Watches of Mount Everest

Cyclingtourist

I'm reading a book called 'Into the Silence, the Great War, Mallory and the conquest of Everest' by Wade Davis (highly recommended BTW) and so far with about 85% of it read there's no mention of what the mountaineers used for time keeping.
Mallory's body was found in 1999 with his Borgel wristwatch in the pocket of his clothing.
From Google I found that Edmund Hillary wore a Smiths and Tenzing Norgay wore a Rolex when they climbed Everest in 1953.

I'm not a mountaineer or even a hill walker so I was wondering if anyone else here has any further information on the subject????

Wibbs

Here's the very good bit of research that showed up on TZ.UK into the watches worn on the first successful Everest climb in 1953. Turns out Rolex were not at the summit. Though they made the claim they were and many still think they were. Basically they wore Smiths watches.

Cyclingtourist

Interesting read and pretty much establishes that neither Hillary or Tenzing were wearing Rolexs.

Reading the book it was interesting that the first expedition in 1921 was led by Charles Howard-Bury who was born in Kings County (Offaly) in 1881. In 1921 he was the owner of Belvedere House in Meath and was worried whether it might have been attacked and burnt in his absence. Bury was an old style Anglo Irish imperialist and admirer of the Raj.
Mallory first climbed on Everest in 1921, then again in 1922 before his fatal attempt in 1924 . Many believe he was the first to reach the summit.

blue5000

I remember reading something about Mallory, perhaps it was in the Sunday Times. Chinese climbers knew about his body for a while before 1999. They just said something like it was 'Old English dead'.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/body-may-prove-who-was-first-up-everest-mfj8bdzlk8l

Cyclingtourist

blue5000 wrote: »

I remember reading something about Mallory, perhaps it was in the Sunday Times. Chinese climbers knew about his body for a while before 1999. They just said something like it was 'Old English dead'.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/body-may-prove-who-was-first-up-everest-mfj8bdzlk8l

I can only read the first few lines of that article due to its paywall but it appears to relate to a possible sighting of Mallory's fellow climber Andrew 'Sandy' Irvine who also perished. No one has subsequently verified this by finding the body in the 17 years since this appeared in the Times. An American tried in 2011 but failed.

Part of the interest in finding Irvine is the hope that they will also find the Vest Pocket Kodak (VPK) which they had in the hope that it will contain a photo of one of them at the summit. A rather fore lone hope IMO.

This is a photo of my VPK of that period. It's a special with leather covering that would have cost about $20 in 1921.