Everest hid the body of a climber for a century. The rediscovery of his corpse could upend our understanding of the peak.

One morning in October 2024, the writer Julie Summers received a call at her home in Oxford conveying astonishing news. A boot containing the remains of a human foot had been found on the north flank of Mount Everest. A woolen sock tucked into the boot bore a white name tape, with red letters spelling out: A.C. IRVINE. Andrew Comyn “Sandy” Irvine, a 22-year-old college student who accompanied British mountaineer George Mallory on his ill-fated attempt to summit Everest, had been lost for more than a century. Noel Odell, a fellow Everest expedition member, was the last person to glimpse him and Mallory — as two black spots far in the distance “going strongly for the top” along the mountain’s crenulated ridgeline on June 8, 1924. The Himalayan range seen from the summit of Mount Everest. AFP