Word: everest
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...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 of Mallory's attitude...
...agree with the younger Mallory in his reluctance to have the hunt for the "true" first summit become so central a component of Everest lore. It's understandable that modern climbers are curious about the men who tried to reach the top of the tallest mountain in nothing but tweeds and spiked shoes with only the most basic oxygen containers to help them, but to emphasize the success or failure of Mallory's expedition is to deflect the focus from what he has been most remembered for over the last several decades...
When asked why he wanted to climb Everest, Mallory replied with the simple answer, "Because it's there." Though Hillary will always have the distinction of being the first to make it up and down the mountain alive (Hillary and Norgay never said which of the two of them actually got there first), Mallory should be remembered for the importance of his philosophy...
...viewed Everest as a challenge worth taking for challenge's sake alone. In that brief answer, Mallory focused his energy on the job itself--the desire actually to climb, not to have climbed or to have returned victorious, but to climb and so conquer the mountain step by step. The pleasure and the motivation was in the action, not in the outcome--or expected outcome. Perhaps that is what John Mallory meant by requesting that the body remain undisturbed--his father died in the process of taking the challenge he had chosen. Whether he had completed it or failed...
...wonder whether the hype surrounding Everest has been ultimately detrimental to the original purpose of taking the climbing challenge as articulated so eloquently by Mallory. The mountainzone Web site makes for great reading as the current climbers dispatch their latest findings, but there is a commercial quality to it which is disturbing. Those of us interested in the stories of those who have attempted (successfully or unsuccessfully) to climb Everest are fascinated by the idea of the physical and mental strength required to attempt the summit...