Edward F. Norton: the pioneer of high altitude mountaineering.

Today the name of Edward Norton is often associated with Fight Club’s leading actor. What if I told you that 100 years ago, this name would go down in mountaineering history. The name of one that could very well brag about being as badass as Tyler Durden: Edward F. Norton.

In 1924, after a reconnaissance trip to Everest (8848m) in 1921 and the failure of the first expedition aiming at summitting it in ‘22, the English went back in 1924 with a team made of people whose name would ring a bell in mountaineering fans’ mind: charismatic G. Mallory, and young A. Irvine, who filled a gap in mountaineering with his handyman skills. Irvine would patch the team’s failing oxygen bottles himself, allowing him and Mallory to break a new altitude record. Unfortunately, they would disappear in the blizzard after being seen for the last time at ~8600m. Mallory’s body was discovered in 1999 but Irvine, still nowhere to be found, took down with him his camera, and inside it the secret of their possible (yet unlikely) summit.

That’s the part of the story often recalled, to the detriment of another feat, way less known & as amazing. Few days before this tragic event, army officer & alpinist Edward Norton reached 8500 meters without supplementary oxygen. For want of successfully reaching the summit, he breaks the altitude record without O2, thus demonstrating once and for all that Humans, if unable to live above 8000m (the so called “death zone”), could potentially survive long enough to summit Everest.

Norton’s feat would only be surpassed 54 years later, when R. Messner & P. Habeler made the first ascent of Everest without artificial O2. Even then, these two feats are barely comparable: if you read my other mountaineering posts, you know that reaching such altitudes without O2 is a masterstroke in itself, but doing so while wearing felt jackets as an outer layer, with climbing skills as limited as of 1924, is unbelievable.

Norton is one of those unknown pioneers who advanced Humanity in its quest to push boundaries. If today his feat was repeated by at least a few hundred peoples, he’s the one to whom he owe for proving to the world that it was possible.