A series of stories and a short video I prepared last month at Everest Base Camp have finally come out. Here is the top to the main story:

EVEREST BASE CAMP, Tibet - Wim Hof likes extreme challenges. The Dutchman has held his breath under polar ice for more than six minutes and run a half marathon barefoot in the snow. This year he's climbing Mount Everest - in shorts.

Hof, who goes by the nickname "The Iceman," is far from alone in seeking to conquer the world's tallest mountain and garner some publicity en route. Also on the mountain this year are a Norwegian who lost his arms in an electrical accident and a Canadian with an artificial heart valve.

The violent and icy landscape of Mount Everest has become a magnet for a blend of commercial interests, individual achievement and runaway vanity, turning the peak into a venue of bravery and folly, a place where egos rise in thin air and life can evanesce like oxygen.

To read more, click here.

Another two stories touch on the physical travails of climbing in extreme altitudes and the macabre scene near the summit of the world’s highest mountain.

EVEREST BASE CAMP, Tibet - On the high reaches of Mount Everest, the air is so thin that the human body begins to shut down.

Blood thickens and becomes sluggish. Dehydration is a constant threat. Delirium can strike rapidly. A desire to sit down and fall asleep, even in severe cold, can intensify.

Click here to read more.

EVEREST BASE CAMP, Tibet - To reach the summit of Mount Everest, climbers must ascend through a field of corpses - the bodies of climbers who didn't get off the mountain safely.

Frozen solid, the dead climbers are too heavy to remove easily from the treacherous high slopes. Some perch eerily on rocks; others lie stiff in caves.

Story continues here.

I and a colleague prepared this short video and graphics editors created this aerial map and slide show about Mount Everest.

Now, those who have been following this blog know that I encountered serious problems in Tibet, ultimately ending in a call into the Foreign Ministry for a formal reproach. I want to make clear that the purpose of my trip was to do the stories above. I asked for formal permission. I was not granted it. China is a sovereign nation and can block anyone it wants from going anywhere it deems inappropriate. That said, why do you think China would not want a reporter going to do the stories I did, cited above, from Mount Everest?