The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest

Follow an expedition team as they retrace the steps of legendary British explorer George Mallory in his perilous quest to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

SYNOPSIS

Dressed in gabardine and wearing hobnailed boots, British explorer George Mallory risked everything in pursuit of his dream of reaching the top of Mount Everest. He was seen alive just 800 feet below the mountain’s peak, before the clouds closed in and he disappeared into legend – Mallory’s death stunned the world in 1924. In 1999, renowned mountaineer Conrad Anker discovered Mallory’s frozen body high in the mountain’s “death zone” and his life became intertwined with Mallory’s story. Remarkably all Mallory’s belongings were found intact on his body. The only think missing was a photograph of his wife, Ruth, which Mallory had promised to place on the summit if he succeeded. Haunted by the story, Anker returns to Everest to solve the enduring mystery surrounding the ill-fated expedition and the disappearance of one of the world’s greatest explorers.

The Wildest Dream is a story of obsession and breathtaking adventure, told through the explorer’s poignant and evocative correspondence with his wife using previously unseen photos and archive footage. Anker and British rock-climbing prodigy Leo Houlding embark on their own quest to conquer Everest following the original North East Ridge route taken by Mallory in 1924 to discover whether George Mallory and fellow climber Andrew “Sandy” Irvine could have reached the summit. In their attempt they must free climb the infamous Second Step, a 90 foot sheer rock wall, just as Mallory and Irvine would have had to do eight decades earlier.