CONRAD ANKER, RENOWNED MOUNTAIN CLIMBER,
TO SPEAK AT MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE OCTOBER 3

SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. -- In 1924, George Leigh Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine set off for the summit of Mount Everest and vanished into mountaineering lore. On May 1, 1999, Conrad Anker discovered Mallory’s body frozen into the mountain’s slope, arms above his head and “fingers … planted in the scree, as if he’d tried to self-arrest with them.” What he did not find was Mallory’s camera, one item that might prove whether Mallory reached the peak 29 years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.

Anker will speak about his theory about his role in the discovery of Mallory’s body, his theory about the climber’s fate, and other subjects on Thursday, October 3, at 7 p.m. in Gamble Auditorium. Anker’s talk, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Center for Environmental Literacy as part of the Weissman Center for Leadership’s Destinations: New Meanings of Travel series.

Along with Thomas Millette, associate professor of geography at Mount Holyoke and director of the Center for Environmental Literacy, Anker will participate in a wide-ranging discussion that will explore Anker’s climbing motivations and adventures, his Buddhist outlook on life, and his environmental ethic. A question-and-answer period will follow.

Anker has circled the globe in search of the most technically challenging climbing terrain on Earth. From the Himalayas to Alaska to Antarctica and Patagonia, Anker has toiled his way not only to the top of the world’s highest peaks, but to the pinnacle of the climbing elite; few in this tightly knit subculture would dispute that he is the most versatile and accomplished climber of his time.

Anker also took part in two documentary films that traced the adventures of another nineteenth-century adventurer, Sir Ernest Shackleton, whose epic journey to Antarctica in 1914 has been the subject of many retrospectives.