Everest climb remains a mystery

It's one of mountaineering's greatest mysteries: Did George Mallory and former Shrewsbury School pupil Andrew Irvine conquer Everest in 1924?

Somewhere high on the slopes of Everest lies the undiscovered body of a former Shropshire schoolboy whose remains may yield proof that he was the first person to conquer the world's highest peak.

Before Andrew "Sandy" Irvine began his final ascent with his climbing partner, the mountaineering legend George Mallory, he was given a camera.

He slipped it into his pocket, all ready to take a historic photo on top of the world.

Somewhere near the summit the pair fell, a tragic climax to that 1924 expedition which had set out to conquer Everest.

And ever since there has been speculation over whether Mallory and Irvine made it to the summit, a full 29 years before Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing claimed the glory and the fame.

History is full of such unknowns and "what-ifs". But what is tantalising about this one is that it is still possible that a conclusive answer may be found, even after all these years.

In 1999 American mountaineer Conrad Anker came across a body on the north face of Everest, almost 27,000ft up.

Nothing unusual in that – the upper reaches of the mountain are strewn with scores of those whose dreams of glory ended in failure and death, whose bodies have never been recovered, and which simply lie there, preserved in the dry air and sub-zero temperatures as if in a deep freeze.