1924 Everest Expedition Photos Now Online

Though Bentley Beetham is hardly the best-known member of the ill-fated 1924 Everest expedition, the schoolmaster and naturalist from North England did contribute greatly to mountaineering history - he took pictures. Beetham shot dozens of photographs during the trek to base camp - giggling children in traditional dress on the border of India and Bhutan; the expedition group in front of their tents, smiling in their woolens and hobnailed boots; Climbing leader George Mallory, standing contemplatively in the dusty streets of Phari, Tibet, two months before his death on the North Col.

Now, the Bentley Beetham Collection is available online - some pictures are up now, others will be added over the next few weeks. The site also contains strategic planning documents, maps and other information from the expedition, in addition to a number of photos from Beetham's other climbing trips in the Tatra, Alps, and Atlas mountains. Though he returned to teaching natural history after the Everest expedition, Beetham was ever the mountaineer, climbing and trekking until suffering an ankle injury in his early seventies.

--Emily Matchar