The sport of climbing mountains is called mountaineering. It is a modern sport. Men try to conquer very high mountains for various reasons. They want to do what no one has done before. Or they want to go where no one has gone beore. Or they think that a difficult montain is challenge to them.

Mountaineering tests man’s physical and mental powers. At 20,000 feet, sleep is broken, appetite is lost and brain becomes dull. This is because at that height air-pressure is very low. There is vary little oxygen. And yet some men have gone upto 28,000 feet without the help of the oxygen machine.

The conquest of Everest by Hillary and Tensing in 1953 is the greatest success in mountaineering. It is a new discovery. It has proved that the human body is most powerful. It has shown that the human spirit can conquer anything. It has added to our scientific knowledge of the body, the mind and many other things.