Audrey Salkeld, mountaineering writer who became an authority on the fateful final Everest climb of Mallory and Irvine – obituary

Audrey Salkeld, who has died aged 87, was a mountaineering author, researcher, scriptwriter and translator whose Everest research unlocked the story of George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine’s fatal last climb, and the early British attempts of the 1920s.

It was she who rediscovered the 56 boxes of Everest files held in the archives of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS). Her painstaking research, which she readily shared, led to a new understanding of those expeditions, ultimately paving the way for other writers to pick up the story following the renewed interest that came after the discovery of Mallory’s body in 1999.

Audrey Salkeld’s rise to become Everest’s pre-eminent historian evolved from a column, “People”, that she wrote in the 1970s for the magazine Mountain, then essential reading for climbers. Her interviews with British climbing’s larger-than-life personalities were a light distraction from reports of new routes and hard climbs.

She was first drawn to the early British attempts on Everest following an article in the magazine that controversially suggested that Mallory had pushed on alone on his fateful climb in 1924.

This was Mallory’s third and final attempt on the mountain. He and Sandy Irvine were last spotted alive by Noel Odell, in a brief parting of the clouds, going strong for the summit near the notorious second step. The question of whether they made the summit has fascinated the public ever since.

Audrey Salkeld spent many hours going through the archives at the RGS and Alpine Club, but she also sought out surviving members of the expedition, including Odell, with whom she enjoyed a long friendship, and the expedition filmmaker Captain John Noel, who was able to deliver his lantern-slide presentation without notes despite being in his 90s.

Her work culminated in 1986 with an attempt to find evidence of Mallory on the mountain with Tom Holzel, the author of the original article. While too much snow meant that the search for evidence was fruitless, the partnership did produce the book The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine. Audrey Salkeld was not part of the climbing party, but was extremely proud to have got to the North Col at 23,000ft at the age of 50.

When Mallory’s body was eventually discovered in 1999 she found herself much in demand by other historians and writers, and Audrey Salkeld was noted for her generosity in sharing information and helping others to navigate their way around the archives, knowing them better than anyone else. In his acknowledgements the Mallory biographer Peter Gillman described her as “the most assiduous Everest researcher of all”, while another writer recalled: “She knew which rabbit hole to go down to find the facts.”

As to that enduring question of whether Mallory and Irvine made it, Audrey Salkeld felt that as a historian she had to go with the evidence, and that was inconclusive. But the romantic in her always wanted to believe they succeeded.

Audrey Mary West was born on March 11 1936 and grew up in Worcester Park in the south-west London suburbs, the daughter of a builder. She was educated at Nonsuch High School for Girls in Cheam, Surrey, but lack of funds precluded further education. Instead she went to secretarial college and began her working life as a secretary for the Iraq Petroleum Company in the 1950s.

Her entrée into the climbing world came about via an evening class: her tutor was a member of a group called the Tuesday Climbing Club and Audrey Salkeld agreed to act as their secretary. That led to her producing a quarterly newsletter, Arete, which led to her being invited to write for Mountain, edited by Ken Wilson.

She also ghosted two books and wrote a script for a 10-part TV series, Pushing the Limits, for the filmmaker Leo Dickinson. Together they worked on Eiger Solo, which followed the Welshman Eric Jones up the mountain’s notorious North Face at the age of 44.

For this she succeeded in reuniting the Face’s original climbers from 1938, Anderl Heckmair and Heinrich Harrer, and acted as translator when Dickinson asked Heckmair about meeting Hitler. Heckmair replied that it would not have been a good career move to turn down the invitation. Dickinson also introduced Audrey Salkeld to skydiving for a film on that subject. “She loved it,” he recalled.

She also collaborated with the American climber and filmmaker David Breashears for his IMAX film on Everest in 1996 and then on Kilimanjaro (19,340ft) in 2001. By this stage she was in her early sixties and was very pleased to have made it safely up and down the mountain.

She therefore took it well when Breashears broke it to her that the film was not good enough and that they would have to go back up. Two months later she climbed it for a second time.

The project demanded that Audrey Salkeld familiarise herself not only with the mountaineering history but also the local geography and fauna. It resulted in a coffee-table book they wrote for National Geographic, Kilimanjaro: To the Roof of Africa in 2002.

Such was Audrey Salkeld’s interest in mountaineering that she learnt German so that she could bring the works of the famed mountaineers Reinhold Messner and Kurt Diemberger to English readers. She also wrote a biography of Hitler’s favourite filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, who made climbing films before achieving fame for her propaganda film about the 1936 Olympics.

Although more accomplished translators existed, Audrey Salkeld’s skill lay in being able to understand the mind of the climber and translate that into language that climbers recognised. Messner said she was the only person he wanted to translate his books.

Her other works included One Step in the Clouds: An Omnibus of Mountaineering Novels and Short Stories; People in High Places: Approaches to Tibet; The Best Writing and Pictures from Seventy Years of Human Endeavour (edited with Peter Gillman); and a book for children, Climbing Everest: Tales of Triumph and Tragedy on the World’s Highest Mountain.

She received the highest prizes for her works, including the Grand Prize twice at the Banff Mountain Literature Festival and the Boardman Tasker Award. Fiercely bright and knowledgeable, she was none the less content to stay in the background and would only gently correct anyone who got their facts wrong.

A keen puzzler, Audrey Salkeld would pack up to 50 crosswords on her expeditions, as well as supplies of Bovril and Extra Strong Mints. She loved the mountains and she lived variously in the Lake District and the West Country.

She married the architect Peter Salkeld in 1963; her true feelings for him became apparent after he fell on the Welsh mountain Tryfan and was initially reported as dead. He predeceased her in 2011 and she is survived by their three sons.

Audrey Salkeld, born March 11 1936, died October 11 2023