Mallory, Hillary.... The airwaves have been buzzing this week with two of the best-known names in mountain-climbing history. Some people even reportedly got confused, thinking the body found near the summit of Mount Everest May 1 was that of Sir Edmund Hillary (who is very much alive in New Zealand) and not that of the British climber George Leigh Mallory (who died on the mountain in 1924).
The names are linked, of course, because of the great question that has been reopened with the discovery of Mallory's nearly perfectly preserved body: Who got to the top (or, as the pros say, "summited") first? Mr. Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay made it in 1953. Mallory and his companion, Andrew Irvine, were last seen 29 years before that, looking "like two dots," less than 1,000 meters from the summit and still climbing. No one knows to this day if disaster overtook them on the way up or the way down. Cameras that they were believed to have been carrying, and which might yield an answer, have not been found, although the search continues.
It is hard not to feel torn about this discovery. In the first place, it may end up rearranging legends that once seemed as solid as the peaks themselves. Mallory was famous for having said he wanted to climb Everest "because it is there"; Mr. Hillary is famous for being the first to do it -- and come down alive. Still, with that rider added, nobody can take the achievement away from him, as he himself pointed out last week. He may well have to make room at the top for Mallory. Yet he also put the whole issue of heroism in the proper perspective when he told reporters, "For 45 years I've been accepted as the hero, so I wouldn't feel too terrible if [Mallory] had his special spell as well. I've always regarded him ... as the original hero of Everest."