George Leigh Mallory

George Mallory Photo via Wikimedia Commons [Public Domain]

My hero is George Leigh Mallory because of his courage to be the first to climb Mt. Everest. He may have reached the top of Everest 29 years before Edmund Hillary in 1953.

George Mallory was born on June 18, 1886. He was the second child of the Mallorys. Even when he was young, he tried many dangerous feats never done before, like double back flips. Once, he said he would tie himself to railroad tracks and escape before the train hit him but his sister persuaded him not to do it.

Mallory left for boarding school around the age of 10. During that time, he did many other feats. He entered Winchester College at the age of 14 and earned a reputation as a gymnast and athlete.

Members of the English Mt Everest Expedition Photo via Nationaal Archief [Public Domain]

When he was 18 years old, he got his first taste of mountain climbing. This is with his housemaster. He loved climbing after that. He spent another summer with the Ice Club. He also climbed the Alps with some friends in the Ice Club. He climbed it many times during the year before he went to Cambridge.

He went off to Cambridge, a prestigious school (Cambridge is the second best college in the whole world), to study history. There, after 4 years, he met another gifted mountain climber, Geoffrey Winthrop Young, who became a life-long friend.

In 1910, he started work as an assistant master in a charterhouse. There he met Ruth Turner, who he fell in love with. He married her just weeks before World War I broke out.

September 1915 is when Clare, their first child, was born. During that time, Mallory’s friends were in France, fighting and dying. His boss wouldn’t let him go since teaching was a job that was protected from war. He kept persisting and, finally, his boss let him go because of the replacement they got. He controlled a group of artillery. This was a big danger. Twice, bullets missed his head by centimeters. Soon, his old ankle injury was back and he was sent back. He stayed with Ruth and Clare for a few months and went back to France. They didn’t reunite until 1919, which was a few years after World War I ended.

Mt. Everest, 1921 Photo by George Mallory / Wikimedia Commons [Public domain]

Then he heard that his friend, Young, had to get his leg amputated because he had a serious bullet wound in it. Mallory was very sad.

After a few months, Mallory was invited to climb Mt. Everest. It was the tallest mountain in the world, towering 29,009 feet in the air. He was to climb Everest from Tibet and find a way to reach the top.

Mallory climbed to an altitude of 26,985 feet but the record was soon broken by Finch and Bruce. Mallory and Irvine went up a third time and disappeared on June 10, 1924.