Sherpa: Mallory did not reach summit

There is no chance that British climber George Mallory climbed Mt Everest 29 years before Sir Edmund Hillary, says a Sherpa who is the last living member of the ill-fated 1924 expedition.

Mallory and his climbing partner, Andrew Irvine, were 240m from the summit and reported to be "going strong for the top" when they disappeared into the mist.

Whether they beat New Zealander Sir Edmund and Tenzing Norgay to the summit by almost three decades has endured as a question mark in climbing history.

Controversy reignited in 1999 when Mallory's corpse was found half-submerged in snow at 8229m by an Anglo-American team that had set out to find the bodies of the climbers.

Now Ang Tsering Sherpa, 98, has told the Daily Telegraph newspaper through an interpreter that there was "not a chance" Mallory and Irvine had climbed the world's highest mountain.

"They might have got close, very close, but there is no doubt in my mind that they died on the way up, not down," said Ang Tsering.

"One of the problems is that the climbers were poorly equipped to reach the summit.

"Their boots and clothing weren't adequate to cope with the fierce winds and cold, and the oxygen cylinders were too heavy.

"It would have been nice had they reached the top. After all, that is why we were there."

Ang Tsering was among four Sherpas who carried loads to the higher camps for the two British climbers. Eric Simonson, who led the expedition that found Mallory's body, will return to the mountain this year to search for the body of Irvine.

He also will look for Irvine's camera, which he hoped would contain film to prove beyond doubt that the adventurers made it to the peak.

Sir Edmund said in 1999 that it would be very appropriate if Mallory had been the first to reach the summit. "He was really the initial pioneer of the whole idea of climbing Mount Everest, and was pretty formidable at attempting to carry it through.

"Mallory has always been a heroic figure as far as I am concerned."

- NZPA