Because it is there!’ That was the simple answer George Mallory (one of the first Alpinists who went to extremes) gave a journalist in 1924 when asked why he never gave up trying to conquer Mount Everest. From 1921 until 1953, there were no fewer than eleven expeditions to reach the top. After more than 30 years of adventure, dreams, failures, records and successes, Everest became accessible through the discoverers of the ‘Third Pole’: Alexander Kellas, George Mallory, John Noel, Andrew Irvine, Edmund Hillary, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and many others. This book tells the incredible and epic story of the Everest pioneers who navigated ‘the roof of the world’ (8,848 metres), from the first expeditions until victory in 1953, through more than 500 photos from the photo archives of the Royal Geographical Society, which organized the first expeditions.