Book excerpt: 'The definitive back story of Mount Everest' Stewart Weaver, co-author of Fallen Giants 'Craig Storti has given us the Everest book that we've needed all along' Scott Ellsworth, author of The World Beneath Their Feet The seventy-one-year quest to find the world's highest mountain. The Hunt for Mount Everest is the seldom-told story of how the last remaining major prize in the history of exploration was identified, named and at last found. This is Everest, the prequel: a high-drama tale, filled with larger-than-life characters and quiet heroes, traverses the Alps, the Himalayas, Nepal and Tibet, the British Empire, the Anglo-Russian rivalry known as The Great Game, the disastrous First Afghan War, and the phenomenal Survey of India. Encountering spies, war, political intrigues, and hundreds of mules, camels, bullocks, yaks, and two zebrules, this account uncovers the fascinating saga leading up to the fateful day in late June of 1921, when two English climbers, George Mallory and Guy Bullock, became the first westerners - and almost certainly the first human beings - to set foot on Mount Everest.