Expedition Finds Cameras Left by Yukon Mountaineers in 1937
Yukon Mountaineers used 20 “hand-cranked cameras” left by George Leigh Mallory during the 1937 Mount Everest expedition, which took Mallory to the world’s highest mountains.
“It’s interesting, but nobody had ever used hand cranked cameras before, they just kind of figured it out once they were back in San Francisco,” said Dr. Andrew W. Hall, a professor of archaeology, anthropology and museum studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
“It’s really interesting when you go to the museum and see all of these artifacts, and people think they’re just a curiosity,” Dr. Hall said. “It’s a different story to see these artifacts used by people such as Mallory. What are they? What are they used for?”
During the 1937 Mount Everest expedition, Mallory and his team of 15 men left their base camp and trekked toward Mount Everest by themselves. They planned to climb it, but their inexperience in the mountains caused them problems.
“They couldn’t find a good place to camp and they didn’t understand how to use the rope. They were just kind of stumbling around, and one guy got his arm caught and another one fell off the side,” Dr. Hall said.
After a month of wandering around Tibet, during which they had their cameras stolen and failed to obtain enough supplies to reach their goal, Mallory and his team had to resort to using their own resources to get to the mountains’ high peaks.
“They had to make their own way, they had their own supplies, they had their own tents, they had their own water, they had their own cooking pots, and they had their own tents, they had their own food. The first day that they actually ate, it was on the first day,” said Dr. Hall, a lecturer of paleo
