The Clothing of the Early Mount Everest Mountaineers

[Edward]

Interesting to stumble over this thread again. I've been idly looking at some dedicated gear for doing a bit of hiking again next Summer, with an eye to keeping it all to my own aesthetic as much as possible, having realised that for the most part I can achieve my aims of what I'm after with a lot of repop military ger now. Not much different than the way I did things on my Duke ofc Edinburgh Award trail back in the early 90s, but more stylish than just the milsurplus of the day. I'll be investing in a pair of modern and hopefully not too visually offensive (within budget - Danner make beautiful boots, but £400 for getting covered in muck up some hills or round Epping Forest? Eesh. Not on my salary) boots if we take it up seriously, though.

I love the aesthetic of these old mountaineering campaigns, though I don't ever see myself doing a climb of that magnitude, or anything close to it.

 

[AbbaDatDeHat]

I have a photo . My father and many other soldiers in a giant fridge . He was a sergeant in the British army in late 1940's to early 1950's. And he told me a story. Whereby his commanding officer told him . You and your men. Are going to do a secret mission. In this massive man made fridge testing clothing for a few months. Didn't tell him why. After it was over . They picked out the best clothing. And it was revealed to him. They were testing the clothing . For Edmund Hillary's expedition up Everest. It was a British army funded expedition and the government was doing everything possible for Edmund Hillary to be the first . Which obviously he went on to be. True story...

Let’s see the photo, please.
B

 

[Doctor Damage]

This is a fascinating topic. In addition to that BBC article, here's a bunch more links etc:

Mountain Heritage Trust website on the Mallory replica clothing
https://www.mountain-heritage.org/blog/mallory-replica-clothing-revisited

PDF article, Testing Mallory's Clothes on Everest by Graham Hoyland, excerpts from a book
https://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_2007_files/AJ 2007 243-246 Hoyland Clothing.pdf

PDF article, Mountain Clothing & Rhermoregulation
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1016/j.wem.2011.10.008

PDF article, Detectives on Everest
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1580/1080-6032(2004)015[0068:BR]2.0.CO;2?icid=int.sj-full-text.similar-articles.1

PDF article, review of Ghosts of Everest
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1580/1080-6032(2001)012[0057:BR]2.0.CO;2?icid=int.sj-full-text.similar-articles.1

UK website with general info on weather, clothing, etc
https://furtech.typepad.com/

Graham Hoyland, the dude who tested the replica clothing on Everest:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hoyland
https://www.grahamhoyland.com/

 

[Doctor Damage]

Here's a 1920 book on mountaineering by Harold Raeburn. You can download a PDF (4MB) and other formats. There is an interesting section on equipment, which includes detailed discussion of clothing & footwear, etc. Worth a look if you're into vintage stuff.

https://archive.org/details/mountaineeringa00raebgoog

 

[Liam_Og]

Trad gear was one of the reasons I was interested in getting a Ventile coat.

https://ventile.co.uk/history-copy/

 

[Doctor Damage]

Here's several articles by experienced climbers on finding Mallory's body and discussion of whether he and Irvine might have made it to the peak or not. Note that the first two articles have photos of Mallory's body, which could be upsetting.

https://www.tranquilkilimanjaro.com/how-george-mallorys-body-was-discovered-on-everest/

https://mounteverest.info/how-our-expedition-found-george-mallorys-body-on-everest/

https://jakenorton.com/what-really-happened-to-george-mallory-andrew-irvine/
https://jakenorton.com/what-really-happened-to-george-mallory-andrew-irvine-part-ii/
https://jakenorton.com/what-really-happened-to-mallory-irvine-part-iii/

 

[Doctor Damage]

More recently Conrad Anker and Leo Houlding almost made it to the summit in exact replicas of Mallory and Irvine's outfits - documentary called The Wildest Dream. He free-climbed the Second Step - quite unbelievable. They concluded that Mallory could indeed have made it to the top.

Someone has posted "The Wildest Dream" documentary on youtube, broken into several parts which autoplay. Link below. They show Anker doing the freeclimb of the Second Step, after team members remove the aluminum ladder. He slips and almost falls on his first try.

 

[Doctor Damage]

Here's a long article on the knitwear worn by Mallory, based on the recovery of his clothing when they found his body. Link below to an online article reader.

https://www.pressreader.com/australia/the-knitter/20240613/282583088141804

 

[Doctor Damage]

Thought I suppose technically not necessarily "early" mountaineers, these photos of Hillary and Norgay's clothing and gear are interesting.

 

[Doctor Damage]

Mallory and Norton in 1922 on Everest, during one of the early attempts prior to Mallory's fatal 1924 attempt. Needless to say, the clothing and equipment in this photo is worlds away from modern gear. Click for larger version.



Frostbitten climber being helped down. Click for larger version.

 

[Doctor Damage]

Here's another photo from the 1922 expedition. Click for larger.