Mount Everest, where the air is too thin to survive for long, Synnott was about to unclip himself from the security of the fixed rope, leaving his appalled companions to watch his descent, alone, into an unexplored terrain of icy rock walls and narrow, sloping ledges.With decades of professional climbing under his belt, Synnott’s personal crusade was to find the body of the British mountaineer Andrew (‘Sandy’) Irvine who, with his climbing partner George Mallory, made a legendary attempt to reach the summit of Everest in 1924 and vanished while descending the very ridge Synnott was now on.One slip on the loose scree and Synnott could plummet 7,000ft to the Rongbuk Glacier.
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