Expedition Everest: The Mission - 360 | National Geographic

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What we're supposed to be doing here is not simply a climb in the mountains. Coming up, the scientific objectives that we're doing here with global climate change are really what define our expedition and will allow us to bring back some information that will be pertinent to everybody on earth.

It's really a perspective on man's relationship with the natural world, and it's critical that we understand that we don't inherit our resources from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. This environment is uncontrollable; it's hostile. It doesn't care whether we're successful on our expedition, whether we climb it, whether we get our scientific data or not.

The mountain is just going to move as it's going to move, and we have to be prepared to deal with that as best as possible. The mountain's like a mirror that holds you and your performance up to you. There are days where you feel like you're struggling to put one foot in front of the other. That's the same as it was back in the 1920s, same as it is today.

We have a great team of sherpa, we have a great team of scientists, but ultimately we're pretty puny in the face of a mountain that doesn't always tolerate humanity so well. It's really quite a daunting task for our team, but we're up for it.

With the winds in excess of 50 miles an hour, snow in your face all the time, trying to breathe thin air and do some complicated assembly, we have the team here to achieve and succeed in all those types of scientific objectives. But also to be able to tell the story: what's our 10-year plan, what's our 20-year plan, where do we need to be to be protecting these places?

The story that we can bring back will be incredibly compelling and show what an expedition in 2019 is all about. [Music] [Music] You