Boy Scout Wall (somewhere between Barstow and Lucerne Valley)

George Leigh Mallory, whose name is inextricably linked to Everest, was the driving force behind the first three expeditions to the peak. While on a lecture tour of the United States, it was he who so notoriously quipped, "Because it is there" when a newspaperman demanded to know why he wanted to climb Everest.

As Mallory and his companion, Andrew Irvine struggled slowly toward the summit of Everest on June 8, 1924, mist billowed across the upper pyramid, preventing companions lower on the mountain from monitoring the two climber's progress.

At 12:50 p.m. the clouds parted momentarily, and teammate Noel Odell caught a brief but clear glimpse of Mallory and Irvine high on the peak, moving deliberately and expeditiously toward the top.

The two climbers failed to return to their tent that night, and neither Mallory nor Irvine was ever seen again. Whether one or both of them reached the summit before being swallowed by the mountain and into legend has been fiercely debated ever since.

In the spring of 1953 a large British team began their expedition to attempt Everest from Nepal. On May 28, following two and a half months of prodigious effort, a high camp was dug tenuously into the Southeast Ridge at 27,900 feet

Early the following morning Edmund Hillary, a rangy New Zealander, and Tenzing Norgay, a highly skilled Sherpa mountaineer, set out for the top breathing bottled oxygen.

By 9:00 a.m. they were at the South Summit, gazing across the dizzyingly narrow ridge that let to the summit. Soon they were at the foot of what Hillary described as "the most formidable-looking problem on the ridge - a rock step some forty feet high that would thereafter be known as the Hillary Step.

The climbing was strenuous and sketchy, but Hillary persisted until, as he would later write, "I could finally reach over the top of the rock and drag myself out of the crack on to a wide ledge. For a few moments I lay regaining my breath and for the first time really felt the fierce determination that nothing now could stop us from reaching the top.

I took a firm stance on the ledge and signaled to Tenzing to come on up. As I heaved hard on the rope Tenzing wriggled his way up the crack and finally collapsed exhausted at the top like a giant fish when it has just been hauled from the sea after a terrible struggle."

Fighting exhaustion, the two climbers continued up the undulating ridge above. Hillary wondered,

"Whether we would have enough strength left to get through. I cut around the back of another hump and saw that the ridge ahead dropped away and we could see far into Tibet.

I looked up and there above us was a rounded snow cone. A few whacks of the ice-axe, a few cautious steps, and Tenzing and I were on top."

And thus, shortly before noon on May 29, 1953, did Hillary and Tenzing become the first men to stand atop Mount Everest.

Tenzing became a national hero throughout India, Nepal, and Tibet, each of which claimed him as one of their own. Knighted by the queen, Sir Edmund Hillary saw his image reproduced on postage stamps, comic strips, movies & magazine covers. Overnight, the beekeeper from Auckland had been transformed into one of the most famous men on earth.

Jon Krakauer Into Thin Air

There are men for whom the unattainable has a special attraction. Usually they are not experts; their ambitions and fantasies are strong enough to brush aside the doubts which more cautious men might have. Determination and faith are their strongest weapons.

Everest has attracted its share of men like these. Their mountaineering experience varied from none at all to very slight - certainly none of them had the kind of experience which would make an ascent of Everest a reasonable goal. Three things they all had in common: faith in themselves, great determination, and endurance.
Walt Unsworth Everest

I grew up with an ambition and determination without which I would have been a good deal happier. I thought a lot and developed the far-away look of a dreamer, for it was always the distant heights which fascinated me and drew me to them in spirit.

I was not sure what could be accomplished by means of tenacity and little else, but the target was set high and each rebuff only saw me more determined to see at last one major dream through to its fulfillment.

Earl Denman Alone to Everest

I doubt if anyone would claim to enjoy life at high altitudes - enjoy, that is, in the ordinary sense of the word. Although there is a certain grim satisfaction to be derived from struggling upwards.
Eric Shipton Upon That Mountain

Suffice it to say that Everest has the most steep ridges and appalling precipices that I have ever seen, and that all the talk of an easy snow slope is a myth. This is a thrilling business altogether, I can't tell you how it possesses me, and what a prospect it is. And the beauty of it all!

George Leigh Mallory

The one great advantage which inexperience confers on the would-be mountaineer is that he is not bogged down by tradition or precedence. To him, all things appear simple, and he chooses straightforward solutions to the problems he faces.
Walt Unsworth Everest

My solar plexus was tight with fear as I ploughed on. Halfway up I stopped, exhausted. I could look down 10,000 feet between my legs, and I have never felt more insecure.

Sir Edmund Hillary

I’ve always hated the danger part of climbing, and it’s great to come down again because it’s safe ... But there is something about building up a comradeship — that I still believe is the greatest of all feats — and sharing in the dangers with your company of peers. It’s the intense effort, the giving of everything you’ve got. It’s really a very pleasant sensation.
Sir Edmund Hillary

It was 11:30 AM. My first sensation was one of relief — relief that the long grind was over, that the summit had been reached before our oxygen supplies had dropped to a critical level; and relief that in the end the mountain had been kind to us in having a pleasantly rounded cone for its summit instead of a fearsome and unapproachable cornice.

But mixed with the relief was a vague sense of astonishment that I should have been the lucky one to attain the ambition of so many brave and determined climbers. I seemed difficult to grasp that we'd got there. I was too tired and too conscious of the long way down to safety really to feel any great elation.

But as the fact of our success thrust itself more clearly into my mind, I felt a quiet glow of satisfaction spread through my body — a satisfaction less vociferous but more powerful than I had ever felt on a mountain top before. I turned and looked at Tenzing. Even beneath his oxygen mask and the icicles hanging form his hair, I could see his infectious grin of sheer delight.

I held out my hand, and in silence we shook in good Anglo-Saxon fashion. But this was not enough for Tenzing, and impulsively he threw his arm around my shoulders and we thumped each other on the back in mutual congratulations.
Sir Edmund Hillary

You don't have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things — to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals. The intense effort, the giving of everything you've got, is a very pleasant bonus.

Sir Edmund Hillary

Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the (heck) of it.
Sir Edmund Hillary

(Expletive deleted by Scoutmaster. But a heck of a quote!)

I am a lucky man. I have had a dream and it has come true, and that is not a thing that happens often to men.

Sir Edmund Hillary

We didn’t know if it was humanly possible to reach the top of Mt. Everest. And even using oxygen as we were, if we did get to the top, we weren’t at all sure whether we wouldn’t drop dead or something of that nature. I was very much aware that we still had to get safely back down the mountain again and that was quite an important factor. I really felt the most excitement when we finally got to the bottom of the mountain again and it was all behind us.
Sir Edmund Hillary

I was just an enthusiastic mountaineer of modest abilities who was willing to work quite hard and had the necessary imagination and determination. I was just an average bloke; it was the media that transformed me into a heroic figure. And try as I did, there was no way to destroy my heroic image. But as I learned through the years, as long as you didn’t believe all that rubbish about yourself, you wouldn’t come to much harm.

The explorers of the past were great men and we should honour them. But let us not forget that their spirit lives on. It is still not hard to find a man who will adventure for the sake of a dream or one who will search, for the pleasure of searching, not for what he may find.

I don't know if I particularly want to be remembered for anything. I have enjoyed great satisfaction from my climb of Everest and my trips to the poles. But there's no doubt, either, that my most worthwhile things have been the building of schools and medical clinics. That has given me more satisfaction than a footprint on a mountain.

Sir Edmund Hillary

Zig Ziglar (a popular motivational speaker) once said if you asked Sir Edmund Hillary how he made it to the top of Mount Everest, he would NOT have answered "Well, I was just out walking around, and pretty soon, there I was, on top of Mount Everest!" Sir Edmund Hillary set many goals to get to the top of the world. The climb was not easy, and it WAS deliberate. He knew just where he wanted to arrive, and it was that very dome shaped mountain-top that was the highest place on earth. What goals have you set? Where will they lead you? One thing is certain, you will never reach a goal you do not set. Climb on!