week turned into a miraculous rescue, when Polish climber Adam Bielecki rappelled 60 meters into a crevasse where Indian climber Anurag Maloo had fallen three days earlier. Imagine Bielecki’s surprise, when expecting to find a lifeless body, to learn that Maloo was alive. 

In this episode taken from Everest Mystery I’m going to share more of the dramatic footage from that remarkable rescue on Annapurna last week. This story has captivated the mountaineering world, for me personally it has touched a deep nerve….I’m so grateful to learn of a story in the mountaineering world that is filled with hope, love, determination, courage and survival….with a good ending.

Here is the link to this episode on YouTube, our Everest Mystery channel:
https://youtu.be/dWiqw-T2cE8

And more from the Nepal Himalaya, Everest updates and news you need to know.

Peace and Blessings,
Thom

When George Mallory and Sandy Irvine disappeared on Mount Everest on June 8, 1924, the commercialization of the mountain was already under way. In the nearly 100 years, Everest has become an industry. With dozens of deaths on the mountain in the last five years, many feel that the mountain deserves a break. However, no matter how many die there, the dreamers will keep coming. In this captivating episode, Thom Pollard - with four expeditions over the course of 20 years under his belt, and a summit in 2016 - shares his insights about the good, the bad and the ugly of Everest. As a professional filmmaker and cameraman, he has seen Everest from all angles, including the discovery of George Mallory, 75 years after his disappearance, at 27,000 feet on the north side of Everest in 1999. 

Thom uses excerpts from Tales From the Top, a recruitment event for the Boston Museum of Science, in February of 2018. The panel discussion was led by Professor Peter Hansen, Professor of History and Director of International and Global Studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. His book, The Summits of Modern Man, Mountaineering After the Enlightenment, can be found at Harvard University Press at this linkn: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674047990

For more information or to hire Thom for an Everest presentation, find him at www.eyesopenproductions.com   Click on Contact and send a brief email to be added to the mailing list. 

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The question I’m asked most about the discovery of George Mallory is WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO LOOK INTO HIS FACE? DID YOU TAKE A PHOTO? Amazing right, can you imagine that I’m the only living person to have looked into the face of British mountaineering icon George Mallory? It’s a responsibility I don’t take lightly…..

BUT FIRST…if you want the inside scoop on all things about the Mystery of Mallory and Irvine and Mount Everest, be sure to SUBSCRIBE, CLICK LIKE AND COMMENT.

And, for my members…at .99 per month….I upload photos and information and engage in conversations only for them, members only kind of stuff.

After the discovery of George Leigh Mallory at nearly 27,000 feet or 8,200 meters on the north face of Mount Everest on May 1, 1999, the five searchers who reached the body that day covered him up as best as they could. (I was the sixth searcher, but turned back because of faulty 02 apparatus.) 

Our climbing team descended back down to base camp for an extended rest…and, a HUGE Base Camp party….. During that time the discovery has gone out to the world. Mountainzone released a photo taken by Dave Hahn of Mallory’s exposed back and tattered clothes….the story is on the cover of The New York Times within a week, Conrad Anker’s picture is right next to George Mallory's photograph, with the map on Everest in a spread in the New York Times.

Six of us went back up to Camp 5 on May 12th to be in position for a search and summit bid, with the idea that TWO OF US would launch a search for Sandy Irvine while four would go tackle the Second Step and the summit.  However, because of snow cover from the weather, the call was made that instead of a search for Andrew Irvine  there would be a return to the site of George Mallory - with a metal detector. 

At Camp 5, at about 26,000 feet, or 7,925 meters, we were slammed by a terrific three day long Himalayam storm…it was impossible to even stand up outside of the tents.

May 16th dawned blue and calm….and so up we went….

In this segment I ask Andy Politz about his experience on 16 May 1999, where we went together to the site of George Mallory. 

Andy Politz discusses his experience of the discovery of Everest icon George Mallory on May 1, 1999. This momentous discovery forever changed the discussion about the history of Mount Everest. Andy was there.

James Stead is not a normal individual. Well, maybe  if you’re the kind of person who enjoys six hour swims in the ocean in temperatures below 60 Fahrenheit or 15 degrees Celcius. James is training to swim the notorious English Channel....

Something that less than 1900 people have done solo, not in a relay…. 8,200 people have taken part in channel crossings….

It’s a distance of about 21 miles, with a current pushing the swimmer sideways...there are jellyfish, ships, whales….

I think of it as  the mount Everest of swimming, and for those who have done it successfully, they are in an elite group, indeed.

63.0% of swimmers have been male.

37.0% of swimmers have been female.

Doing some research for this episode with James I discovered that the legendary Swimming Hall of Fame coach Doc Counsilman of Indiana University, mark Spitz’ coach…..a man who endeavored to recruit me to swim under his leadership at Inidaina when I was a high school senior, had in that year himself completed the english channel in 13 hours and 7 minutes, ata the time he was the oldest to cross successfully….had he told me that in one of the many phone calls I received from him, who knows, maybe I would’ve gone to Indiana University….ahhh such is fate on which path to take when we approach forks in the road….

Back to James, he’s been training like a man possessed, and his English Channel crossing is scheduled within a week’s time….

James is the husband of my the Happiness Quotient guest Elisabeth Sharp McKetta, episode #78, Elisabeth is the brilliant author and creative writing teacher at Harvard and Oxford. Here is that episode:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/268133/8451398

I spoke with James on May 18, 2021….where he was training on a Lake in the Lake District, not too far from where he and his wife and children are living now in Cornwall England….

I’ve trained hard in my life on many occasions….for mountains, swimming events, trail racing, and for life in general. The commitment and mindset to train for the English Channel is honestly something I wonder if I’d have the right stuff for….well, I don’t like swimming in any water deep enough  where I can’t see the bottom...there might be a snapping turtle or worse, right?

See, I told you James wasn’t normal, right? 

That’s my kind of person…..

Here’s my conversation with James Stead about his decision to swim the E C and the incredible physical and mental rigors of training for his swim, which is coming within hours of this episode going live.

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The true definition of 'adventure' is an endeavor you embark upon when you don't know the outcome. In the spirit of long lost Everest pioneer George Mallory, who was told that no human being could ever climb Mount Everest, we tip our caps here to the people who dare go where few others dare. 

Mallory was once asked "Why climb Everest?". He is famously credited to have answered "Because it's there." We all have an Everest: whether on land, sea, air, space or, quite simply, the mind, in this podcast we say 'go find it'.

In BECAUSE IT’S THERE we’ll be meeting with some of the world’s most intrepid explorers, and adventurers, scientists, biologists, oceanographers, like Don Walsh, who in 1960 co-piloted the bathyscaphe Trieste to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, -35,994 feet below the sea. We’ll share a rare interview with Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to ever set foot upon the summit of Everest. We’ll also meet modern day explorers, like climber/filmmaker/social media influencer Renan Ozturk, Lhakpa Sherpa, the most successful female Everest climber of all time, who has climbed Mount Everest nine times, the most of any woman in the world. We’ll investigate mysteries, such as the disappearance of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine, who, in 1924 disappeared high upon the slopes of Mount Everest, last seen at over 28,000’, going for the top. Their disappearance continues to captivate armchair mountaineers and would-be sleuths almost 100 years later.

What these men and women all share is a belief in oneself, the refusal to accept the common idea that something is impossible. Because it’s there will amaze, educate, entertain and inspire listeners to stretch the limits of imagination and begin to see what’s possible…

If you ever thought about what it would be like to sail around the world in an ancient-styled ship made of reeds, swim the English Channel, search for never before discovered species, climb Mount Everest, balloon around the globe, well, Because It’s There will share important and unique contributions to exploration, science, literature, adventure and human endeavor throughout history and into the future.

I’m your host, explorer/adventurer and filmmaker Thom Pollard. I’ve been all around this great big world, I look forward to sharing this exciting podcast with you, because it’s there.

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