Their three remaining porters returned to the North Col, leaving Norton and Somervell to contemplate an awesome panorama of peaks silhouetted against the red evening sky. Somervell felt he was witnessing 'a sunset all over the world' and also had the illusion that they were camped in a field close to a wall that marked the limit of their capacities and endurance.

It is of course possible to give more elaborate answers to the perennial question: why climb? In his writing and lectures, George described the spirit of adventure, confronting and managing risk, winning admiration; even, he confessed, the desire to be proclaimed a hero. His love for the wild places was manifest, as was his delight in the inner journey that accompanies an ascent.

I suppose we go to Mount Everest, granted the opportunity, because-in a word-we can't help it.' George had written. 'Or, to state the matter differently, because we are mountaineers.

Everest is the highest mountain in the world, and no man has reached its summit. Its existence is a challenge. The answer is instinctive, a part, I suppose of man's desire to conquer the universe. (Quoting George Mallory)

In a letter George had recalled the death of Donald Robertson, writing of 'the great sleeping ones that have but to stir in their slumber... Do you know that sickening feeling that one can't go back and have it undone and nothing will make good?

The most notable event of George's U.S. tour, at least in the public mind, consisted of a four-word quote that has been ascribed to him as his answer to the question: why do you want to climb Everest? George's reply, 'Because it is there,' has been used to represent an existential urge, felt by all mountaineers, to achieve a goal that is both physical and spiritual.

On June 1 George told Ruth it would have been 'unbearable' to miss the final attempt. His frostbitten fingers might suffer further damage, but he declared: 'The game is worth a finger.

Everest itself was the only mountain which we could see without turning our gaze downwards…