“The answer is never the answer. The need for mystery is always greater than the need for answers. When you don’t know where you’re going, you need to stick together just in case someone gets there.”

Ken Kesey

Several years ago, the woman who is my wife and I hiked the Big Quilicene Trail in the Olympics, from the trailhead to Marmot Pass and back. Perhaps you’ve hiked this trail yourself. If not, I can describe it for you in one word – uphill. It’s not entirely uphill, of course. Only the first five miles. The second five miles are all downhill. Not that stumbling downhill for five miles is any easier on the legs than trudging uphill for five miles.

I had not known in advance that our hike was going to be more than 10 miles long, and I do not recall an extended discussion on the subject of elevation gain, although the name “Marmot Pass” should have been a clue that we were not going for a casual walk in the park. About two-thirds of the way up, I developed a severe pain in my right hip. Knowing we had to hike all the way back down the trail, I briefly considered suggesting to Wendy that we turn around before we reached the summit. That was just before Wendy mentioned that she and a group of her women friends had successfully completed this same hike earlier that summer, so on we trudged to the top of the Pass where we stopped for lunch and a much-needed rest amid the spectacular scenery of the interior Olympics.

As we sat and listened to my hamstrings audibly contracting, the fog rolled in and the temperature dropped precipitously. I was not worried because I am an experienced hiker and had come prepared for anything, except, as it turned out, cold weather or rain. So we high-tailed it back down the mountain. We passed many intrepid hikers making their way slowly to the top in order to get a good view of high-altitude fog, which is so much more exciting than sea-level fog.

I survived the hike, and we made it back home safely. I recall being energized by the hike, and we stayed up talking about it well into the night, by which I mean I didn’t fall asleep sitting up in a chair in the family room until nearly 7:45 that evening. The following morning my legs were a bit sore, but I was able to get out of bed on only my third or fourth attempt. By mid-afternoon I was able to reach down and tie my shoes, or would have been able to do so had I not been taking a brief power nap.

I was thinking about our Marmot Pass hike and the slightly mysterious hold that being in the mountains has on human beings when I came across an article in National Geographic about the discovery an of an old leather boot and wool sock belonging to Sandy Irvine on the Central Rongbbuk Glacier just below the north face of Mount Everest. In 1924, Irvine set off with experienced mountaineer George Mallory in an attempt to be the first people to reach the top of Everest. Neither man was ever seen alive again. The question of whether they had reached the summit is the greatest climbing mystery of all time. Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hilary are credited with being the first to reach the top, which they did 29 years later.

Many attempts have been made to retrace the presumed steps and find remains of Mallory and Irvine, both to bring closure to their families and to answer how and where they died. The remains of Mallory were located in 1999, but no trace of Irvine was found until this past September when the National Geographic expedition came upon his boot protruding from the melted snow. Evidence suggests that Mallory and Irvine were roped together and swept off the mountain by an avalanche, but there is no way to know if their fall occurred after they summitted the mountain. Historians are hoping that discovering Irvine’s remains might resolve the mystery because he had a Kodak Vest Pocket Camera on which he may have preserved images of the two on the summit.

The National Geographic expedition that found Irvine’s boot is not disclosing where they located it in order to discourage trophy hunters while a follow-up expedition is planned. I hope the discovery brings some form of closure to Irvine’s family, but speaking for myself, I am fine with just letting the mystery of whether they reached the top of world remain just that – a mystery.

Tom Tyner of Bainbridge Island writes a weekly column for this newspaper.