What’s the Value of Mountaineering?

Suleyman Moollan wonders why people climb mountains.

- © SULEYMAN MOOLLAN 2026

George Mallory (1886-1924), who died climbing Everest, once quipped that he attempted the mountain “because it’s there.” The line has become folklore; but it’s also an invitation to explore what the point of mountaineering really is. One might think that this isn’t a question that requires an answer, as people do many things without any obvious value. However, mountaineering is unlike most of these kinds of activities due to the risk and cost. The sport is dangerous — people die on mountains every season. Even survivors pay a heavy price, in altitude sickness, money, time, and intense physical hardship.

One reason they might do it is public esteem. Climbers are admired. Mallory is himself remembered as an icon of human aspiration. Similarly, Nimsdai Purja’s seven month sprint up the world’s fourteen 8,000m peaks in 2019 has inspired thousands.

However, I want to contend that there must be some higher value to mountaineering. In what follows, I’ll argue that this value is the development of virtue. But I’ll start with the ideas that there is either no value to mountaineering, or that the value is hedonism (pleasure). I will argue that these positions are unsatisfactory because they fail to explain why people mountaineer despite the cost and risk, or why mountaineers are held in public esteem.

Two Unsatisfactory Answers

A blunt view, suggested by a literal reading of Mallory’s quote, is that mountaineering has no value. One ascends a mountain for no particular reason other than to do it — just as toddlers knock over blocks. The object exists and one acts upon it, simple as that.