This full-length 2010 documentary intertwines the life history of early-20th-century mountaineer George Mallory and the investigative efforts of modern climber Conrad Anker.
A bafflingly star-studded voice cast, over dramatic recreations and sweeping Everest footage, takes us back to 1924, when George Mallory and Sandy Irvine seemed to disappear on the way to the summit. On the same mountain, 75 years later, Anker finds the prone, frozen body of George Mallory.
Mallory, Irvine, and several Sherpa guides face Everest in 1924. Photo: Screenshot
Did he summit?
The find offers closure to family members, whom we meet in interview segments, but it also presents a new mystery. Mallory was found lower down and to the east of his last known location. To some, this suggests that he had reached the summit and perished on the way back. The photograph of his wife Ruth, which he’d promised to place on the summit, was also missing.
But that would mean Mallory and Irvine had pulled off a very difficult feat: free climbing the infamous Second Step. The bulk of the film follows Anker’s attempt to complete this climb and determine whether it was possible, while telling the story of Mallory’s life up to that fateful expedition.
Mallory promised to place Ruth’s photo on the summit. Photo: Screenshot
Two Everest climbs
The son of a Northern English vicar, Mallory took to climbing as a teenager. By the end of World War I, he had married Ruth Turner, survived the Battle of the Somme, and become obsessed with Mount Everest.
Mallory’s first visit to Everest was in 1921. Photo: Screenshot
After several expeditions and Mallory’s several brushes with death, Ruth didn’t want her husband to join the 1924 expedition. Being proven right was probably not much consolation to her.
Meanwhile, Anker’s wife, Jennifer Lowe-Anker, is in a similar situation. Anker plans to attempt the climb that killed Mallory and Irvine, using period gear. Lowe-Anker, who lost her previous husband, Alex Lowe, to an avalanche in the Himalaya, voices her own concern.
For his attempted recreation, Anker also needs a climbing partner. His Sandy Irvine is Leo Houlding, at the time a talented young climber with no high-altitude experience. By Camp 3, Houlding is certainly feeling the altitude, and neither of them is enjoying the 1920s-style hobnail climbing boots. The vintage gear is certainly more stylish, in my humble opinion, but sadly, that doesn’t count for much on a difficult mountain.
Anker, Houlding, and their team, seen here as tiny dots amid the white immensity, begin the final ascent. Photo: Screenshot
Free climbing the Second Step
At this point on their own expedition, Mallory and Irvine had already struggled through a bout of bad weather. Several men had died, and Irvine was afraid for all of their lives. But Mallory, knowing that he couldn’t possibly bring himself to go on another expedition if this one failed, made one final assault.
Anker, too, goes for the summit despite the threatening onset of the monsoon. They’re back in modern gear for the assault on the Second Step. They pass the point where Mallory and Irvine were last seen. With ladder and fixed ropes removed, Anker and Houlding begin to climb.
Pushing on through numbing toes and a near fall, the pair successfully approaches the summit. Anker, for his part, believes that they “have shown that these could have been Mallory and Irvine’s final footsteps.”
