By the early 1950s most of the earth’s great heroic explorations had been completed. Both poles had been reached on foot (or so we thought; Robert Peary’s exploit had not yet been vetted scientifically); the Northwest Passage and the Northeast Passage had been navigated and charted; darkest Africa had become routinely accessible; and Auguste Piccard’s free-diving bathyscaphe had reached depths of 10,000 feet. To us youngsters, everything that seemed worth doing just for the sake of doing it had been done.

Except for one. Nobody, as far as we knew, had ever made it to the summit of Mount Everest. The black-and-white photographs of the Himalayan giant, most taken at long range with large-format cameras, gleamed like jewels on our bedroom walls where today kids hang photos of space stations and bright posters of heavy metal bands. Steeped in the English tales of expeditions that had trekked through Tibet to tackle the fierce northeast ridge of the mountain, many of us could pick out and name its features, especially the point at which the lost climbers, Mallory and Irvine, were last seen, on June 8, 1924. As familiar as a well-known Bible verse was the description by a fellow expedition member, Noel Odell, a geologist and the last man to see them alive:

...at 12:50, just after I had emerged from a state of jubilation at finding the first definite fossils on Everest, there was a sudden clearing of the atmosphere, and the entire summit ridge and final peak of Everest were unveiled. My eyes became fixed on one tiny black spot silhouetted on a small snow-crest beneath a rock-step in the ridge; the black spot moved. Another black spot became apparent and moved up the snow to join the other on the crest. The first then approached the great rock-step and shortly emerged at the top; the second did likewise. Then the whole fascinating vision vanished, enveloped in cloud once more.

No one could write fiction as gripping as that: two strong young men, one of them at the very peak of his powers, climbing with apparent confidence up into the mists cloaking the highest mountain in the world, and disappearing. Ever since, people have wondered whether they made it.

The sequel deepens the mystery. Nine years after that last attempt, Irvine’s ice axe was found by a British party considerably below where the two were last seen – which means they must have been descending when calamity overtook them. But the question remained whether they had reached the top. The only ways to know were to find artifacts at the summit, find Mallory’s body with his altimeter, or either climber’s body and the collapsible Kodak they carried with them.

In 1950 the Chinese invaded Tibet, claiming it to be a breakaway province, and closed both the country and the mountain to outsiders. Nepal, however, which comprises the south slopes of the mountain, was induced to allow expeditions from that side. In 1952 the Swiss approached via the Khumbu Glacier and Lhotse Face, a route that later American climbers facetiously dubbed “The Milk Run,” and got very close. We youngsters breathed a sigh of relief when they returned without having made it; there was still hope for us. But the next year, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay overcame the last technical obstacle, and stood on top at last.

Since then over 2000 climbers have made it to the top, many of them multiple times. Over 200 have died in the attempt; their frozen corpses litter the upper slopes near the most popular routes. The magnificent peak has become a bit of a charnel house, as well as the world’s highest dump, littered with discarded equipment. And recently something new has been added.

China, apparently desperate to keep its own skeletons in a closet during the upcoming Beijing Olympics, has once again closed Tibet to outsiders, fearing that protests over its repressive occupation of that gentle Buddhist nation will disrupt the progress of the Olympic torch from Olympia in Greece to (Are you ready for this? I’m not!) the summit of Everest.

Many – including Vermont’s own Olympic biathlon coach John Morton – have written movingly about the Olympic torch. But it’s a recent invention of the modern Olympic games that, with the advance of technology, has grown just a bit kitschy: lighting the flame with concentrated sunlight; keeping several other torches burning nearby lest during its advance it go out; carrying it by airliner; running it underwater with a frogman at the Great Barrier Reef for the Sydney Games; and now attempting to drag a high-altitude version up the old British route to the summit.

George Mallory’s body has been located up there, in a “collection zone” for falling bodies far below where Irvine’s axe was found. Can you imagine what his tweed-clad spirit – or that of Edmund Hillary – will feel if the flame ever makes it that far? It seems there’s nothing so beautiful or sacred that a public relations person can’t cheapen or desecrate it. The reaction of the Olympic Committee to China’s actions in closing the mountain, closing Tibet to media, and suppressing the current demonstrations has been that of corporate moguls devoted to keeping the apple cart upright and running smoothly. This is an important opportunity to shine a spotlight on the struggles of an oppressed nation and preserve some of the dignity of the world’s greatest natural architecture.