As a small boy, English mountaineer George Leigh Mallory (1886–1924) climbed everything he could. At 18, he explored the Alps and was hooked on mountain climbing.

"For the stone from the top for geologists, the knowledge of the limits of endurance for the doctors, but above all for the spirit of adventure to keep alive the soul of man," he once said.

The son of an English rector and educated at Cambridge, Mallory served in World War I. His love of climbing led him to Everest expeditions in 1921, 1922, and 1924. When asked why he wanted to climb the highest mountain in the world, he famously replied, "Because it's there."

"The highest of the world's mountains, it seems, has to make but a single gesture of magnificence to be the lord of all," Mallory explained. His Everest quest became a heroic symbol of freedom and determination.

In 1924, he and novice climber Andrew Irvine disappeared while attempting to conquer the North Face of Everest. A 1999 search team found Mallory’s remains, but the question lingers: Did he reach the summit before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay?

"From boyhood he belonged to the mountains," his friend Geoffrey Young wrote. "He lived their romance, their simplicity, their open power, their unchanging loveliness. As a mountaineer he was a genius."