View from the Top of the World

In 1921, a thirty-five-year-old British boarding school teacher named George Mallory decided that he wanted a change in scenery, so he joined an expedition to be among the first people in recorded history to see what the earth looks like from nearly six miles above sea level.

Basically, given the option of climbing the world’s tallest mountain or educating the insufferable children of the rich, Mallory chose the former. Keep in mind, the summit of Mount Everest is about ten thousand feet higher than even the most technologically advanced airplanes at that time could fly, so this guy makes Mr. Keating's challenge in Dead Poets Society to "Seize the day" seem like empty rhetoric. While Robin Williams's character stood on his desk, Mallory had his sights on winning the ultimate game of King-of-the-Mountain. When asked why he wanted to climb it, Mallory also set a new standard in cockiness when he replied, “Because it is there." Incidentally, that happens to be the same reason why I have ever set foot in a Radio Shack.

As the climbing team ascended the mountain, Mallory himself quickly ascended to the role of lead climber, discovering previously unknown routes through some of the most unforgiving terrain in the world. As a guy who "knows words real good," he was also tasked with writing about their journey. On their first attempt, they made it about 23,000 feet before turning back, only to try again the following spring. This time around, Mallory and seven Sherpas were caught in an avalanche, and the English teacher was the only one who survived. Two years later, he returned to Everest, frostbitten middle fingers a-flailing.

Mallory was joined in his third and final attempt to conquer the world's tallest mountain (above sea level) in 1924 by a twenty-two-year-old undergraduate student named Andrew “Sandy” Irvine. No stranger to cockiness himself, he had been invited based upon the first impression of another member of the expedition, who had climbed a three thousand foot mountain by foot only to discover Irvine at the summit, sitting on his goddamn motorcycle. The young man also proved to be skilled at MacGyvering their oxygen tanks, although their use was actually controversial at the time. A lot of people saw dependence upon breathing apparatus as cheating... kind of like wearing football helmets or boxing gloves. Real men didn't need such amenities.

George Mallory himself was against using the tanks, but when he realized that it would be impossible to reach the summit without being able to breathe properly, he and Irvine pressed on while the others stayed behind. Mallory needed Irvine’s expertise with the tanks and Irvine apparently believed himself to possess all of the powers of invincibility that come with being a college student. Another member of the expedition let them borrow a camera so that they could take the world's greatest selfie when they reached the peak. From a distance, Mallory and Irvine were last spotted on their way up the final pyramid, where it appeared as though they were making steady progress. Then some light clouds rolled in and the two men were never seen alive again.

Mallory’s frozen body was discovered seventy-five years later, with a number of clues suggesting that he had fallen on his way back down from the summit. In other words, there is a good chance that Mallory and Irvine were in fact the first people to climb Mount Everest. They just didn’t make it back down. Nearly a century later, Irvine’s body has still not been found, nor was the camera that may contain the cryogenically preserved photograph that could settle this once and for all. Of course, over the years, the near impossibility of finding it hasn't prevented fearless explorers from setting out in search of this artifact. Why?

Because it is there.