A great post at the Atlantic gets into the heads of the mountain climber who scale Everest at great personal risk.

Ever since reading Into Thin Air, I’ve had a fascination with the idea of scaling everest. I would never do it — I’m 37 and out of shape — and I just know I would take a wrong turn or something and spend the last few moments of my life running out of air and miserably wishing I could unmake the decision to climb while kicking myself for doing something so dumb.

But it still fascinates me. The extremes of human endeavor always do.