THE NOEL ODELL COLLECTION: THE NOEL ODELL COLLECTION: Profe...

Estimate

£1,500 - £2,000

THE NOEL ODELL COLLECTION:

THE NOEL ODELL COLLECTION: Professor Noel Odell rose to lofty heights in academia and exploration. A career in geology, both commercial and academia, enabled NEO to combine business and pleasure. This happy union carried him to mountains and polar regions all over the world, where he was able to fully engage with the ethos of an expedition and along the way carry out many practical scientific activities integral to his work as a geologist. Odell is remembered above all as the last man to have seen Andrew Irvine and George Mallory alive, as they were making dogged but delayed progress towards a potential first ascent of Mount Everest in 1924, 29 years before Hillary. He was an oxygen officer on this Everest expedition and spent two weeks living above 23,000 feet (7,000 m), and twice climbed to 26,800 feet (8,200 m) and higher, all without supplemental oxygen.

He took part in a trilogy of Himalayan expeditions, being a member of the 1924 Everest Expedition under Colonel E.F. Norton, Bill Tilman’s 1936 Nanda Devi Expedition and again under the leadership of Bill Tilman's 1938 Everest Expedition. The stories of these are well documented in Norton’s Fight for Everest, H.W. Tilman’s The Ascent of Nanda Devi and H.W. Tilman’s Mount Everest 1938 respectively. The collection is sold via direct descent.

Exceptional original photograph taken by Noel on the famous 1924 Mallory and Irvine Expedition to Mt Everest, titled Pilgrims to the Great Goddess Everest 1924 it shows members of the expedition on their trekking upwards to Everest. This tantalising final glimpse is eloquently described by Odell in the chapter ‘Mallory and Irvine’s Attempt’ in Norton’s fine book The Fight for Everest. His efforts to reach them over the next 48 hours, including two solo climbs above 27,000 feet in unknown terrain, are as much part of Everest legend as the mystery of that fateful day. What has only recently been appreciated, excluding climbers who have been along this route, are Odell’s valiant efforts to support and possibly rescue the two missing mountaineers: climbing twice from Camp IV to Camp VI and back through bursts of viciously biting winds and blizzards - “very bitter W. wind of great force all day” (Odell’s diary 10^th June, 1924). Finding the weighty oxygen apparatus more of an encumbrance and of little benefit, he barely used any of the “English air”, as he was by then well acclimatised and in supreme physical condition. Balancing the prudence and caution necessary at every step to keep himself safe with the urgency of finding his missing friends must have been a challenge. In spite of this NEO showed huge respect and compassion for the porters in his care by sending them down to the relative safety of the lower camps to minimise their exposure to further danger. On reaching Camp VI for the second time and finding no traces of Mallory and Irvine, he left some provisions and closed the tent before returning on his own down the mountain. Much speculation continues about what happened on 8^th June, 1924, even after Mallory’s resting place was discovered 75 years later. Mallory achieved the dubious honour of being the first person to lose his life in what is now referred to as the ‘Death Zone’. In the words written by the man who was there on the spot…………… “………..I glanced up at the mighty summit above me, which ever and anon deigned to reveal its cloud-wreathed features. It seemed to look down with cold indifference on me, mere puny man, and howl derision in wind-gusts at my petition to yield up its secret – this mystery of my friends.” Exhibition label on reverse in NEO’s hand for the Exhibition of Alpine Photographers. 27cm x 48cm.