A White-lipped Tree Viper (Trimeresurus albolabris), observed in Kaeng Krachan NP, Thailand. As the name implies, this snake is arboreal, and is often found along streams, where they wait in ambush for birds, frogs, and small mammals. Their venom is known to be primarily hemotoxic, meaning it affects the blood, you wouldn't want to be bitten by one of these snakes. Just a spectacular looking creature.
Next stop, Mt. Everest, the world's highest mountain, at 29,032 feet it's summit is at the altitude that commercial airplanes fly at, and the oxygen is very thin up there, anything above 26,000 feet is called the "death zone" because climbers can't survive at that altitude for too long, you have to get in and out of the death zone quickly because your brain is starved of oxygen. Once you you get above 26,000 feet, things become a lot more difficult because of the lack of oxygen, each task becomes harder, just putting one foot in front of the other and climbing upward becomes difficult, and a lot of climbers use bottled oxygen once they get into the death zone.
Mt. Everest is littered, and I mean littered with discarded oxygen bottles, and other trash from climbing expeditions, it's actually become such a problem that they've had to hire climbers to go up and there and clean it up.
But to get to Mt. Everest, climbers must first go through the Khumbu Icefall, the Khumbu Icefall is a dangerous, ever-changing glacier on Mount Everest, it's one of the most dangerous parts of an Everest expedition. The Khumbu Icefall is basically a sea of constantly shifting ice that you have to work your way through to get to Everest, and chunks of ice in the Icefall can be as large as houses and they can break off at any time and fall right on top of climbers and crush them. There are also crevasses, deep cracks in the ice that climbers must use ladders to cross. The Khumbu Icefall is about 1.26 miles long and it can take about 11 hours to work your way through it. This is what it looks like from the air, just a nasty, treacherous thing to try to go through.
You can see the crevasses, cracks in the ice, you have to use ladders to cross them and you can see how frightening it is, who the heck knows where you would end up if you fell down into one of them.
You can see how big the chunks of ice can be, and they can break off at any time and fall right on top of climbers, or collapse while a climber is standing on top of it, neither scenario would end well.
If you survive the Khumbu Icefall, then you make your way to Everest Base Camp, this is where everyone begins their journey to actually climb the mountain. It's basically just an area where climbers set up their tents, eat some food, organize their supplies, discuss their game plan, and get some rest before attempting to climb Everest itself. There are two base camps, one on the north side of the mountain and one on the South side because most climbers attempt to climb the mountain by the North Col route or the South Col route, the South Col route is considered the easier of the two, but truth be told, neither one is easy, it isn't easy climbing a mountain that can turn on you in an instant and doesn't give a damn whether you live or die.
The conditions in Everest are harsh to say the least, you have to be well-conditioned to even attempt to climb it, and you have to be prepared for the worst. Like I said, you're dealing with the "death zone" above 26,000 feet, where there is little oxygen to breathe and even the smallest tasks are absolutely exhausting because of the lack of oxygen, but you also have to worry about storms blowing in out of nowhere. Storms on Everest are brutal, they're killers, winds exceeding 100 mph, and the temperature of these winds can be -90° F. If you get caught out in the open during a storm on Everest, it can blow you clean off the mountain, it's happened before, and it can freeze you to death very fast, just imagine standing outside in a 110 mph hurricane with winds that are -90°F, you won't last long. Here's a taste of what it's like when a storm blows in on Everest. This scene is from the 2015 movie "Everest", the film is a true story about the 1996 Mt. Everest tragedy where 8 climbers were killed when a sudden storm took them by surprise.
The thing about that 1996 Mt. Everest tragedy, I actually attended a seminar held by the survivors of that tragedy in Colorado in July or August of 1996, right after it happened. I was about 16 years old at the time and I was on summer vacation in Boulder Colorado and my uncle took me there, it was at a high school. My uncle lived in Boulder Colorado on Green mountain and he had always been big into rock and mountain climbing, he took me rock climbing a couple of times, and that's how I got interested in mountain and rock climbing. I remember one of the survivors, Jon Krakauer, was at the seminar, he ended up writing a book about the 96' Everest tragedy called "Into Thin Air." If I'm not mistaken, Jon Krakauer lives in Boulder Colorado as well, Boulder is a big out-door adventure sport community.
Anyway, that's Mt. Everest, those are the types of things that can happen on Everest, storms up there are basically snow and ice hurricanes with -90°F winds, and you can get blown off the mountain if you're in a bad spot, or you can be frozen solid. Beck Weathers was one of the climbers on that 1996 tragedy, he passed out on the South Col and he laid out in the storm exposed for hours, his fellow climbers thought he was dead and left him, but he managed to survive. This is the damage a storm on Mt. Everest can do.
And storms don't just affect Everest, they affect every mountain, the storms on K2, the second highest mountain in the world, are even worse, they can pin climbers down for weeks at a time. That's what happened in 1986 on K2, a storm blew in out of nowhere and pinned 7 climbers down high on the mountain for two weeks, only 2 made it out alive. K2 is a far more difficult mountain than Everest, K2 is one of the most difficult mountains in the world to climb because of it's storms and the overall steepness of the mountain, K2 is nicknamed "The Savage Mountain" for a reason. This is a photo of K2 before and after it gets engulfed by a storm, K2 has a very sinister appearance, it looks like it has spikes sticking out of it.
Most climbers that attempt to climb into the death zone use bottled oxygen, it's simply too dangerous to climb above 26,000 feet without it. But there are those who like to push the boundaries of what humans can do. There are 14 mountains in the world that have a death zone, that go above 26,000, these mountains are all located in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges, primarily in Nepal, Pakistan, China, and India. The man that wrote the book in the above post, Ed Viesturs, has climbed them all without bottled oxygen, hell, he's climbed Everest 7 times, Viesturs is one of the greatest mountain climbers of all-time.
Everest was first climbed without bottled oxygen in 1978, by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler, before that it was thought of as impossible to climb without bottled oxygen, nobody had the balls to try it, but they broke the mold. Many people, including myself, consider Reinhold Messner to be the GOAT mountain climber, he really set the standard in mountain climbing, he was the the first man to climb all 14 death zone mountains with bottled oxygen and really paved the way and set the bar in mountain climbing. Messner is pictured on the left and Habeler on the right, they were climbing partners for a long time.
The South Col is the last camp on the mountain before you make a push for the actual summit, climbers usually leave from the South Col in the middle of the night to go for the summit because it takes hours and hours to get to the summit, climbers leave the South Col at night, typically between 10 PM and 3 AM, primarily to take advantage of colder temperatures and stable ice conditions for the final ascent to the summit. This strategy minimizes the risk of avalanches and rockfalls, which are more prevalent during warmer afternoon hours. Additionally, starting at night allows climbers to reach the summit at dawn, maximizing daylight for the descent, which is often considered the most dangerous part of the climb. The climb from South Col to the summit of Everest typically takes 6 to 12 hours. The descent from the summit back to the South Col can take another 3 to 6 hours. This timeframe is approximate and can be influenced by factors like weather, climber experience, and traffic on the route. You can see where the South Col is located here on the map, it is in the death zone at 23,600 feet. The South Col is where Beck Weathers was lying unconscious when he was left for dead in 1996.
This is a view of climbers leaving the South Col at night and making their push for the summit, you have to use flashlights in the total darkness. The first photo is looking up towards the summit from the South Col and the second photo is looking back at the climbers behind you.
The thing about Everest is, there are reminders all over the mountain of how dangerous it is, there are a number of ways to die on a mountain, a nasty slip or fall, hypoxia, storms, avalanches, they're all killers on mountains and there are grisly reminders all over the mountain.
Look how nasty and vertical it gets near the summit of Everest, you're already dog tired and uncoordinated from climbing for hours and hours, and then this. One wrong move and you're going over the edge.
Now, the Hillary step is the last obstacle you have to get through to make it to the summit of Everest, the Hillary step is a nasty little 39-foot high vertical climb on rock and ice, it's like Everest has to throw one more curve ball at you before it lets you stand on the summit. Keep in mind, you're already exhausted and you have to scale this. The Hillary step is what caused a log jam of climbers in the 1996 Everest tragedy. Usually, there are ropes fixed to the Hillary step, so the climbers can get up more easily, but in May of 1996, the ropes weren't in place and the guides had to spend over an hour fixing the ropes while a slew of people stood in line waiting. While they were waiting, a storm was slowly creeping up on Everest and daylight was fading, if the ropes had already been in place, they might have been able to make it to the summit and back to the South Col and into their tents before the storm hit. But they didn't, they got caught in the storm completely exposed because they had to wait for the ropes to be fixed, and then wait in line at the summit as well. You don't want to hang out in the death zone, you want to get in and out ASAP, the longer you hang around up there, the better chance that something bad can happen, like a storm blowing in, or running out of bottled oxygen, which eventually happened to those climbers in 1996 as well. The people in the 1996 Everest tragedy were mostly mountain guides and their clients, you can pay a mountain guiding company money and they'll guide you to the top of any mountain you want to climb, Everest has been commercialized for profit, it costs around $80,000 per person, so it isn't cheap. But commercializing Everest is dangerous, too many people on the mountain can cause overcrowding and log jams. In 2019 The deaths of 14 climbers on Everest were primarily caused by a combination of factors including avalanches, overcrowding, altitude sickness, and exhaustion. The 2019 season saw a record number of climbers attempting the summit, leading to dangerous log jams and delays, especially in the death zone. This resulted in climbers running out of oxygen and becoming more vulnerable to the dangers of high altitude, not a good idea to commercialize the mountain for profit. Anyway, the Hillary step is named after Edmund Hillary, he and his climbing partner Tenzing Norgay were the first people to ever climb Everest in 1953, Hillary had to scale this sucker with no ropes in place. I can't imagine what Hillary and Norgay must have been thinking when they were getting close to the summit and ran into this nasty little obstacle, and keep in mind, you have to go back down this thing to get off the mountain.
Once you get past the Hillary step, your on to the summit ridge, a very narrow strip of rock and ice where you can ill afford to make a mistake. Keep in mind, you're dog tired at this point from climbing for hours and hours, you just scaled the 39-foot high Hillary step, and now you have to really concentrate to make sure you don't take a bad step to either side and fall thousands of feet off the mountain. These are photos of a line of people waiting on the summit ridge to get to the summit, waiting their turn to summit, it's sheer insanity, it's not a good idea to have a log jam of people just hanging out in the death zone, this happened in 1996 and it cost people their lives.
It always amazes me, looking up towards the summit, an altitude of 29,032 feet, this is the altitude freakin' airplanes fly at, and you're standing up there. Mt. Everest is so high, it almost looks like you're heading towards space.
The summit of Mt. Everest, the top of the world. The items you see up there are items that people leave up there when they summit, personal momentos and such, basically leaving things to signify that they made it. Look at that bottom photo, you can see that the climbers are above the clouds.
The Matterhorn actually has a tragic story to it, most mountains do, but it was first climbed in 1865 by Edward Whymper and six companions. When they were descending the mountain, they were all tied together by a single rope, and the rope broke, causing four climbers to fall to their deaths. The rope snapped between the fourth and fifth climbers, separating the survivors from those who fell, Edward Whymper was one of the survivors and it haunted him for the rest of his life, and understandably so. This was in the 1860s, the dawn of mountaineering and they didn't have good gear like you have today, back then you had to wear your normal clothes and boots when you climbed.
Beautiful mountain though, and you can understand why people climb mountains, they have a certain lure to them. George Leigh Mallory, who was one of the first men to ever attempt to climb Everest in the 1920s, was once asked why he was wanted to climb Everest so bad, and he replied, "because it is there." Mallory actually became obsessed with trying to climb Everest and he and his climbing partner Sandy Irvine died trying to climb it, they famously disappeared while making a push for the summit on the North side of Everest in 1924, they finally found Mallory's body on Everest in 1999, and a team of National Geographic explorers discovered a boot with a sock inside of it that belonged to Sandy Irvine on Everest just last year in 2024 but still haven't found his body. But the mountains just have a certain magic to them that draws you in.
This is George Leigh Mallory (on the right), and Sandy Irvine in 1924, and photos of them right before they set off on their attempt to summit Everest and disappeared. You can see the big oxygen bottles on their back.
It's always been a big mystery as to whether Mallory and Irvine reached the summit of Everest, if so the record book would change and they would be credited as the first people to ever climb Everest. They had a camera with them and would have undoubtedly snapped photos of themselves on the summit but the camera has never been found, it's probably buried somewhere on Everest under a ton of snow, I would compare it to looking for a grain of sand in a haystack.
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A White-lipped Tree Viper (Trimeresurus albolabris), observed in Kaeng Krachan NP, Thailand. As the name implies, this snake is arboreal, and is often found along streams, where they wait in ambush for birds, frogs, and small mammals. Their venom is known to be primarily hemotoxic, meaning it affects the blood, you wouldn't want to be bitten by one of these snakes. Just a spectacular looking creature.
An up close shot of it's head.
I wonder if the White-lipped Tree Viper likes Offspring?
Yeah, he's an Offspring fan.
Next stop, Mt. Everest, the world's highest mountain, at 29,032 feet it's summit is at the altitude that commercial airplanes fly at, and the oxygen is very thin up there, anything above 26,000 feet is called the "death zone" because climbers can't survive at that altitude for too long, you have to get in and out of the death zone quickly because your brain is starved of oxygen. Once you you get above 26,000 feet, things become a lot more difficult because of the lack of oxygen, each task becomes harder, just putting one foot in front of the other and climbing upward becomes difficult, and a lot of climbers use bottled oxygen once they get into the death zone.
Mt. Everest is littered, and I mean littered with discarded oxygen bottles, and other trash from climbing expeditions, it's actually become such a problem that they've had to hire climbers to go up and there and clean it up.
But to get to Mt. Everest, climbers must first go through the Khumbu Icefall, the Khumbu Icefall is a dangerous, ever-changing glacier on Mount Everest, it's one of the most dangerous parts of an Everest expedition. The Khumbu Icefall is basically a sea of constantly shifting ice that you have to work your way through to get to Everest, and chunks of ice in the Icefall can be as large as houses and they can break off at any time and fall right on top of climbers and crush them. There are also crevasses, deep cracks in the ice that climbers must use ladders to cross. The Khumbu Icefall is about 1.26 miles long and it can take about 11 hours to work your way through it. This is what it looks like from the air, just a nasty, treacherous thing to try to go through.
Once you get into the Khumbu Icefall, this is what you start to see.
You can see the crevasses, cracks in the ice, you have to use ladders to cross them and you can see how frightening it is, who the heck knows where you would end up if you fell down into one of them.
And these crevasses get big, you have to string together multiple ladders to cross them.
You can see how big the chunks of ice can be, and they can break off at any time and fall right on top of climbers, or collapse while a climber is standing on top of it, neither scenario would end well.
If you survive the Khumbu Icefall, then you make your way to Everest Base Camp, this is where everyone begins their journey to actually climb the mountain. It's basically just an area where climbers set up their tents, eat some food, organize their supplies, discuss their game plan, and get some rest before attempting to climb Everest itself. There are two base camps, one on the north side of the mountain and one on the South side because most climbers attempt to climb the mountain by the North Col route or the South Col route, the South Col route is considered the easier of the two, but truth be told, neither one is easy, it isn't easy climbing a mountain that can turn on you in an instant and doesn't give a damn whether you live or die.
The conditions in Everest are harsh to say the least, you have to be well-conditioned to even attempt to climb it, and you have to be prepared for the worst. Like I said, you're dealing with the "death zone" above 26,000 feet, where there is little oxygen to breathe and even the smallest tasks are absolutely exhausting because of the lack of oxygen, but you also have to worry about storms blowing in out of nowhere. Storms on Everest are brutal, they're killers, winds exceeding 100 mph, and the temperature of these winds can be -90° F. If you get caught out in the open during a storm on Everest, it can blow you clean off the mountain, it's happened before, and it can freeze you to death very fast, just imagine standing outside in a 110 mph hurricane with winds that are -90°F, you won't last long. Here's a taste of what it's like when a storm blows in on Everest. This scene is from the 2015 movie "Everest", the film is a true story about the 1996 Mt. Everest tragedy where 8 climbers were killed when a sudden storm took them by surprise.
The thing about that 1996 Mt. Everest tragedy, I actually attended a seminar held by the survivors of that tragedy in Colorado in July or August of 1996, right after it happened. I was about 16 years old at the time and I was on summer vacation in Boulder Colorado and my uncle took me there, it was at a high school. My uncle lived in Boulder Colorado on Green mountain and he had always been big into rock and mountain climbing, he took me rock climbing a couple of times, and that's how I got interested in mountain and rock climbing. I remember one of the survivors, Jon Krakauer, was at the seminar, he ended up writing a book about the 96' Everest tragedy called "Into Thin Air." If I'm not mistaken, Jon Krakauer lives in Boulder Colorado as well, Boulder is a big out-door adventure sport community.
Anyway, that's Mt. Everest, those are the types of things that can happen on Everest, storms up there are basically snow and ice hurricanes with -90°F winds, and you can get blown off the mountain if you're in a bad spot, or you can be frozen solid. Beck Weathers was one of the climbers on that 1996 tragedy, he passed out on the South Col and he laid out in the storm exposed for hours, his fellow climbers thought he was dead and left him, but he managed to survive. This is the damage a storm on Mt. Everest can do.
This is what Everest looks like when a storm engulfs it.
And storms don't just affect Everest, they affect every mountain, the storms on K2, the second highest mountain in the world, are even worse, they can pin climbers down for weeks at a time. That's what happened in 1986 on K2, a storm blew in out of nowhere and pinned 7 climbers down high on the mountain for two weeks, only 2 made it out alive. K2 is a far more difficult mountain than Everest, K2 is one of the most difficult mountains in the world to climb because of it's storms and the overall steepness of the mountain, K2 is nicknamed "The Savage Mountain" for a reason. This is a photo of K2 before and after it gets engulfed by a storm, K2 has a very sinister appearance, it looks like it has spikes sticking out of it.
You can see how steep the climbing can be on K2, little room for error.
Most climbers that attempt to climb into the death zone use bottled oxygen, it's simply too dangerous to climb above 26,000 feet without it. But there are those who like to push the boundaries of what humans can do. There are 14 mountains in the world that have a death zone, that go above 26,000, these mountains are all located in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges, primarily in Nepal, Pakistan, China, and India. The man that wrote the book in the above post, Ed Viesturs, has climbed them all without bottled oxygen, hell, he's climbed Everest 7 times, Viesturs is one of the greatest mountain climbers of all-time.
Everest was first climbed without bottled oxygen in 1978, by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler, before that it was thought of as impossible to climb without bottled oxygen, nobody had the balls to try it, but they broke the mold. Many people, including myself, consider Reinhold Messner to be the GOAT mountain climber, he really set the standard in mountain climbing, he was the the first man to climb all 14 death zone mountains with bottled oxygen and really paved the way and set the bar in mountain climbing. Messner is pictured on the left and Habeler on the right, they were climbing partners for a long time.
The South Col is the last camp on the mountain before you make a push for the actual summit, climbers usually leave from the South Col in the middle of the night to go for the summit because it takes hours and hours to get to the summit, climbers leave the South Col at night, typically between 10 PM and 3 AM, primarily to take advantage of colder temperatures and stable ice conditions for the final ascent to the summit. This strategy minimizes the risk of avalanches and rockfalls, which are more prevalent during warmer afternoon hours. Additionally, starting at night allows climbers to reach the summit at dawn, maximizing daylight for the descent, which is often considered the most dangerous part of the climb. The climb from South Col to the summit of Everest typically takes 6 to 12 hours. The descent from the summit back to the South Col can take another 3 to 6 hours. This timeframe is approximate and can be influenced by factors like weather, climber experience, and traffic on the route. You can see where the South Col is located here on the map, it is in the death zone at 23,600 feet. The South Col is where Beck Weathers was lying unconscious when he was left for dead in 1996.
This is a view of climbers leaving the South Col at night and making their push for the summit, you have to use flashlights in the total darkness. The first photo is looking up towards the summit from the South Col and the second photo is looking back at the climbers behind you.
The thing about Everest is, there are reminders all over the mountain of how dangerous it is, there are a number of ways to die on a mountain, a nasty slip or fall, hypoxia, storms, avalanches, they're all killers on mountains and there are grisly reminders all over the mountain.
Look how nasty and vertical it gets near the summit of Everest, you're already dog tired and uncoordinated from climbing for hours and hours, and then this. One wrong move and you're going over the edge.
Now, the Hillary step is the last obstacle you have to get through to make it to the summit of Everest, the Hillary step is a nasty little 39-foot high vertical climb on rock and ice, it's like Everest has to throw one more curve ball at you before it lets you stand on the summit. Keep in mind, you're already exhausted and you have to scale this. The Hillary step is what caused a log jam of climbers in the 1996 Everest tragedy. Usually, there are ropes fixed to the Hillary step, so the climbers can get up more easily, but in May of 1996, the ropes weren't in place and the guides had to spend over an hour fixing the ropes while a slew of people stood in line waiting. While they were waiting, a storm was slowly creeping up on Everest and daylight was fading, if the ropes had already been in place, they might have been able to make it to the summit and back to the South Col and into their tents before the storm hit. But they didn't, they got caught in the storm completely exposed because they had to wait for the ropes to be fixed, and then wait in line at the summit as well. You don't want to hang out in the death zone, you want to get in and out ASAP, the longer you hang around up there, the better chance that something bad can happen, like a storm blowing in, or running out of bottled oxygen, which eventually happened to those climbers in 1996 as well. The people in the 1996 Everest tragedy were mostly mountain guides and their clients, you can pay a mountain guiding company money and they'll guide you to the top of any mountain you want to climb, Everest has been commercialized for profit, it costs around $80,000 per person, so it isn't cheap. But commercializing Everest is dangerous, too many people on the mountain can cause overcrowding and log jams. In 2019 The deaths of 14 climbers on Everest were primarily caused by a combination of factors including avalanches, overcrowding, altitude sickness, and exhaustion. The 2019 season saw a record number of climbers attempting the summit, leading to dangerous log jams and delays, especially in the death zone. This resulted in climbers running out of oxygen and becoming more vulnerable to the dangers of high altitude, not a good idea to commercialize the mountain for profit. Anyway, the Hillary step is named after Edmund Hillary, he and his climbing partner Tenzing Norgay were the first people to ever climb Everest in 1953, Hillary had to scale this sucker with no ropes in place. I can't imagine what Hillary and Norgay must have been thinking when they were getting close to the summit and ran into this nasty little obstacle, and keep in mind, you have to go back down this thing to get off the mountain.
Once you get past the Hillary step, your on to the summit ridge, a very narrow strip of rock and ice where you can ill afford to make a mistake. Keep in mind, you're dog tired at this point from climbing for hours and hours, you just scaled the 39-foot high Hillary step, and now you have to really concentrate to make sure you don't take a bad step to either side and fall thousands of feet off the mountain. These are photos of a line of people waiting on the summit ridge to get to the summit, waiting their turn to summit, it's sheer insanity, it's not a good idea to have a log jam of people just hanging out in the death zone, this happened in 1996 and it cost people their lives.
It always amazes me, looking up towards the summit, an altitude of 29,032 feet, this is the altitude freakin' airplanes fly at, and you're standing up there. Mt. Everest is so high, it almost looks like you're heading towards space.
The summit of Mt. Everest, the top of the world. The items you see up there are items that people leave up there when they summit, personal momentos and such, basically leaving things to signify that they made it. Look at that bottom photo, you can see that the climbers are above the clouds.
The view looking out from the summit of Everest, you can see the entire Himalayan mountain range.
This is my favorite shot of the view from the summit of Everest, you can actually see the shadow of Everest, it looks like a Pyramid.
Time for a music break, I can't believe I haven't gotten these guys in yet, one of my favorites from the 80s.
This is one of the most beautiful mountains in the world, Ama Dablam, it is also in the Himalayan mountain range.
Ama Dablam in the Winter.
And the Matterhorn in Switzerland is beautiful as well, my uncle Joe from Boulder Colorado actually climbed this mountain in the 1980s.
The Matterhorn actually has a tragic story to it, most mountains do, but it was first climbed in 1865 by Edward Whymper and six companions. When they were descending the mountain, they were all tied together by a single rope, and the rope broke, causing four climbers to fall to their deaths. The rope snapped between the fourth and fifth climbers, separating the survivors from those who fell, Edward Whymper was one of the survivors and it haunted him for the rest of his life, and understandably so. This was in the 1860s, the dawn of mountaineering and they didn't have good gear like you have today, back then you had to wear your normal clothes and boots when you climbed.
Beautiful mountain though, and you can understand why people climb mountains, they have a certain lure to them. George Leigh Mallory, who was one of the first men to ever attempt to climb Everest in the 1920s, was once asked why he was wanted to climb Everest so bad, and he replied, "because it is there." Mallory actually became obsessed with trying to climb Everest and he and his climbing partner Sandy Irvine died trying to climb it, they famously disappeared while making a push for the summit on the North side of Everest in 1924, they finally found Mallory's body on Everest in 1999, and a team of National Geographic explorers discovered a boot with a sock inside of it that belonged to Sandy Irvine on Everest just last year in 2024 but still haven't found his body. But the mountains just have a certain magic to them that draws you in.
This is a photo of Edward Whymper, who first climbed the Matterhorn in 1865, and a book about the tragedy on the Matterhorn.
This is George Leigh Mallory (on the right), and Sandy Irvine in 1924, and photos of them right before they set off on their attempt to summit Everest and disappeared. You can see the big oxygen bottles on their back.
It's always been a big mystery as to whether Mallory and Irvine reached the summit of Everest, if so the record book would change and they would be credited as the first people to ever climb Everest. They had a camera with them and would have undoubtedly snapped photos of themselves on the summit but the camera has never been found, it's probably buried somewhere on Everest under a ton of snow, I would compare it to looking for a grain of sand in a haystack.