18 June 2024 , 17:24
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The great-granddaughter of British climber George Mallory woke up on Mount Everest 100 years to the day since her legendary relative disappeared in the mist within spitting distance of the summit.
Last seen on the summit ridge of the world’s highest peak by geologist and climber Noel Odell, Mallory and his expedition partner Sandy Irvine’s tiny figures were then enveloped in gathering clouds.
Now, after waking up on the mountain a century after her great grandfather’s disappearance, Freja Mallory, 26, tells The Mirror: “It was a moment I will cherish forever.
Freja made it to Everest base camp
George Leigh Mallory’s son John and his wife Jenny (Freja’s maternal grandparents) on a trek to Nepal in the 1990s (Freja Mallory/Triangle News)Freja spent weeks trekking through Nepal, leaving Kathmandu on May 31, before flying to Lukla and traversing with a guide across the mountainous terrain of the Khumbu Valley and Sagarmatha National Park on her way to Everest Base Camp - her final destination.
She says: “It was an incredible experience getting to Base Camp and sleeping there, but even better to feel closer to my great grandfather - looking up at the same peak he was climbing 100 years ago.”
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Growing up, hearing stories about the great George Mallory, who was just 37 when he disappeared with Sandy Irvine, 22, she was determined to pay her own tribute to him on the June 8 centenary of his last sighting.
Freja made it to base camp exactly 100 years since her her great grandfather George Leigh Mallory was last seen alive close to the summit (Freja Mallory/Triangle News)
Given a six-month sabbatical by her employer Riverford Organic Farmers - who also helped her to fundraise so she could complete the trek - Freja, of Totnes, Devon, says: “I can see why he was so captivated by mountains and Everest in particular.
“It’s completely awe-inspiring to be surrounded by such enormous and beautiful mountains and it was a struggle to pull my eyes away.”
For 75 years Mallory’s fate remained unknown. Then, in 1999, his bleached body was found partially buried and still in his climbing gear and with a rope fixed around his waist on the mountain’s north east ridge. It appeared he fell, suffering a broken leg, fractured elbow and head wounds.
But his body cannot be brought down the mountain as it has doubled in weight after being frozen for so long and would pose too much of a danger for a team to carry it down.
The body of Irvine, who alongside Mallory was trying to become the first to summit Everest, has never been found.
Many believe the pair did reach the summit first - beating official title holders Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay’s 1953 record by almost 30 years - but without proof, the claim will never be verified.
Freja at Everest Base Camp on June 8 - 100 years to the day (Freja Mallory/Triangle News)
Freja, whose mother Beridge Mallory, 60, is the daughter of John Mallory, born in 1920, the youngest of George Mallory’s three children with wife Ruth, adds: “I feel closer now to my family legacy, and my great grandfather, who has been both an enigma and inspiration to me.”
The climb has been particularly poignant for Freja, as it came after learning she had the BRCA1 gene, which increases the risk of breast cancer, leading to her decision in October 2022 to have a preventative double mastectomy with reconstruction.
She also follows in the footsteps of her uncle George, who summited Everest in 1995 as part of an expedition - something she is now keen to do herself.
She says: “I would like to reach some summits and to one day reach the summit of Everest.
“But being at Everest Base Camp on the 100 year anniversary of my great grandfather’s fateful last climb was incredible.
“With the climbing season over, we were the only people there that night. As if sleeping on a glacier with the Himalayas looming over you isn’t good enough, we had the place all to ourselves.”