A Quote From ... Archive

A Quote From George Leigh Mallory

In March 1923, in an interview with The New York Times, the British mountaineer George Leigh Mallory was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, and replied, 'Because it's there'. The answer became famous, not least because Mallory himself was lost on Everest in the following year. It was sometimes suggested that he and his fellow-climber Andrew Irvine, who were last seen 'going strong for the summit', might in fact have reached it before their deaths, but there was no proof.

In May 1999, 75 years later, the body of George Mallory was found on Everest, and the press coverage surrounding the discovery focused again on Mallory's 'Because it's there' as a statement summarizing the mountaineer's reasons for climbing. One such report quoted from Robert William Service's `Dauntless Quest', which was inspired by Mallory's words:

Why seek to scale Mount Everest,
Queen of the Air,
Why strive to crown that cruel crest
And deathward dare?
Said Mallory of dauntless quest
`Because it's there.'

The finding of Mallory's body reignited the question of whether or not he or Irvine had reached the summit. If they had, this would have predated Edmund Hillary's achievement by 29 years - although Mallory's son John Mallory took an objective view of the implications:

'To me the only way you achieve a summit is to come back alive. The job is half done if you don't get down again.'

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