but I love to read about climbing expeditions on Mt. Everest. I don't know why, I guess I have the heart of an adventurer in a romantic sense, but not in a cardiac sense!

I just finished Ghosts of Everest: The Search for Mallory & Irvine by Jochen Hemmleb, Larry A. Johnson, Eric R. Simonson, William E. Nothdurft. It's the story of the 1999 expedition to try to find any clues as to whether George Mallory and Sandy Irvine actually reached the summit in 1924 before dying on the mountain.

It's actually a pretty neat mystery. While there are various clues that suggest they may well have summitted, there's just no conclusive proof. If they did, they beat out the next summit team (Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay) by nearly 30 years, and with some pretty sorry equipment to boot.

While the 1999 expedition didn't find any proof that they were successful in reaching the summit, they did find George Mallory's body, and the book treats us to some interesting photos. Not that looking at corpses is a fun thing, but you could tell a lot about his last minutes by looking at his position. Also, they are able to make compelling arguments of how he spent the day based on what he carried and what he didn't.

This book is really worth a read.