Why We Climb - The Harsh Reality of Modern Day Mountaineering
by Robert Charles Alexander & Dan Mazur
Like many people I watched in awe and wonder at the discovery in the summer of 1999 of the body of George Herbert Leigh-Mallory on Mount Everest some 75 years after he had ‘vanished’ during an attempt on the summit in June 1924 with his climbing partner Sandy Irvine.
Fascinated by the passion that could drive humans to such extreme feats, I contemplated the possibility of such an effort by myself. I proceeded to devour every book, article and documentary on the subject that I could find over the next four years, while slowly, quietly, and away from the knowledge of my family and friends, I fostered a growing desire to go and see for myself with my own eyes the allure of Everest itself.
The call to the mountains for the novice is a dangerous thing. Imagination and ignorance are a powerful blend, and by 2003 I had all but convinced myself that I could not only get myself fit enough again to attempt such an undertaking, but that I too could maybe, possibly, stand on the highest peak on earth.
Armed with the overwhelming and intoxicating desire to achieve this goal one which, despite the fact that it has eluded some of the world’s greatest mountaineers, I truly believed that I had what it took to challenge myself at the end of my thirties, and to hone my body into something like the fitness level I had been some fifteen years earlier.
Undeterred by all placed before me I set upon a path that would indeed eventually lead me to the slopes of Mount Everest itself.
Along the way I travelled a journey of enormous self-discovery, and came to appreciate exactly what it is that drives people to this god-forsaken place where pain and discomfort go hand in hand with the business of just trying to stay alive on a daily basis. Needless to say, in so doing I also came to realise why some do not return home again.
This book is not meant to discourage anybody from mountaineering – in fact quite the opposite. But it is intended to offer the knowledge that I sought – and could not find – before I left for Tibet.
Knowledge that I believe, and have subsequently found many others to believe, should be available to any would-be mountaineers or Everest-challengers lest they be aware of what they are letting themselves in for!
It is therefore a ‘no-holds-barred’ insight into the world of expedition mountaineering, one of the last real adventure challenges that we as 21st century modern people can undertake. In places it will undoubtedly shock and disgust, and that is exactly as it was intended. But what emerges from the whole, I hope, is a text that will enlighten, maybe even encourage some, probably inform many more, and truthfully explain just how hard life at 7,000m (and higher) above sea-level, really is.
This is that story.
Publisher: DMP (October 15, 2006)
Pages: 385 pages
Illustrations: 64 pages (B&W and Colour)
Language: English
Type: Biography
ISBN-13: 978-1-7399493-5-8
Daniel 'Dan' Lee Mazur is a mountain climber, expedition leader, and philanthropist who has ascended nine of the world's highest summits, including Mount Everest and K2. He is also known for several high altitude mountain rescues: the 1991 rescue of Roman Giutashvili from Mount Everest, the rescue of Gary Ball from K2 in 1992, the rescue in 2006 of Australian climber Lincoln Hall from Mount Everest, and the rescue of British mountaineer Rick Allen from Broad Peak in 2018.
Mazur is cited as one of America's "most successful high-altitude climbers" and in 2018 was awarded the Sir Edmund Hillary Mountain Legacy Medal for remarkable service in the conservation of culture and nature in mountainous regions.
Mazur has led more than 11 expeditions to Everest and was a leader of Greg Mortenson's team that attempted to summit K2 in 1993, which is featured in the book Three Cups of Tea. Mazur was a member of the team that summitted K2 on 2 September 1993 with the first British climber to survive the complete expedition, Jonathan Pratt.
The team was the first British ascent of the West Ridge route, and the second overall British ascent of the mountain. Mazur completed the first ascent of Muztagh Ata via the East Ridge with Jon Otto and Walter Keller in July 2000. He was noted for tweeting live updates from Everest Camp 1 during the April 2015 Nepal earthquake.
Roman Giutashvili rescue In 1991: during an expedition that summited Mount Everest with Anatoli Boukreev, Mazur played a pivotal role in the rescue of Georgian climber Roman Giutashvili. Mazur gave Giutashvili his oxygen and dug him into a snow hole after the Georgian had collapsed at 8:05pm on the descent.
Mazur left Giutashvili to descend and find help, ultimately resulting in his rescue. Giutashvili later revealed to Mazur that he had lived with only one lung since he was 10 years old.
Gary Ball rescue In 1992: on K2, Mazur and his team worked together to rescue Gary Ball from 8,300 meters after Ball was struck down by a pulmonary embolism. Rob Hall, Scott Fischer, Ed Viesturs, Neal Beidleman and Jon Pratt also assisted in the high altitude rescue. The operation took several days, descending technical ground.
Lincoln Hall rescue in 2006: At 7:30 am on May 26, 2006, Mazur and his fellow ascending climbers, Andrew Brash (Canada), Myles Osborne (UK) and Jangbu Sherpa (Nepal), were eight hours into their planned ascent to the summit up the North Ridge of Mount Everest.
They were climbing along a severe ridgeline that dropped off 10,000 feet to one side and 7,000 feet to the other. Two hours below the summit, conditions seemed perfect. There was no wind and no clouds, and they were feeling strong and healthy.
At an altitude of approximately 28,000 feet, when rounding a corner on the trail to the summit, the team encountered Lincoln Hall. Hall, an Australian climber, had been 'left for dead' by his own expedition team on the descent from the summit the previous day.
After collapsing, failing to respond to prolonged treatment and being unable to walk, he was now sitting alone on the trail. He was found with his jacket around his waist, no hat and no gloves, and without any of the proper equipment for survival in such conditions.
The group determined that he was suffering from symptoms of cerebral oedema, frostbite and dehydration as he was hallucinating, mumbling deliriously and appeared generally incoherent in his responses to offers of help.
The rescuers replaced the hat, jacket, and gloves Mr. Hall had discarded, anchored him to the mountain, and gave him their own oxygen, food and water. They radioed Hall's team, who had given him up for dead, and convinced them he was still alive and must be saved.
Mr. Hall's team leader had already called his wife the night before to tell her that Hall was dead. The rescuers arranged for Sherpas from Mr. Hall's team to ascend and help with the rescue. For four hours, Mazur's team stayed to care for Mr. Hall. Phil Crampton coordinated the rescue from the high camp at 26,000 feet, and Kipa Sherpa was the liaison to Lincoln Hall's team at advance base camp at 21,000 feet.
Extended stays at extreme altitude are risky even when planned in advance and when climbers have all the supplies they need. By using their own survival supplies to sustain Hall, going to the summit after so many hours spent helping Hall was out of the question.
Staying there to care for Hall, they took a risk the weather would turn for the worse and they might not even have sufficient oxygen and food to support themselves on the way down. In abandoning their own attempt on the summit in order to save Hall's life, epitomized the noblest traditions of mountaineering. Mazur said of his team abandoning their summit attempt, “The summit is still there, and we can go back. Lincoln only has one life.”
Several print as well as television documentaries tell the story in detail. Their actions were underscored by the death of British climber David Sharp a few days earlier, a solo climber who had been terribly sick and other mountaineers who passed by him on their way to the summit.
Rick Allen rescue in 2018: During the 2018 Broad Peak Expedition, Mazur and his team rescued Rick Allen, a British climber who disappeared at night near the summit and whose teammates reported him dead and descended with Rick's satellite phone. Mazur and team found Rick Allen alive and brought him down to base camp three days later.
Each year Mazur leads and organizes groups of volunteers to visit, bring supplies, medicines, health care and education to the Himalayas.
Mazur founded the Mount Everest Biogas Project with Garry Porter in 2010 to address the growing waste management problem on Everest. The project aims to reduce the environmental impact of human waste in the Everest region by developing and installing solar-powered biogas digesters suitable for the high-altitude conditions.
Mazur is President of the Deboche Project, a charitable organisation that focuses on the rebuilding of the Deboche Convent in Sagarmatha National Park after the 2015 earthquake.
Robert Charles Alexander is an award-winning author, a lawyer, civil and commercial mediator, and a legal and political consultant.
Born in Hampstead, London in 1964, he was educated in the Rudolf Steiner education system where he trained in classical music reading, composition, and arrangement. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Law and a Master’s Degree in International Law from University of Lincoln, and has studied for his Ph.D.in Law at Brunel University London.
He most recently worked as a Political Correspondent for the Local Democracy Service of the BBC.
His first book, The Inventor of Stereo – The Life and Works of Alan Dower Blumlein, was published to world acclaim in August 1999. It has since been dramatised as a radio programme for BBC Radio 4, broadcast in August 2008, and more recently turned into a major new movie for Universal Pictures Films(due for release in 2026/27).
His second book, The Misner Factor– The Official History of SAE Institute, tells the rags to riches story of founder Tom Misner, and was published in July 2003.
His third book, Why We Climb – The Harsh Reality of Modern Expedition Mountaineering, was co-written with world-renowned American mountaineer Dan Mazur, and documents their attempt to climb Mount Everest in the spring of 2004; it was published in October 2006.
His fourth book, Michael Gerzon– Beyond Psychoacoustics, tells the complicated story of multi-channel audio reproduction, and follows on directly from his first book; it was published in November 2008.
His fifth book, Newport Arch, Lincoln: a pictorial history, documents two thousand years of one of the City of Lincoln’s most iconic Roman monuments; it was published in February 2022.
The Misner Legacy, Volume One and Volume Two, are his sixth and seventh books, and directly continue his long-time association with the legendary billionaire, Tom Misner. They were published in January 2025.
He is currently working on his eighth, ninth and tenth books.
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