Alpinism, mountaineering's crazy sibling, takes this a step further. Often, cutting edge alpinists (the people who do dangerous, high stuff with little more than a pack on their back) don't climb for the summit--they climb to plumb the depths of what they are capable of. Sometimes, the summit doesn't even matter.

Everest is a trophy, for sure, and it is hardly a purely difficult climb (that's not to underscore the objective dangers, however). Stevie Haston, a famous and accomplished British alpinist, has compared Everest to doing push-ups with a plastic bag over your head.