Noel Odell

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Noel Ewart Odell (born December 25, 1890 - February 21, 1987 ) was a British geologist and mountaineer . He was an accomplished rock climber who had been known for his solo ascent of the tennis shoe in Snowdonia since 1919 .

During the British Mount Everest Expedition in 1924 , Odell was the organizer of the Everest expedition in charge of the oxygen supply , during which George Mallory and Andrew Irvine disappeared while attempting a summit.

It was impressive that Odell spent two weeks above 7,000 meters without breathing oxygen-enriched air and reached an altitude of over 8,500 meters: later an essential motive for Reinhold Messner , on Everest twice (1978, 1980) without additional oxygen wanting to go to the summit.

On June 8, 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine attempted to climb the summit via the North Col route. Odell, who followed the ascent with binoculars, reported that he had seen them climb one of the steeper escarpments of the northeast ridge at 12:50 pm and that they had been "going strongly for the top." "). They vanished from his gaze in a gathering cloud of mist. However, there is no evidence afterwards that they reached the top. They never returned to one of the high camps and died somewhere high up on the mountain. Odell was the last person to see the two of them alive.

After her disappearance, Odell climbed the north face of Everest to over 8,500 meters in search of the two climbers.

Odell played the leading role in all investigations into the disappearance of the two mountaineers. Later he was unsure whether he had seen them on the difficult Second Step at 8,610 meters, the easier First Step at around 8,500 meters, or even on the equally less demanding Third Step at around 8,700 meters. In the latter case, the two would not have been 200 meters below the summit. In the case of the First Step, however, they would have been way too late to have reached the summit in daylight.

Odell was all his life convinced that Mallory most likely made the climb to the summit and thus stood on the highest point on earth before the officially recognized first ascent in 1953 by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary .

In 1936 Noel Odell reached the summit of Nanda Devi with Bill Tilman , which was the highest mountain climbed at that time and until 1950. Odell returned to Everest in 1938 under the direction of Bill Tilman.

Noel Odell had a colorful career outside of mountaineering. He served with the Royal Engineers in both world wars , teaching geology at several universities including Harvard and Cambridge . He is also the namesake for the Odell Glacier in Antarctica.

In 1944 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh .

literature

  • EFNorton et al .: To the top of Mount Everest. The ascent in 1924 . German Trans. V. Rickmer Rickmers, SVB Sportverlag Berlin 2000
  • George Ingle Finch: The Battle for Mount Everest . German Brockhaus edition, Leipzig, 1925.
  • Geoff Tibballs: The long way to the summit . Gondrom, Bindach, 1998, ISBN 3-8112-1673-2 .
  • Peter Firstbrook: Lost on Mount Everest . German 1999 edition Nuremberg, Burgschmiet Verlag, ISBN 3-933731-20-8 .
  • STERN 20/1999: Mount Everest myth. Was he the first? . Pp. 136-142, Hamburg 1999.
  • J. Hemmleb, L. Johnson, E. Simonson: The Spirits of Mount Everest. Finding Mallory and Irvine . Sierra, Frederking & Thaler, Munich, 2001, ISBN 3-89405-108-6 .
  • National Geographic Magazine Archive: Everest. The great reports . NG Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-934385-97-4 .
  • Peter Gillmann: Everest. 80 years of triumphs and tragedies . German Edition 2004 Bruckmann, Munich, ISBN 3-86517-012-9 .
  • Reinhold Messner: Everest Solo. The glass horizon . Fischer, Frankfurt, 2001, ISBN 3-596-15092-2 .
  • Conrad Anker, David Roberts: Lost on Mount Everest. On the trail of George Mallory's secret . Diana, Munich, Zurich, 2000, ISBN 3-453-17711-8 .
  • Tom Hoelzel, Audrey Salkeld: In the death zone. The secret of George Mallory and the first ascent of Mount Everest . German First edition Goldmann, Munich, 1999, ISBN 3-442-15076-0 .
  • Edward F. Norton, Noel E. Odell: I last saw Mallory. The original reports of the expedition members from 1924 . Econ Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich, 2000, ISBN 3-612-26744-2 .
  • David Breashears, Audrey Salkeld: Mallory's Secret. What happened on Mount Everest? . Steiger, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-89652-220-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF file) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed March 26, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Odell, Noel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Odell, Noel Ewart
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British geologist and climber
DATE OF BIRTH December 25, 1890
DATE OF DEATH February 21, 1987