Why climb Everest?

"On Everest, death is right there. It's sort of like you're underwater and there's this sort of semipermeable membrane, this gel that surrounds you, because you have warm boots and gloves and an oxygen apparatus. But you can kind of push through this thing, and there's death right out there. All your energy becomes focused on living, on surviving. That's the allure."

- Conrad Anker in The Climber Comes Down to Earth, article by Daniel Duane in Outside magazine