Members of the 1924 Everest expedition team pose for a photograph before commencing their climb from base camp. Back row, left to right: Andrew Irvine, George Mallory, Edward Norton, Noel Odell, and John Macdonald. Front row: Edward Shebbeare, Geoffrey Bruce, Howard Somervell, and Bentley Beetham.

By the time of Mallory’s third trip to Everest in 1924, he was torn between continuing his efforts to conquer Everest and staying home with his beloved wife, Ruth, and their three young children. “I am having a horrible time, on a tightrope,” he wrote. “It would be an awful tug going away instead of settling down here with Ruth. But it would look rather grim to see others, without me, conquering the summit.”

thinknorth : (via Everest Photo Gallery: The Wildest Dream — National Geographic)