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| thepeacekeeper | Posted
on 05-May-03 03:45 PM
Because It's Still There Climbs of Mount Everest have become common, but the mountain retains its allure -- and its danger By Richard Hoffer There is not much mystery to it any longer. Mount Everest, undefeated for most of its geological life, is these days a laydown. On a single spring day in 2001, 89 people reached the peak, jostling together in the thin air at one of adventure's Blue Light specials. By now, as many as 1,200 have crested this Himalayan spire, puncturing the jet stream, enabled lately more by their $65,000 price of admission than any particular daring. The mountain is so accessible that, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the first successful climb, the principal activity on the mountain is cleanup; about 10 tons of oxygen canisters, human excrement and just plain litter now trace man's ambition, seemingly grown paltry in its commonplace. When British climber George Mallory made the first reconnaissance of Everest, in 1921, the mountain was immensely more forbidding, its 29,035 feet of altitude an attractive trophy for gentleman explorers. It was not simply the highest place on earth, although that was plenty lure enough in a Heroic Age when adventurers were pushing at every boundary. It was also the most dangerous place on earth. While the route up the South Col is not technically challenging, the combination of thin air and unpredictable weather is assuredly deadly. For more than 30 years Mount Everest repulsed all comers, and buried more than a few. Even Mallory, who memorably explained why one would attempt to climb such a mountain -- "Because it's there," he said on a 1923 lecture tour -- succumbed to Mount Everest's implacable menace. Until his body was discovered in 1999, 75 years after he disappeared into the clouds, he was there, too. There is no greater come-on than disaster; nothing recruits achievement like failure. Adventurers were perversely cheered by each bungled attempt, each frozen dilettante who would one day need to be chipped out of a crevasse for trail beautification purposes. The path to immortality, for every nimrod who still had the advantage of being alive, remained clear, and immortality was appreciating with each well-chronicled calamity. ........... Read the rest at http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/siadventure/26/everest_danger/ Also read about plans to show live footage from the top on Outdoor Life Network: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/siadventure/26/everest_tv/ |