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Climbing Mount Everest

Climbing Mount Everest is one of the most difficult things a human being can attempt.  Forget running an Iron Man.  Forget going over Niagra Falls in a barrel.  Forget swimming the English Channel...Oh, wait...less than a thousand people have swum the English Channel...so don't forget that...but the point is, Climbing Mount Everest is the pinnacle (pun intended) of human achievement. Only  2,700 people in the entire world have the right to say that they have survived this incredibly challenging and dangerous mountain.  More people have won Olympic Gold medals than that in just the top ten countries alone.  Since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first made it to the top in 1953, only a small handful of elite athletes have followed in their footsteps.
An interesting note about stamina, grit, achievement, drive, and all those other positive things we members of western civilization strive for: Have you ever heard of Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans? No?  Exactly my point. Who are they?  Well, they are the two climbers who attempted the climb just a few days before Hillary and Norgay, as part of the same expedition.  And why do we know Hillary and Norgay and not them, if they did it first?  Because they got to within 300 feet from the top and turned back because of exhaustion.  They were only 100 meters away from being the first people to climb the tallest mountain in the world, and they turned back before finishing the job.  They may have climbed the other 28,029 feet, but it was that last 300 that really, really counts. 
Mount Everest is the symbol of achievement, the dream for rock climbers and mountaineers everywhere.  If you can survive Mount Everest, not only will you have done better than the 210 people who have died (some of who's bodies can still be seen from certain points of the climb), you will have done more than most of the planet's population.  So if you have ever considered it, just remember what it could mean.  And start saving, because you could pretty much buy a house for what it costs to do it.