George Mallory tried to climb Mount Everest

George Mallory, inset and hatless in the back row, on an Everest expedition.

It is the birthday of English adventurer George Mallory (1886), who died on an expedition to climb Mount Everest in June 1924 with his friend Andrew Irvine. Mallory and Irvine disappeared on the northeast ridge and their fate remained a mystery for 75 years until the discovery of Mallory’s body in 1999. Historians still debate whether the pair actually reached the summit. Mallory was widely credited with answering the query of why he chose to climb Mount Everest with the reply “Because it’s there,” though some scholars question whether he actually said it. In any case, the phrase seems to accurately reflect Mallory’s mindset. “What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy, “ he once said in an interview. “And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for.”