Documentary filmmakers find climber’s foot 100 years later on Everest

The discovery of the foot was made when the team was descending the Central Rongbuk Glacier, on the north face of Everest, in September. The group, led by photographer and climber Jimmy Chin, found a different artifact that sparked their curiosity.

“We discovered an oxygen cylinder marked with a date that said 1933,” Chin said. According to National Geographic, nine years after Mallory and Irvine disappeared, the 1933 British Everest expedition was the fourth attempt to climb the mountain. It also ended in failure, but members of the 1933 expedition found an ice ax that belonged to Irvine high on the northeast ridge, well below where Mallory was found.

The 1933 oxygen cylinder made Chin and his companions map out the searches. “If Sandy had fallen on the north face, his remains or his body could be somewhere near here,” said Chin, who suspected Irvine’s remains could be nearby. Over the next few days, Chin and his team began taking a route through the folds and crevasses of the glacier. That’s when they found the boot. “I think she literally melted a week before we found her,” he said.

The foot was removed from the site and handed over to Chinese authorities, responsible for the north face of Everest.

Julie Summers, Irvine’s great-niece, said in a statement that she “burst into tears” when Chin told her about the discovery. “Imagine my surprise when I got a call from a high-altitude filmmaker in Kathmandu who wanted to talk about an old boot he had found on a glacier on Everest a few days earlier. The boot was leather with studs for grip, meaning it “It had been used for climbing. There was a thick wool sock sticking out of the boot – brown and cream, which meant the wearer had made it clear they wanted to keep their feet warm at altitude,” he wrote on his website.