Because It Is There

Mt. Everest has been climbed in a day from base camp. It has been climbed from Nepal with the help of Sherpas. It has been climbed from China with the assistance of yaks. It has been climbed solo, and without oxygen. It has been climbed in the spring and the fall, from the North Col and the South Col. It now has been climbed by American women. It has been climbed so many times that Sir Edmund Hillary, who made the first ascent of the 29,028-foot peak with the Tenzing Norgay in 1953 has called Everest “a junk heap overloaded with a multitude of expeditions and their refuse.” Everest even has been partly climbed by an expedition organized to clean up some of the trash.

Hillary called for a 5-year respite from Everest climbing. But that is not likely to happen. The allure of Mt. Everest is just too strong.

As the world’s highest peak, Everest has been the subject of climbing gimmicks such as the live television transmission by a 252-member Asian expedition last year. Jim Whittaker, the first American on Everest, in 1963, is organizing a U.S.-Soviet-Chinese peace expedition to Everest in 1990 that also is commemorating the 20th anniversary of Earth Day. Australians celebrated their bicentennial on the top. Following the Asian ascent, Mountain magazine, the respected British journal, commented: “Everest is becoming a circus ring for performers seeking material and nationalistic gain . . . . “

Because of benign weather, 33 persons made the summit in 1988, boosting the total since 1953 to 222. Still, an ascent of Mt. Everest is no Sunday stroll, even by the South Col route pioneered by the British expedition in 1953 and repeated by Whittaker a decade later. Nine died in 1988, including four daring Czechs who disappeared after making a daring lightweight ascent of the southwest face. There still are unclimbed routes that are challenging and committing. The weather, the altitude, avalanches and other factors make any attempt on Everest an uncertain enterprise.

Back in the 1920s, Britisher George Leigh-Mallory shrugged off the question of why climb Everest: “Because it is there.” But one of the better explanations for climbing Everest was published recently in a book by A. Alvarez entitled “Feeding the Rat,” a profile of veteran British climber Mo Anthoine, who was at age 48 a member of the 1986 British expedition that unsuccessfully attempted Everest’s difficult unclimbed northeast ridge.

Anthoine had the preconception that Everest was a boring mountain. As a strong individualist, he had little interest in climbing it by just any route, or with a large, highly organized expedition. At first sighting, Everest was just a slightly higher bump on a faraway ridge that offered Anthoine little excitement. Once on the mountain, however, Anthoine’s so-what attitude quickly evaporated.

“It’s just so bloody big, you feel you have to climb it,” he said. “You see these huge expanses of rock and ice and you think that one small flank is bigger than any of the mountains I’ve ever been on . . . It’s the height that gets you, and the size. You’re gasping away at 24,000 feet and then you think, I’ve still got 5,000 more to go!”

Routes like the northeast ridge involve technical climbing that are strenuous and daunting at far lower elevations. High on Everest, it’s a constant battle just to keep going, Anthoine said. “The altitude slows you down, both physically and mentally. The only time it’s pleasant is when you stop.”

Anthoine said he’d always wanted to stand on the highest point of the world. “I don’t believe there is any climber who wouldn’t want to do that.” Plenty of climbers are waiting in line to prove Anthoine’s point.