In October 2005, Lancaster University Management School published a report on the analysis of the clothing Mallory wore on his 1924 Everest Expedition. The results were presented at the Pertex Clothing for Extremes Conference, held at the Rheged Discovery Centre.

"Equipped with meager equipment and scanty knowledge of high altitude climbing…"*. is how the Mallory Expedition is described in "The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine" by Tom Holzel & Audrey Salkeld*.

The authors state:

"They [Mallory's team] were a raggle-taggle crew…. To keep out the cold and the constant wind of Tibet, they brought their old tweeds and greatcoats, their woolly scarves and cardigans. They brought stockings knitted by their wives and their Alpine climbing boots. Surprisingly, there seems little consideration given to clothing at all, if we are to judge by extant correspondence between the organizers and team members, who were simply given an allowance to kit themselves out."**

The discovery of Mallory's body by a team led by Eric Simonson therefore opened the door to some unique and priceless research.

The results of a three-year project led by IEED's Professor Mary Rose to create testable replicas of George Mallory's climbing gear - worn on his ill-fated 1924 Everest expedition - show that Mallory was equipped with lighter, freer moving clothing and footwear than current day climbers. In fact Mallory was wearing clothing that was some 20% lighter than modern mountaineering gear.

The Universities of Lancaster, Southampton, Leeds and Derby combined their expertise to assess the artefacts and clothing found with Mallory's body on Everest. Replica clothing, worn in the tests by Mountaineer Graham Hoyland, proved conclusively that the clothing George Mallory wore for climbing Everest was more than adequate for the elements. Mallory's total clothing weight on Everest in 1924 was 4.160g, compared with the modern equivalent worn by Alan Hinkes, on Everest in 2005 which weighed 4.825g .

Mallory wore a very effective system of layers that allowed freedom of movement. Analysis of Mallory's gear proves that there was nothing about either the clothing or footwear that would have in itself prevented a successful ascent of Everest. In fact the lightweight nature of the clothing was ideally suited and would have given a distinct advantage to Mallory.

WOOL!