Peak practice pays off for one woman

I'm very happy that they've found George Mallory's body on Mount Everest after 75 years, if a little puzzled that the many hundreds of loons/intrepid types who followed his exact route since 1924 didn't shriek, "Hey, there's George Mallory", when they fell over his well-preserved remains. I smell a rat, but I'm saying nothing. Of course we don't know yet whether Mallory and his companion, Andrew Irvine, made it to the top, although, until he died in 1987, Noel Odell, who was on the mountain at the same time as the lads, insisted that he . . . thought . . . he saw them reach the summit. Or very near it at least. Odell wasn't really certain what he saw and some argued that he might have been suffering from altitude sickness and hypoxia (oxygen deficiency), which can make people spot all kinds of mad things (like a Liverpool penalty at Anfield on Wednesday night). So, "not proven" is the verdict.

There was, though, some speculation last week that the team which located Mallory's body also found his camera (the pictures from which should prove whether he made it to the summit, once Kodak get at them), but their backers, the US television network PBS, wanted the discovery kept quiet.

We await news with interest, although it'd be a right bummer if the processed film showed George, his wife Ruth and three kids on a day trip to Blackpool, rather than him and Andrew on the top of the world. Speaking of Ruth; a number of last week's articles on Mallory spoke of his devotion to his wife and of how much he adored her. Yeah, right. He was so devoted to her, and their children, he was hardly ever at home, spending a considerable chunk of their married life up the side of a big mountain.

Why? "Because it is there," he said, and with that he was off. Frankly, bringing up three kids on your own sounds a tougher task to me than climbing 29,028 feet of snow; George took the easy option, but that's just a personal opinion. ("It is better to be the widow of a hero than the wife of a coward," someone once claimed. Give me a coward who'll at least be at home to cut the grass, clean the gutters and take the kids to the park any day).

But enough George-bashing, I'm more concerned about poor Edmund Hillary who, until last week, was certain that he (along with Tenzing Norgay) was the first man to conquer the world's highest peak. When he popped up on telly he wore the expression of an Oscar-nominated actress trying to look "not in the least bit gutted and very happy for Judy who is a fine actress . . . (spit)" when Judy wins the Oscar.

You have to feel for him. It'd be like Roger Bannister being told that Harry Smith actually broke the four-minute-mile barrier - 29 years before. Or Neil Armstrong being told that a Costa Rican by the name of Jorge took one small step for mankind on the moon - 29 years before. Or Orville and Wilbur Wright being told . . . and so on. Hillary was dignified about the whole thing, though, and resisted expressing the desire that Kodak mix up their films and give 24 snaps of two blokes on top of a mountain to someone expecting a pictorial record of Pat and Fidelma's wedding. "Mallory has always been an heroic figure, he was the man of Everest in those early days and it would be appropriate if he reached the summit (spit)," said Hillary.

Now I'm taking nothing away from Mallory, Irvine, Hillary or Norgay's achievements, but of the 800 odd (and odd is the word) people who have climbed those 29,028 feet over the years, I'd like to nominate Sandy Pittman as the most admirable of them all. Anyone who's read Jon Krakauer's wonderful book Into Thin Air, about a 1996 Everest expedition, will be familiar with Sandy, a wealthy New York socialite - one of the many wealthy types, with little or no mountaineering experience, who pay to get on Everest expeditions these days - who finally made it to the top that year at her third attempt.

The thing about Sandy was that she was as determined as anyone to make it to the summit, but she did it in style and without ever really breaking sweat - and that's not a claim Mallory, Irvine, Hillary or Norgay could ever make.

In 1993, the year of her first attempt on Everest, Sandy ruffled the feathers of the mountain's hemen community when she strolled in to base camp (at 18,000 feet) accompanied by her nine-year-old son and his nanny, who were to live in a tent there until she finished her climb. High altitude child care, you could say.

That really didn't go down well. Neither did the gourmet food and portable television and videoplayer she (or rather her Sherpa helpers) brought with her to help fill the time waiting for her assault on the final 11,000 feet of the mountain.In 1996, she had the latest copies of Vogue and Vanity Fair delivered to her at Base Camp, via DHL Worldwide Express. None of this "roughing it" lark for our Sandy. And that wasn't all she had transported to her well-appointed tent.

"I wouldn't dream of leaving town without an ample supply of Dean and DeLuca's Near East blend and my espresso maker. And since we'll be on Everest at Easter I also brought four wrapped chocolate eggs," she wrote, in a posting to the website that was following her progress.

When she polished off her supply of Dean and DeLuca's Near East blend and Easter eggs, Sandy set off for the top - and made it. Granted she was "short-roped" (the kind term for "hauled up the mountain by a rope") most of the way by a Sherpa who was happy to endanger his life in the hope that he would be rewarded by a mention on one of the many chat shows Sandy planned to appear on when she returned to America.

So, while we might never know whether Mallory and Irvine made it to the top, there's no doubt that Sandy got there - she has the pictures to prove it. And in 75 years time they'll probably find an empty Dean and DeLuca's Near East blend bag near the summit and the world will probably say "that's wimin for ye". I say fair play to you Sandy. You got your hard neck all the way to the top.