Understanding George Mallory: "Because It's There"

In May of 1999, when George Mallory's body was discovered frozen into Mt. Everest, the skin of his back gleaming in the sun like alabaster seventy some years after he died, I wrote a poem. I've lost the poem but I remember posting it at www.mountainzone.com, where it was absorbed into the ethers.

I had been feverishly following the Mallory-Irvine Research Expedition online, buying my kids t-shirts in support of the search, and listening with them to the reports broadcast by Eric Simonson from Everest. Conrad Anker made the find, later describing it this way:

" I saw a patch of white, that was whiter than the rock that was around and also whiter and whiter than the snow that was there, and went there. And within a few minutes of being there realized that this wasn't a body from recent times; it was something that had been there for quite awhile..... He seemed to be at peace with himself. He had been there quite awhile, and there was something very, very subtle about his being there, not really scary and violent. "


The photographs of the body were beyond thrilling to me. There's no way to express the poignancy of the image. Mallory's arms reaching upwards, his bleached white body melded to the mountain forever, his earnestness so clear even in death, trailing bits and pieces of wool and cotton clothing still, even a clearly legible name-tag sewn lovingly into his shirt. The thought that his camera might be found, and a statement by the Kodak company that they very well might be able to develop the film, was truly provocative.

How does someone tackle the likes of Mt. Everest, the high odds of death, the altitude, the weather, the strain? What shadows and forces would drive a man from the safe haven of life in Cambridge to the highest and most difficult peak in the world? He and his friend Andrew Irvine succumbed while struggling together to this peak, casting logic aside, the bond between them unfathomable to those of us ordinary mortals who lust only for what's close at hand.

Mallory was famous for responding to a reporter who asked why he wanted to climb Everest: "Because it's there." Reporters continued to ask him variations of the question again and again. "It's of no use", he said. "If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life".

So to the nice woman who recently asked me what I would take along to India next week to occupy myself, and why in the world I would go to Leh ( a mere 11,000 feet) and the Tibetan plateau, I defer to Mallory, who found it hard to explain, but shut them up by saying "Because it's there."

Sir Edmund Hillary Sets Sail

The photographs say it all, at least all that most of us can ever know. Out of all the people who have ever lived on this earth, Sir Edmund Hillary, who died this week, holds a unique spot at the top of the earth's highest mountain. He and Tenzing Norgay, Sherpa guide, conquered Mount Everest in 1953. Imagine climbing the world's highest peak without modern technology! Cotton and wool to warm you, one other human being to talk to, no outside connections - just your stamina, courage, and determination to push you onward against all odds. Most of us couldn't even walk uptown with those resources.

After the high point, Sir Edmund devoted his life to continued exploration, development,and charitable work, doing his New Zealand homeland proud. Before becoming one of the world's greatest adventurers, he had lived the contemplative life of a beekeeper. Humble and self-effacing, he parlayed his fame into far-reaching contributions to the Nepalese by establishing the Himalayan Trust foundation, protections for the sherpas and their families, making provisions for schools, hospitals and orphanages. My daughter visited the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling, India, last year, and could feel the impact of Norgay and Hillary's work there. Additionally, Hillary is responsible for influencing tremendous environmental improvements. He helped commandeer the clean-up of Everest after it became littered with the refuse of careless modern adventurers.

Sir Edmund Hillary's first wife and a daughter died in a plane crash in Nepal in 1975. He leaves a wife June, and two children and six grandchildren who are involved in continuing his legacy. His son Peter and the son of Tenzing Norgay, Jamling, climbed Everest together in 2003 to honor their fathers.

Just last year, at the age of 87, Sir Edmund journeyed to Antarctica to revisit the continent he traversed in 1958. A photo of Sir Edmund sitting in the preserved hut of the explorer Robert Scott shows him, a massive man, 6'5", astoundingly strong in old age.

At various times over the years, I have imposed my Mt. Everest obsession on my family. It started in childhood when I would spend hours with my grandparents' copies of National Geographic. I felt drawn to the topography and the people from that part of the world, and in particular to the faces of men who had conquered or attempted to conquer one of the globe's most dangerous challenges. When the search for George Mallory's camera was going on in 1999, we followed the daily broadcasts from the mountain by Eric Simonson and his crew at www.mountainzone.com. I bought the expedition t-shirts and imagined awakening in others a beneficient consciousness of the mountain.

Now with Sir Edmund gone, a rare species of man may be gone forever. It can't happen again, that a man will stare at earth's highest mountain, where noone known has gone before, and tackle it victoriously. The mystery of why he did it can't be discerned for sure, but it's a kind of complexity, strength and greatness that show in a man's face and demeanor. I can see it in the photos. Can you?