Book review: The Third Pole by Mark Synnott
THE THIRD POLE is Mark Synnott`s engrossing account of going up Mount Everest in search of the remains of the second of the fabled explorers of 1924, George Mallory and Sandy Irvine. For those who don`t know, the duo had attempted to summit Everest via the northern side in Tibet, had been last seen 800 vertical feet below the summit by a member of their climbing team, Noel Odell who was at a lower elevation, after which the clouds descended portending a bad storm, and neither Mallory nor Irvine were seen or heard of again…. till Mallory`s body was found in May 1999. Later, Irvine`s axe was found, too.
Everest for a long time now, has been regarded with some amount of distaste by the really big climbers. But with the motive of finding Irvine, and what`s more, meeting Tom Holzel who convinces the author that he has narrowed the area down to almost exactly where he is sure Irvine has fallen and provides GPS coordinates too, Synnott , an old vet and expedition leader of the North Face Global Athletic Team as well as National Geographic, decides to scale the much scaled mountain.
Why this keen interest in finding Irvine? Well, it is believed that he was carrying the team`s Kodak camera with him, and obviously finding that might well help solve the longtime mystery: did the duo summit that fateful day?
All prepped
Synnott does a lot of prep work, reading up on the team, on Sandy Irvine, going through the latter`s personal effects at the Merton Library. The actual climb is a bit of a challenge aside from the obvious physical one: the team needs to keep their real mission below the radar of the Chinese authorities despite climbing from the China side, and with drones besides. Another challenge was subverting the Sherpas with the team, all who had only the summit in eye and in mind, not looking for a long-dead climber.
Aside from describing how he and the team went about their mission, Synnott also takes us back to the mapping of the height of Everest, then to Mallory and Irvine`s summit attempt, tells us about other climbers on the trail beside him in 2019; how another full-blown storm struck them all while they were climbing; why it`s every man for himself up on the mountain, and the author`s firm belief about what happened to Irvine`s body. This involves a conspiracy theory to beat most c. theories, involving the Chinese, much deceit and deception.
Does Synnott summit? Yes, he does. Does he find Sandy Irvine? No, and in a particular twist of fate that mountain is famous for, Irvine`s foot encased in sock and shoe and preserved by the elements, was found by National Geographic climber Jimmy Chen in September 2024.
Ultimately, the reader comes away with the stark realisation that despite the conga lines, despite the strewn garbage (a Third World landfill, Synnott calls it) , stepping over corpses, fixed ropes almost everywhere, despite amateurs (leashed zombies, veteran climber Lou Dawson calls them) making life hell for experienced climbers as well as their Sherpas (a special nod to Indians here, alas), despite thieving guide services who nick oxygen bottles, despite the scrum for selfies, Everest at 29,035 ft, so tall that its head sticks up into the Jetstream, with a summit that is raked by gale-force winds almost 355 days of the year, is still a mighty mountain, perhaps the mightiest of them all.
Related Links:
Book review: The Mountain: My Time on Everest by Ed Viesturs and David Roberts
Book review: The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd
Book review: Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane
Book review: Into the Heart of the Himalayas by Jono Lineen
Sheila Kumar • January 7, 2026