"Because it is there." That's the answer the English mountaineer George Mallory gave a reporter who asked him in 1921 why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest. And it's a reason that two Michigan graduates on the 1995 American Mt. Everest Expedition will readily offer.

James A. Litch '92 MD has been selected as team physician and summit climber for the expedition. His fiance and climbing partner, Laura Ziemer '91 JD/MS, has been selected as a team member and support climber.

"Mallory failed three times to climb Everest," Litch told Michigan Today. "In 1924, the last of his three expeditions, he and Andrew Irvine were spotted on the summit's North Ridge with enough daylight to reach the summit and return to their high camp. No trace of them was seen again.

"They were wearing the climbing attire of their day, which look like suit coats in the photographs of their climb. They demonstrated an absolutely incredible effort and spirit."

Mallory's grandson will join Litch on the 12-person American summit team that has started its March-to-May climb up the north slope Mallory took. "Ten Sherpas will join us" Litch said. "They are team members and not porters or guides as they've been on other expeditions."

Mallory had a camera with him that fateful day, and Litch said that climbers "attach a priceless value to finding it, though the likelihood of doing so is miniscule; perhaps it's the Everest climbers' holy grail."

The camera, or possibly some other trace of the senior Mallory, might yield proof that man reached the world's highest peak 29 years before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing did in 1953 from the relatively easier southern route.

A veteran international mountaineering physician, Litch said all high altitude climbers "risk severe frostbite, respiratory infections, diarrhea, gastoenteritis and severe edema [excess fluids] of the lungs and/or brain" if they fail to go slowly enough to acclimate their bodies as they climb.

"We use oxygen on summit day--the last push," he continued. "Essentially, at that point you're an astronaut; everything you are wearing and carrying with you is an essential part of your life-support system."

During his years in Ann Arbor, Litch co-founded the Lynn Hadley Clinic for the homeless. Currently, he is chief resident physician at a public health clinic in Seattle.

Laura Ziemer will be among the eight support climbers who will ascend as far as the sixth and highest camp, which is "only" a 17-hour climb short of the summit. Everest, whose Tibetan name is Chomolungma ("Goddess Mother of the Earth"), rises 29,000 feet high, she noted, "and the High Camp is higher than all but five summits in the world."

Having served as a professional climbing ranger for the National Park Service, Ziemer hopes to confine her Everest duties to "getting the route set and making sure they get to the top-hopefully I won't be needed for search and rescue."

Ziemer is an alumna of the joint degree program of the Law School and the School of Natural Resources and Environment, and co-founded the National Association of Environmental Law Societies when she was in Ann Arbor. She will be one of three women support climbers on the expedition. "Many women have reached the summit," she noted. "The first American woman to do so was Stacy Allison in September 1988."

An attorney for the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, she is mainly involved in management of public lands. She also monitors the impact of mining and forestry industries on the habitat of salmon, bald eagles and other threatened species.

High elevation takes its toll no matter how wisely one climbs or how advanced one's equipment is. "Altitude causes a certain amount of deterioration of the human body," Ziemer said matter-of-factly. "Your oxygen level is so low that it compromises metabolic system. How your responds is chiefly a matter of genetics. Nutrition, hydration and acclimation are important, but in the end it's a roll of the dice."

Does "because it's there" adequately convey why climbers subject their bodies to such trauma? Perhaps. But Ziemer and Litch say there is another, less well-known, quotation from George Mallory that serves as a better creed for all mountaineers: "The struggle of life itself, upward and forever upward. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy."

Brilliant 18-color Sherpa T-shirts with a view of Everest's valley are available from the American Mt. Everest Expedition c/o Litch, 1522 E. Mercer, Seattle, WA 98112; fax (206) 386-6113) with a tax-deductible donation of $25 or more. State size when ordering.