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Jochen Hemmleb
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Meet the Team 1999
Jochen Hemmleb
Jochen Hemmleb is a geology student who resides in
Frankfurt, Germany. Now 27, he began climbing at the age of
10 with his father. After reading a book about
the mystery of Mallory and Irvine
at age 16 he began collecting data about the mountaineering
history of Everest.
NOVA: Do you think that
Mallory
and
Irvine
made it to the
summit of Everest?
HEMMLEB: Personally, I think that they had a good
chance of making it when you give
Odell's
sighting credibility, which puts them very high on the
mountain. I think when you go back to Odell's first accounts,
saying he saw
Mallory
and
Irvine
at 12:50 at the base of the final pyramid, that puts them
above the
Second Step, if not on the Third Step. If they were beyond the Second
Step, it would have taken them approximately three to four
[more] hours, because they were using oxygen. We have to keep
in mind that both climbers were in a very special state of
mind on a very special climb. So they could have had the
energy and skill to scale the Second Step. Coming down the
Second Step is a different matter, and I think that this could
have caused their deaths—actually falling off because
they had nothing to anchor their rope to.
NOVA: How do you think Mallory and Irvine perished?
HEMMLEB: I think there are two ways they could have
died. Either by falling off—because there are two
pitches of severe technical difficulties, one still very high
up the mountain, the summit tower, and then the Second Step
itself. When they found themselves unable to get down the
Second Step, they froze to death in a bivouac. The body on the
snow terrace could indicate that the climbers had separated at
one stage during the climb. One climber came down alone,
either fell to his death to that snow terrace or got lost on
the way down, bivvied, and froze to death.
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