I’ve seen pictures of intact bodies as well as pictures of bodies that have been reduced to bones. I guess I’m a bit surprised about the latter, because bacteria is necessary for decomposition and Everest is inhospitable to bacteria, is it not? I’ve also seen conflicting pictures of George Mallory’s corpse, one in which his body is intact and one (that’s presumably him) that shows a skeletonized face. Also, for the people who are intact, just how intact are they? The pictures that I’ve seen of intact Everest bodies don’t show the face, so I’m wondering if they would look exactly like they did in life, or would their faces be black from frostbite or something?
Also, in one of the documentaries about Otzi the iceman, one of the men who examined his body was saying how usually bodies in those conditions develop adipocere. But I don’t quite understand that…if adipocere is formed by bacterial hydrolysis, how could it form on a body that’s encased in ice?
One thing I’ve learned from having a microbiologist as a graduate advisor is that there are damn few places on Earth that are “inhospitable to bacteria.” Bacteria, archaea, and to a lesser extent protozoans live everywhere from miles under the earths crust, to the top of Mt. Everest. They’d take much longer to decompose a corpse there due to the low temperatures and dry conditions, but give them time. While usually it’s freezing, the strong sunlight at such high altitudes can actually radiantly heat the surface of the mountain, and any bodies there as well.
I seem to remember the pictures of Mallory’s body as showing a very well-preserved body with it’s arms and back exposed to the wind, the skin looking almost like ivory, but the head seemed to be nonexistent, as if it had been crushed by a rock or simply worn away by the wind, as his clothes had been.
Here are some (possibly graphic) pictures of bodies on Everest, including Mallory’s. To me it looks like erosive processes (i.e. a combination of strong wind, dust, and ice) are at play more than biological ones. Note that you can see how in many instances the softer clothing is literally ripped to shreds, while the hard, frozen body is relatively intact.
Saponification requires some warmth, some moisture, and a fair amount of no oxygen. Otzi apparently died in winter and likely freeze-dried while exposed to a fairly oxygen-rich atmosphere, so the anaerobic processes, like saponification and putrefaction, didn’t get a chance to affect his corpse significantly. So, we know why very little adipocere developed in him. I assume that the reason adipocere is common in glacial victims is that most do not die on the surface, like Otzi, but fall into crevasses, where their bodies are kept moist.
Well Mallory’s head was buried in rocks if that makes a difference. (link–warning graphic) So his face was not exposed in the way you describe.
The team that recovered Mallory’s body in 1996 mentioned that it was a relatively dry year much like 1924(?) when he perished. The point made was that it had probably not been discovered earlier due to spending much of its time covered in snow.
Another point made was that those parts that were more exposed (buttocks and part of leg) were eaten by birdlife. Bacteria and desiccation aren’t the only things going on up there.
(Sorry, no cite immediately at hand. My library is at home.)
did they leave Mallory up there? the accounts I’ve read indicate that they must have moved him somewhat, to find the golfball sized hole in his forehead. did they have any real autopsy, or simply take pictures that they brought down for a pathologist to look at?
Wow, look how the previously covered skin does look like ivory, the weathered parts [hands and the visible part of the head] are browner and more weathered looking.
I do realize it is more or less impossible to schlep a body down, I find it sort of disrespectful that they use some bodies as landmarks. It is a pity that you couldn’t just sort of dig a body out, put it into one of those metal sled rescue carriers, foam it up with some sort of foam and let it sled itself down the mountain [and everybody who comes across it on their way up dislodge it and give it a downward shove until the body is finally off the dangerous part and can be hauled out]
Another thing - bacteria aren’t the only thing that would strip a corpse down to bones, lots of other animals would do it - are there no rodents or small carnivores in the Himalayas? Hell, I’d think the mess Everest climbers leave behind would attract the things more, personally.
Hmm, that article may need to be reconciled with this section of the Mt. Everest article, which says that choughs have been seen scavenging from the highest camp at the South Col at almost 8,000 meters.
One other thing, though, is that into the 90’s there were plenty of bodies that weren’t at especially high elevation. It used to be that anywhere past base camp (5400m) there was no body recovery and plenty of people have died at lower elevations over the years. I saw a slideshow from a guy who was in an outdoors group I belonged to who summited during the disastrous '96 season. The spot he saw the most bodies then was on the path between Camp I (6000m) at the top of the Khumbu icefall and Camp II (6500m) at the base of the Lhotse Face. That section of the climb isn’t particularly treacherous, which is part of why bodies just sat there instead of disappearing into the ice or getting swept away. That also meant that a lot more people hiked past them and they were in more shutterbuggy moods than up in the death zone, so most of the older body pictures are from those lower elevations, and those bodies did tend to be skeletonized.
Since then, the authorities have become more serious about cleaning up the mountain and, perhaps more importantly, they can safely get helicopters above the icefall now. So they’ve packed out all the old bodies from the stretch between Camp I and II, and because they can now usually rescue people in that section there aren’t new ones being made. Up in the death zone past Camp IV is pretty much the only place where dead climbers are still just lying along the route, and they’re more likely to be mummified.
