Mark Synnott - The Third Pole: Mystery, Obsession, and Death on Mount Everest

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Copyright 2021 by Mark Synnott

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Interior photograph Renan Ozturk

Artwork 2021 by Diamond Productions Inc.

Artwork credits: Clay Wadman, climbingmaps.com

Digital compilation by Tor Anderson, TrueNorthDesignworks.com

A portion of this work was originally published in the July 2020 issue of National Geographic

library of congress cataloging-in-publication data

Names: Synnott, Mark, author.

Title: The Third Pole : mystery, obsession, and death on Mount Everest / Mark Synnott.

Description: New York : Dutton, Penguin Random House LLC, 2021. | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020048322 (print) | LCCN 2020048323 (ebook) | ISBN 9781524745578 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781524745585 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Mountaineering expeditionsEverest, Mount (China and Nepal) | Irvine, Andrew, 1902-1924. | Synnott, Mark. | MountaineersGreat Britain. | MountaineersUnited States. | Mount Everest Expedition (1924) | MountaineeringEverest, Mount (China and Nepal)History. | Everest, Mount (China and Nepal)Description and travel.

Classification: LCC GV199.44.E85 S96 2021 (print) | LCC GV199.44.E85 (ebook) | DDC 796.522092dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048322

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048323

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Cover design by Jason Booher; cover image: Matt Irving

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For Tommy, Lilla, Matt, Will, and Hampton

It must have been a little after 2 a.m . The wind had been building steadily through the night, and the tent fabric was flapping so violently that I thought it would tear apart. The noise made communication with my climbing partners impossible, even though the three of us were tightly pressed against each other in the darkness. There was nothing to say anyway.

My head throbbed and nausea tickled the back of my throat. I felt like I was suffering from the flu and a terrible hangover at the same time. I tried to calm my churning stomach by inhaling deeply, but the supercooled air bit hard into my chest and set off a dry, rattling cough that was impossible to control.

Earlier, after a ferocious gust flattened the tent for the third or fourth time, Jim had struggled out of his sleeping bag and put on his boots. He was preparing for the worst. I had just lain there, watching him. Trapped in a deadly storm at 23,000 feet on the North Face of Mount Everest, I couldnt imagine where he thought he would go, or how he would get there without being blown off the mountain.

I turned on my headlamp. Ice particles danced in the beam like the inside of a snow globe. Then, from high above, came a sound unlike anything I had ever heard in the mountains beforea deep, menacing rumble, like a rocket taking off. Seconds later, a furious gust of icy wind flattened our tent, and I was pressed so hard into my air mattress that the ice beneath it seared into my cheek. The tent poles cracked and our tiny shelter collapsed around us. I prayed that the thin bamboo stakes securing us to the slope would continue to hold as the wind picked up speed.

When the sun finally rose, I struggled to sit up. The crumpled tent was draped over my aching head. Jim lay next to me, curled up in a fetal position. I bumped his leg to make sure he was still alive. He groaned. Matt, his beard sheathed in ice, looked up at me with glowing red eyes.

I found the door, unzipped it, and crawled outside. The camp was devastated. Every tent I could see had been smashed or broken. I looked up and saw a tent flying, inexplicably, hundreds of feet above us in the still-swirling wind. I sucked in a breath and was immediately doubled over with another coughing spasm.

It had taken me months of constant work to get here. I had leveraged the goodwill of my family, flown 8,000 miles across the globe, and helped haul in over two tons of gear to camps across the mountain. Now all I could think was: What the hell am I doing here?

Nearly a century earlier , another group of climbers wrestled with their own doubts. It was 1924, and the third British expedition to Mount Everest was not going well. A deep low-pressure system, which had stalled to the west of the Himalayas, had been pummeling the mountain for weeks with high winds and heavy snowfall. One storm in particular was so severe, porters had been forced to drop their loads along the icy path to Camp III, scattering the teams essential supplies.

The British had established a staging camp on the North Col, not far from where our battered tents were now. By the beginning of June, they had made two attempts to reach the summit. Both were valiant efforts, but each had failed, neither getting higher than 28,126 feetstill almost 1,000 vertical feet shy of the top. They were running out of time. Would the summer monsoon hold off long enough for one final assault?

The youngest member of the British team, Andrew Sandy Irvine, had taken ill. He was suffering from diarrhea and a face badly burned and chapped by the strong sun and relentless wind. And yet, when George Mallory, the teams best climber, invited Irvine to join him for the last go at the summit, he rallied. Equipped with the newfangled oxygen sets that Irvine had been tinkering with for weeks, the pair set off from a high camp on the morning of June 8. Later that day, a teammate spotted them going strong for the top, high on the Northeast Ridge.