Everest 2004: Mallory and Irvine The Final Chapter: Final Plans....

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Final Plans

As the time approached to leave for Everest, the hardest part was-- when you break it down to its simplest form--that we were going to look for a dead person. Therefore, we reviewed again with ourselves and the Irvine family what we would and would not do. For example, we agreed with the family that we would search the body, if found, for only one day. So if the body was found early in the day, that would not be a problem, but if the body was found at say, 6 pm, the body would need to be searched, buried and prayed over in a short time. We agreed we would not return to the body.

We agreed with the Irvine family to attempt to keep the location of Sandy Irvine's body secret if found. All of the climbers advising us, told us it would be a miracle if we could pull that off. But we had a plan, to try to accomplish the mission.

All climbers were required to sign an agreement that included clauses giving them no rights to sell pictures of Sandy Irvine or discuss the location or other important information. Let's face it, humans can be humans; legal agreements were put into place to cover the unexpected in case someone strayed. We attempted to learn from the 1999 expedition in which picture rights and apparently book deals caused problems with the team after the climb.

Getting to the Mountain

While Tom's team was delayed getting to the mountain, the private team arrived on time. However, no one was fixing the ropes up on the mountain. Therefore we, too, would be delayed.  However, as we had no plans to "search", we needed little actual time up high. We had planned to "look" in 3 locations. While some speculated wildly where we were going, the truth is no one knew where we were looking.

Next:  Getting Served Notice/Timing of the "looks"

We went to Mount Everest in search of an answer.

Dispatches

 

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