He was susceptible, the author Robert Macfarlane writes, to the mesmerism of high places. George Mallory’s final, fatal attempt to summit Mt. Everest made him Britain’s mythic man of the mountain, its most heroic failure.
In life, Mallory was caught in a love triangle between the mountain and the mother of his children. The mountain, we all know, ended that affair.
Mallory is an extreme example of some people’s compulsive relationship with the peaks. But it hasn’t always been thus. Once upon a time, mountains were feared as Hell’s earthly outposts. But somewhere along the way, the real and the romantic combined to make those soaring, solid heights something to climb.
Guests:
Robert Macfarlane, author, “Mountains of the Mind.”