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Ghosts of Everest by Jochen Hemmleb
Book Summary InformationAuthor: Jochen Hemmleb Edition: Audio Cassette Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published) Published: 2000-09 ISBN: 0736649328 Publisher: Books on Tape
Book Reviews of Ghosts of EverestBook Review: Passionate ... but does not convince. Summary: 5 StarsThere are some excellent reviews here and before going any further I will render particular public kudos to the review of T. Holzel [January 19, 2007] to which I personally subscribe therein based on my own research of the Mallory and Irvine matter and which his remarks and analysis additionally serve to support.
Reviewer Holzel also makes a very important and valid statement when he talks of what I would term the old premise reversal, if you will, where M&I [Mallory and Irvine] supporters simply 'reverse' their premise and put the onus of proof on the 'doubter', and this is a tactic that has been utilized in other 'questionable' areas as well, in effect, can the M&I 'doubter' [that M&I ever made the summit] "prove that M&I did 'not' make the summit" -- see how that works? And when the doubter is de facto placed in this kind of scenario and is literally forced to say, "Well, I can't definitively prove that they did not but I can provide ...." whereupon the doubter is quickly interrupted and a voiced "Ahhhhhhh!" comes from the pro-summit challenger as if to say "wellllll then, if you can't 'prove' that they did 'not' make the summit, isn't it then possible that they 'did' make the summit!" And so it goes. But as reviewer Holzel correctly suggests, and I concur forthwith, this reversal of a negative is indeed a "house of cards." Quite frankly, it's a ploy often used when reversing the premise is easier than defending the opposing view(s) with reasonable [versus 'stretched'] arguendo.
So too and covering new ground here [at least in terms of the Amazon discussions on the matter], let's recall that the original 1999 search mission expedition was expecting to find the 1924 body of 'Irvine' and this was predicated on the '1933' Irvine 'ice ax' finding and it was a surprise to the 1999 expedition folks to find that the discovered body [which was calculated to lay somewhere near the ice ax finding and hence a conjectured 'Irvine' fall] was not Irvine at all but Mallory! Not to mention the still visible rope around Mallory indicative of his being roped to someone. Who else could that be but Irvine!
But then it begins from various M&I summit supporters .. "perhaps Mallory was coming 'down' from an Everest summit!" And when Mallory's sun goggles are found in his pocket, what about that fact? Well, this is conjectured to be either a "spare set" [!] ==or== an evening descent. What I'm saying here is that for each, shall we say, 'questioning' of the NON likelihood of a M&I summit, there appears a handy counter-argument although the counter-arguments begin to enter the realm of a 'stretch' because even with the best of expertise and equipment available 'today' and forget about Sherpa guides or fixed ropes or modern climbing gear, it is a very difficult climb even with the best of weather! And negotiating Everest above 26,000 feet on 'any' approach route during darkness is something else again!
I think [see the DVD on this issue] it's been reduced to one person musing and I cite 'in substance' because I don't have the direct quote in front of me but the person said, again in substance, "Somewhere up there is the body of 'Sandy' Irvine ... perhaps he has that 1924 expedition camera still on him and perhaps if that camera can be found and our modern sophisticated techniques be brought to bear on developing that film which is hopefully still inside the camera and preserved by the extreme cold, we can establish from such film that they made it after all ... ."
But then, how would this square from those who have suggested that the team split up and it was the "more experienced Mallory" who went for the summit leaving Irvine [with the alleged camera] to 'wait' but then too, it was the body of 'Mallory' who was found with, inter alia, the broken leg injury, not Irvine! And so it continues, 'perhaps this, perhaps that, maybe this, maybe that' , but in the end that which we 'do' have and IMO of course, becomes more in favor of M&I 'not' having made the summit but I'll qualify that by saying this is just as valid as [again, see the DVD] as the pro-summit M&I folks saying, "Unless someone can prove [!] to me that M&I did 'not' make the summit, I'll continue to believe that they did!" And there we stand! The 'compromise' of course becomes "Who is to say! Maybe yes, maybe no!" -- I'm inclined towards a defended "no" [and for many more reasons than space allows me to list and discuss at length] but then the whole issue seems to be that for every "no summit" out there, a counter-argument is offered for a "yes summit" or at miniumum, a proffered 'perhaps a summit', so then, ultimately, and bottom line, it becomes the individual reader who makes the call based on their own assessment and the arguments presented, pro and con therein.
Doc Tony
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