DownTheTrail.com

hiking guides, gear, and journals

  • LATEST
  • GUIDES
    • COLORADO TRAIL
    • THE LONG TRAIL
      • LONG TRAIL SHELTERS
    • ARIZONA
    • UTAH
    • CALIFORNIA
    • HAWAII
    • ALASKA
  • GEAR
    • MY GEAR LIST
  • JOURNALS
    • GRAND CANYON
    • COLORADO TRAIL
    • LONG TRAIL
    • BICYCLING ACROSS AMERICA
    • APPALACHIAN TRAIL
    • DENALI
  • MORE
  • ABOUT

Last Hours on Everest – Book Review with 5 George Mallory Quotes

updated: December 8, 2019

“Because it’s there.”

This famous quotation was an answer by George Mallory to the question of “Why climb Mount Everest?”

The phrase has endured for its simplicity and clever deflection, in the notion that “If you have to ask, you’ll never know.”

Revered as a Zen-like statement, I discovered in the book Last Hours on Everest that the quote was most likely just an exasperated reply – a quick, sarcastic way to make the questioner go away.

Mallory was in New York in the midst of a speaking tour. Someone from the press approached him in a speakeasy with the query. He’d just given a 2-hour talk about the subject, and was probably just aggravated and trying to get a drink.

I read Last Hours on Everest at the suggestion of a friend. I came to the book as a beginner on the lore of the mountain. My only other encounter with the subject was the famous Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. As a sign of my ignorance, I’d always thought the “because it’s there” quote was Edmund Hillary’s – first to summit the mountain (with sherpa Tenzing Norgay). The quotation is sometimes falsely accredited to Hillary.

George Mallory

The legend of George Mallory was only vaguely familiar to me. Edmund Hillary is, of course, known as the first to summit Everest in 1953. However, there’s a romantic possibility that George Mallory and Andrew Irvine (Sandy Irvine) may have been the first, way back in 1924.

On June 8th of that year, Mallory and Irvine ascended from their Camp 6 (at 27,000ft) to make an attempt at the summit. They “vanished into the clouds,” never to be seen again.

The author of Last Hours on Everest, Graham Hoyland, made it his life’s obsession to settle the mystery of what happened to Mallory. Hoyland has a personal tie to the incident. Howard Somerville, another climber on the 1924 expedition, was Hoyland’s great uncle.

When Hoyland was a young man and met Somerville, he learned that Mallory was in possession of Somerville’s camera (a classic Vest Pocket Kokak) on the day of his summit attempt. Somerville, you may say, cursed the author with his statement that “If my camera was ever found, you could prove that Mallory got to the top.”

The book is a mixed bag. Graham Hoyland warns the reader on the opening page that Last Hours on Everest will “be a personal story, a detective thriller, a biography, and a history book.” He is correct on all counts, but at times the story feel a bit disjointed because of this, failing as the “gripping story” that’s advertised.

Apparently there’s no “new” information to be uncovered by Hoyland in the book, though if you’re naive to the legend of Mallory, then this doesn’t really matter. What Hoyland does bring to the story, however, is a personal familiarity with mountaineering. The author participated in 9 expeditions on the mountain to discover what happened to Mallory, and was the 15th Briton to stand on the summit of Everest.

Hoyland’s family ties to the mystery are a double-edged sword. Some passages dryly take away from the narrative, getting into the author’s hobbit-like family tree and connections to Mallory, a la Kevin Bacon.

Overall, though, his associations with the climber add a compelling angle to a romantic mystery that’s been beaten like a dead horse. Hoyland certainly knows his stuff, and his personal experience gives a unique, respectable voice to the subject, adding value that an armchair researcher simply cannot replicate.

Last Hours on Everest is a wonderful introduction to the history of climbing the mountain, specifically regarding the 1924 expedition and George Mallory.

I’ll end the review here, so as not to spoil the book for those unfamiliar with the subject. Now that I personally know a bit more about George Mallory, I may go on to read Into the Silence – reportedly the best book about Mallory on Everest.

4 more George Mallory Quotes

Here’s some more Mallory quotations, as promised. Not only was he a World War One veteran, but he was Cambridge educated, too. He had a way with words – reminiscent of the times:

One must conquer, achieve, get to the top; one must know the end to be convinced that one can win the end – to know there’s no dream that mustn’t be dared… Is this the summit, crowning the day? How cool and quiet! We’re not exultant; but delighted, joyful; soberly astonished… Have we vanquished an enemy? None but ourselves. Have we gained success? That word means nothing here. Have we won a kingdom? No… and yes. We have achieved an ultimate satisfaction… fulfilled a destiny.

~

Why do we travel to remote locations? To prove our adventurous spirit or to tell stories about incredible things? We do it to be alone amongst friends and to find ourselves in a land without man.

~

Gradually, very gradually, we saw the great mountain sides and glaciers and aretes, now one fragment and now another through the floating rifts, until far higher in the sky than imagination had dared to suggest the white summit of Everest appeared.

~

People ask me, ‘What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?’ and my answer must at once be, ‘It is of 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… 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 live. That is what life means and what life is for.

an Edmund Hillary Quotation

Finally, I’ll close with a quote by Edmund Hillary that puts the mystery into perspective:

I’ve always regarded Mallory as a pretty heroic figure and I think in many ways it would be quite appropriate if it would prove he was successful. Of course he didn’t get down again, so he didn’t quite complete the job fully.

Safety First!

Related posts:

Grizzly West: A Failed Attempt to Reintroduce Grizzly Bears - Book Review
24 John Muir Quotes, chosen from his Essays in NATURE WRITINGS
13 Bill Bryson Quotes that Capture the Appalachian Trail Better than Your Crappy Journal
John Muir - The Story of My Boyhood and Youth - Book Review
Tweet
Share
Share
Pin

About Jamie Compos

I'm the guy behind DownTheTrail.com. I love the outdoors, and the Grand Canyon is my favorite destination. Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter (at the bottom of the page), or else I'll slip a rock into your backpack when you're not looking.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

My Best Gear for 2023

Backpack

Day Pack

1-Person Tent

2-Person Tent

Sleeping Bag
(3 season)

Sleeping Bag
(summer)

Sleeping Pad
(inflatable)

Sleeping Pad
(foam)

Camp Pillow

Thru-Hiking Shoes

Sturdy Shoes
(Rugged/Off Trail)

Trail Running
(minimalist shoes)

Road Running
(minimalist shoes)

Socks

Water Filter

Water Treatment

Backpacking Stove

Headlamp

Power Bank

911 calls via GPS

Thru-Hiking App

Packraft

SEE MORE DETAILS
(my ultimate gear list)

 

(purchases through affiliate links earn commission)

 

chart your course

Copyright © 2023 Down The Trail - All Rights Reserved - legal statements - contact

This site feeds you cookies and is peppered with affiliate links. Recreating outdoors can be dangerous. Links to e-commerce sites earn commission. Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT