Look at those tiny creatures — that’s us! — walking in a row against the dazzling white wall of ice. See, they are hacking at the mountain to dig steps in which to place their fee t. By 1922, a British expedition team got within hundreds of feet of the summit .

What these pictures don’t fully tell you is that the mountains are not calm at all. They growl when stones tumble. The wind whistles as you climb. The altitude drains your breath. They tell you how puny you are, how frail really, which is why you try to supplicate them, as the Buddhists who are from those mountains do, by stacking one stone on top of another in prayer .