Sandy Irvine's Body Found After a Century: The Mystery Unraveled

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.