I went to a slide show the other night because it was there.
The occasion was a recap of the highly publicized Mount Everest expedition in search of the remains of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, British climbers who went up the world's highest mountain in 1924 and never came back down.
In the 76 years since, much mystery has surrounded Mallory and Irvine, keying on two questions: Did they make it to the summit? And where did they disappear?
They were seen by an eyewitness on the morning of June 8, 1924, tantalizingly close to the top of the 29,028-foot mountain. But then clouds swooped in, and they were never seen again. If they did reach the top they would not get the credit.
It wouldn't be until 1953 that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay would summit Everest and live to tell about it.
What is it about Mount Everest?
What is it that tantalizes us, intrigues us, practically hypnotizes us, even if we get dizzy climbing on a kitchen stool?
In 1922, when a reporter asked George Mallory why he wanted to climb Everest, he replied with the most famous mountaineering quote of all time: "Because it is there."
And when the Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition set out last spring, it was because Mallory was there.
An expedition member named Jake Norton narrated the slide show at the University of Utah. About 300 Everest-aholics paid $6 each to listen to him.
He showed stunning pictures of the Himalayas. He showed shot after shot of the many faces of Everest.
And then he showed George Mallory's dead body.
Norton explained they found Mallory's remains on May 1, 1999. His leg was badly broken, his body mangled — the obvious result of a fall off the northeast ridge.
It had been nearly 75 years since Mallory's body landed in its final resting place. Now, within seconds news of its discovery circled the globe. The research expedition was sponsored in part by an Internet company, which lost no time in declaring on its Web site: "MountainZone.com is pleased to bring one of the great events in the annals of mountaineering history to the world — live, as it happens."
As I stared at the photos of Mallory's body — remarkably preserved in the deep freeze of the Himalayas — I began to feel uncomfortable. Like a grave robber, somehow. I wondered if perhaps the "great events in the annals of mountaineering" shouldn't be reserved for the living.
When Edmund Hillary said while descending in 1953, "Wouldn't Mallory be pleased if he knew about this!" he didn't say "Mallory's corpse."
So I slid out the side door.
Preferring to remember Mallory less for his fatal crash and more for the rest of his "Because it is there" quote.
"The first question which you will ask and which I must try to answer is this, 'What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?' " Mallory said to that reporter in 1922. "And my answer must at once be: It is no use. There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behavior of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron. We shall not find a single foot of earth that can be planted with crops to raise food. So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself, upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for."
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.