Everest

One day in the late spring of 1924 an observer on the East Rongbuk Glacier at the foot of Everest, staring up at the summit of the mountain through a telescope, saw the morning mists part around the summit, and saw there two black figures climbing steadily upwards. One of them was an Oxford undergraduate, the other was Mallory. They were, at that moment, at a height of 28,400 feet, higher than any man has ever climbed before and only six hundred feet below the top.