Northeast Ridge

The Northeast Ridge is the line most expeditions still use to climb Everest from the Tibetan north side, running from the North Col over the mountain's Three Steps to the summit. It was first identified as a viable way up the mountain during the 1921 British reconnaissance expedition, when Edward Oliver Wheeler located the North Col about a week before George Mallory confirmed it. Every British expedition through the 1930s used this approach, and it remains, alongside the Nepal side's South Col route, one of the two standard ways to climb the mountain today.

History

George Mallory and Andrew Irvine disappeared high on the ridge on their summit attempt in June 1924, and whether they reached the top before they died remains unresolved. The Second Step, a rock band high on the ridge, was long considered the technical crux of the route and is central to that debate. A Chinese expedition made the first confirmed ascent of Everest from this side of the mountain on May 25, 1960, when Wang Fuzhou, Gonpo and Qu Yinhua reached the summit, with Qu climbing the Second Step in stocking feet after standing on a teammate's shoulders. A metal ladder installed by a Chinese team in 1975 still helps climbers past that step today. Mallory's body was found on the mountain in 1999; Irvine's has never been located.

On film

The Ghosts Above (Sony Alpha, 2020) follows Renan Ozturk on a 2019 expedition up the north side of Everest that combined a climb of the standard route with a search for Sandy Irvine's remains and his camera, which might hold a photograph from the final hours of the 1924 attempt. The film covers the crowding and commercial guiding now common on this side of the mountain alongside the historical search, using Ozturk's own ascent to frame the century-old mystery of whether Mallory and Irvine reached the summit.