“Because It’s There”

“Because it’s there,” was the answer George Mallory gave when asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest in 1924. His repeated attempts were not successful and he died on Everest in 1924 at the age of 38.

Mount Everest is the Earth's highest mountain, located in the Himalayas, and its highest peak looms more than 29000 feet above sea level. Only fifty years ago (1963) the first Americans climbed to the top, ten years after Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first climbers ever to reach Everest’s summit. Four surviving members of the expedition, Norm Dyhrenfurth, now age 94, Jim Whittaker, 84, Tom Hornbein, 82, and Dave Dingman, 76, were recently reunited in honor of the 50^th anniversary of their accomplishment. Dave Dingman is the only one of the group that never actually made it to the summit. Instead he belayed four other climbers that were stuck out in the open back down to the relative safety of their base camp. Fifty years ago the team reunited at the White House as President John F. Kennedy presented them with the National Geographic Society's highest honor, the Hubbard Medal.

In the fifty years since the first Americans successfully scaled the Earth’s highest mountain there’s been an explosion in mountaineering type extreme sports. Maybe that’s why it seems to me the anniversary wasn't met with much fanfare. We only need turn to You Tube to view daring attempts to out ski avalanches, snow boarders jumping from helicopters to race down powdery slopes, and the like. You can go rock climbing on cruise ships and even in St. Marys during some of the festivals that come around each year, on man made rock walls.  

The quote, “Because it’s there,” is really what’s got me thinking this morning about obstacles in my life I've been ignoring (going around, actually) and how maybe I should quit looking for reasons, rationalizations, and excuses, and just get to work conquering them, especially since it’s been raining steadily for the last two days precluding my escape to the dog park. House cleaning here I come…because it’s there (messes don’t go away on their own). And I figure I will survive this attempt.