Word: climber
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...memorable by Mallory's classic retort when asked why he wanted to risk all to climb the far-off mountain: "Because it is there." But did he make it to the top? Or did he falter just short of his goal? Last week an expedition led by veteran American climber Eric Simonson, retracing Mallory's old route on Everest's Tibetan, or north, face, seemed to be tantalizingly close to some definitive answers...
...remnants of his tattered cotton, wool and tweed climbing clothes, the ragged collars stitched with markings G.L. MALLORY. He had apparently tumbled wildly down the slope, tried to arrest his descent with his hands, then died shortly thereafter--"still fighting, still gripping the rock to the end," says climber Jake Norton...
Mallory's leathery skin gleamed so brightly that climber Dave Hahn likened it to "a Greek or Roman marble statue." Mallory's face was the only part of his body unexposed. He had a broken right arm, trauma to his shoulder and fractures of both leg bones just above the top of his single surviving hobnail boot. Even so, the climbers were awed by the physical specimen before them. "We each noticed the muscular arms of the climber," says Hahn. "After all these years, George Mallory still cut an impressive figure...
Aided by a spring with unusually light snow, the team located him just above the ridge crest where an ice ax--presumed to be Irvine's--was recovered in 1933 and on a shelf where a Chinese climber reporting seeing the remains of an "old English dead" in 1975. When the climbers reached under the body, they found letters from Mallory's family, poignantly close to his heart, as well as a broken altimeter, a pocket knife, monogrammed handkerchiefs and other personal items. Intriguingly, a pair of sun goggles found in a pocket suggest that he was trying to descend...
Before the recent rise of so-called adventure expeditions, where you or I could pay thousands of dollars to be led to the top by an experienced climber, it was a fight of sheer willpower and a certain degree of obsession which brought climbers to the mountain. For many now, though, the goal is not the experience but the outcome--to be able to say, "I stood at the top of Everest." The danger remains, however. It's true that the process has been streamlined and improved, but the climb remains a kind of fatal tourist attraction without the purity...