Mallory's Everest jacket: gussets out there today?

Here's a photo of a 1975 Belstaff Moorland Jacket that I mentioned earlier. Not to dissimilar to the 1920s Burberry jacket, but definitely for shooting and with an action back.



Alan

A new-style pivot sleeve for sedentary urban types who are occasionally compelled to move.

Admin

Here is one that Nigel Cabourn is putting out.




Do enjoy a good tweed.

Cheers!

Dan

Hello - As a sideline to this thread, an excellent book is "Ghosts of Everest - the search for Mallory and Irvin" which details the expedition that found Mallory's body and has some wonderful background on the orginal expeditions.

Hopefully, someone will find Sandy Irvine someday. About a decade ago I read a book (the title escapes me) about the Mallory/Irvine attempt and there was some confusion in the eye witness description of their observed activity at the second or third "step". It's possible that they succeded in their attempt with obvious disasterous results. It is known that a camera was taken along. If Irvine is found, the proof of "success" may lie with him.

I have to find and re-read that book.

I have no solid opinion about the qualities of modern or vintage gear, I often wear a mixture of wool and synthetics depending on conditions. However, having spent a fair amount of time living at fairly high altitudes (9000 ft), I will say that many places in the high mountains are fantastically dry. You still sweat but getting wet even from snow isn't that much of a worry if you are careful, using a small tarp, etc. With some ventilation sweaty (not necessarily sweat soaked) under clothes tend to dry out pretty well not like a synthetic but that wasn't an option in 1924. Carrying enough water is an issue especially in the winter when it's MUCH drier. I can remember waking up with eyes so dry they hurt on a number of occasions

I have heard that there are places in China and Tibet that are so dry that the natives used to coat their skins in butter. Is it possible that water retaining fabrics might not have been as big an issue under these circumstances?

mister7 said:

"They've also analyzed the performance of his apparel...and found it superior to today's outfits."

I have to say I got a laugh out of this statement. I am guessing the guy that made it has never spent the night in a snow cave or doing anything else that involved actually getting and staying wet. I have been mountaineering for forty years or so, long enough that when I started everything was made of wool.

Your outfit would weigh about twenty pounds (dry!) and would not dry out for the duration of your trip. It was revolutionary when plastic clothes came out. Suddenly your outfit weighed 75% less and would actually dry out while you were wearing it.

Wool is hard to beat for some things, nothing else is as good for socks. But if you have to wear your clothes for four days straight, alternating between very hard work and sitting in the snow, you are gonna be a lot happier wearing plastic clothes.

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I have to agree. I believe in a blend of natural fibers and the modern stuff. The key thing you have to remember about high altitude clothing is the higher you get the less the breathing capabilities of boots, and outer garmets matter. Circulation slows down so much that preventing frostbite by far out weighs transfering moisture. Moisture is at a minimum anyways because movement becomes (at above 8,000 meters) very slow. In terms of sea-level high-intensity sub-zero survival is concerned, polartec, wool, and canvas is necessary to prevent hypothermia.

Alan Eardley said:

The man who made a statement to this effect (Graham Hoyland) has summitted the highest mountain in the world a number of times and wore some of the reproduction 1924 clothing on the recent expedition to Everest to try it out. I don't know whether he has ever spent the night in a snow cave, but he surely has in bivouacs and tents on most of the world's highest mountains. I suspect that he knows that getting wet isn't the problem when climbing a 20,000+ feet peak - you are well below the freezing point. The main problems are wind chill and temperature control when changing from strenuous activity to rest and back again.

The statement given above is taken out of context. The clothing wasn't found to be 'superior to todays outfits' in all dimensions. The findings of the expedition were basically that the 1924 clothing performed better than was expected in terms of wind chill and allowed greater mobility and better temperature adjustment than the one-piece climbing suits used today. It was, however, markedly inferior to today's gear in terms of warmth at rest.

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I would agree with this statement as well. The main benefits of down and synthetic clothing is weight savings, which matter a whole lot when climbing. Warmth is another matter, though. Thick wool and fur is by far the superior material for warmth and breathability. Down can accomplish the same at a lesser weight. I am becoming a bigger fan of primaloft because it can be combined with breathable fabrics such as poly-cotton and polyester and keeps you warm when wet, unlike down.

BigFitz said:

Hopefully, someone will find Sandy Irvine someday. About a decade ago I read a book (the title escapes me) about the Mallory/Irvine attempt and there was some confusion in the eye witness description of their observed activity at the second or third "step". It's possible that they succeded in their attempt with obvious disasterous results. It is known that a camera was taken along. If Irvine is found, the proof of "success" may lie with him.

I have to find and re-read that book.

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I went to the school where Irvine was educated (Shrewsbury School) and my seat in the school chapel was next to a plaque commemorating his short life. I didn't follow his adventurous career, but my son did, having followed me to the same school. My son is now the same age as Irvine when he was lost - which, for me, emphasises just how young Irvine was. I wonder what he would have gone on to do if he had survived?

Anyway, I regularly wear a Cabourn Tenzing jacket (basically the Mallory as far as I can see) - one of the most practical coats I have - wearable in all but the heaviest downpour and, with layers, in cold weather. The great advantage over modern fabrics is that it breathes and feels very comfortable. (Picture from Cabourn website).


TENZING

Interesting article about the Mallory climbing clothing test http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5076634.stm

I cannot wait to see this documentary about Mallory http://http://thewildestdream.com/

I had asked a question about the kind of jacket Mallory had on the Everest Expedition in another thread, then found this old thread. Very interesting reading and some good information.

So, here's a bump if anyone want's to continue the discussion ...

Does anyone know the name of the book that covers the gear Mallory and Irvine wore? The link is broken and I did not see the actual name of the book.

Thanks!

There is a very good book entitled "Invisible on Everest" which covers in fairly good detail the history of mountaineering equipment, from boots and clothing to rucksacks. It was written by a man who used to run a British equipment company assisted by a woman who studied the British textile industry. Both names escape me but the book is still in print. One or both of them did the Mallory clothing project and produced a fairly thin book or booklet on the results.

They made no claim that Mallory's outfit was better suited for use today than the alternatives but did at least conclude, more or less, that he was well-equipped by the standards of the day and rather better equipped than we were apt to think.

Keep in mind here that high-mountain climbing conditions and Artic conditions are not necessarily the same thing, although there are some similarities. Another thing probably worth mentioning is that only relatively recently has there been specialized clothing and gear for mountain climbing. People otherwise wore what was little different from their everyday clothes, at least "country clothes." On the other hand, only relatively recently have people bothered to climb mountains.

I have Invisible on Everest but I am looking for that small book/booklet on Mallory's clothing. Anyone know the name of it?

I believe the book "Mallory Myths and Mysteries: The Mallory Clothing Replica Project," by Parsons and Rose (same authors as Invisible on Everest. It's a relatively thin book at 48 pages but is still interesting. I seem to remember that it was relatively expensive for the size of the book. It's actually quite similar to Invisible on Everest, just focused more on a narrow subject. I have no idea where my copy is at the moment.

It is probably a little difficult to appreciate the undertaking of the Mallory expedition to Mt. Everest. They clearly made every effort to obtain the very best and most up-to-date clothing and equipment then available. Given what they were attempting, much of what they did had never been done before. They used oxygen, for instance. I think that even down-filled clothing was used on the trip. Their more specialized clothing, that which was studied in the project, was custom-made. They didn't just go down to the closest outdoor store and outfit themselves. I do not recall, however, if there was much discussion in the book about how they went about designing the clothing but 30 years later, it would not have been considered particularly remarkable. By that time, several different "windproof" garments had been designed and issued for military purposes by more than one army. In fact, the WWII British "drab windproof" suit (smock and trousers), together with the other clothing intended to be worn in a layer system, was not a lot different. The WWII British outfit had some shortcomings but it was used for a couple of decades until finally replaced by better versions probably in the 1970s or 1980s. Based on my own use of such garments, they are perfectly adequate for winter conditions and high mountain conditions, provided you layer properly. Their only shortcoming is that they are not waterproof but that is usually not a problem under the conditions I've described. Footwear is problematic but that is a separate issue.

All of these problems were studied before and during WWII by the French, the British, the Germans and finally by the United States. They all produced garments that were fairly similar and it was all used during the war. But in the case of military usage of these specialized garments, two things eventually became evident. The first was that there was actually little call for high mountain operations during the war, although research and experimentation went to two slightly different directions. One was alpine-oriented, the other arctic-oriented. The United States in particular was especially interested in clothing and equipment for arctic conditions because of operations in Alaska.

The other point was that procurement of specialized equipment and clothing for military purposes came with difficulties not faced with outfitting a mountain climbing expedition. The sheer numbers required meant that some possibilities were not workable. Fur garments, for instance, were simply unavailable in meaningful quantities and in any case, fur has its own issues. Fleece garments were ideal for cold weather but not for foot soldiers (or mountain climbers) but they were widely used by fliers. I'm referring to real fleece from sheep. So old-fashioned wool ultimately remained the most common cold weather insulation used during the war. Everything I've read, though, suggests that troops in Korea during that war faced harsher weather conditions than during the war. By then, of course, everything they'd learned five years earlier had been forgotten and they had to start all over again.