Mystery of Everest explorer found 100 years after going missing solved story of how he died

The remains of an explorer from 1924 who went missing while climbing Mount Everest were eventually found through a recent National Geographic expedition, putting to bed a 100-year mystery about his whereabouts.

George Mallory and Andrew 'Sandy' Irvine attempted to climb Earth's highest mountain above sea level over 100 years ago as they looked to become the first explorers to reach the summit; a whopping 29 years before Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary achieved the feat in 1953.

There's been much dispute about whether Mallory and Irvine actually made it to the top of Mount Everest as their bodies were not discovered until decades afterward.

It took years to find Mallory;s remains, which were located back in 1999. But there was no sign of his travelling partner Irvine, and there was still no definitive answer about whether they topped the mountain.

Everest (Getty Stock Images)

26 years later and a National Geographic documentary team found what they believed to be Irvine's climbing boot.

It was an incredible shock to photographer and director Jimmy Chin, who couldn't believe what he was reading when he made out the climber's initials on the boot.

“I lifted up the sock and there’s a red label that has A.C. IRVINE stitched into it,” he explained to National Geographic.

Chin found the footwear on the Central Rongbuk Glacier, under the north face of Mount Everest.

The team were dumbstruck at finding a clue from a 100-year mystery and they celebrated accordingly on top of one of the biggest mountains in the world.

It was a mystery for over a century (Capt. J.B. Noel/Royal Geographical Society via Getty Images)

“We were all literally running in circles dropping F-bombs,” said Chin.

Irvine and Mallory were last seen on June 8, 1924 and this latest breakthrough could be the catalyst to finding an answer once and for all and Chin certainly hopes that's the case.

“When someone disappears and there’s no evidence of what happened to them, it can be really challenging for families," he said.

"And just having some definitive information of where Sandy might’ve ended up is certainly [helpful], and also a big clue for the climbing community as to what happened.”

The discovery has been warmly received by the family of Irvine, which includes his great niece Julie Summers who previously wrote a 2001 autobiography about her great uncle's expeditions and the unsolved mystery of his death.

Sandy Irvine's partial remains were discovered (Mount Everest Foundation/Royal Geographical Society via Getty Images)

"It tells the whole story about what probably happened," Summers said.

"I'm regarding it as something close to closure.”

We may never know whether the two men made history on Mount Everest, but this latest breakthrough has provided some much-needed answers after a century.