Well Worth the Climb Trivia Quiz

Answer: Mt. Doom

The actions of these three characters on Mount Doom bring the "Lord of the Rings" cycle to its climax. These scenes take place in the final book of the trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Return of the King." The fate of the "One Ring" on Mt. Doom was certainly well worth the climb for this trio.

Answer: Empire State Building

When King Kong climbs the Empire State Building in the 1933 film named for him, he carries Fay Wray along. The great ape is destined to climb Big Apple skyscrapers at least twice more, in remakes of the classic film in 1976 and 2005. In the 1976 version Kong's unwilling companion is played by Jessica Lange, and the featured buildings are the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The 2005 film returns to the Empire State Building and Kong's victim is played by Naomi Watts.

At least eight King Kong films have been made, although the majority do not end up in New York City. Two feature the gorilla's combat with Godzilla.

There is also a musical as well as television series, comic books, theme park rides, and video games.

Answer: The waterspout

In the children's rhyme about the itsy bitsy spider, the rain washed the poor arachnid down the waterspout. The rhyme is often sung and accompanied by finger play. In Britain and Australia, the spider is called incy wincy. The rhyme is found as far back as 1910 in a book called "Camp and Camino in Lower California." This earlier version refers to the spider as "the blooming bloody spider."

Answer: Mount Rushmore

The son of Danish immigrants, John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum was born in Idaho in 1867. Following World War I, Borglum worked on Georgia's Stone Mountain Memorial until 1925 when he parted ways with the owners of the project. None of his work there remains. However, during that time he developed the techniques he would use to spend 15 years working on the four faces of Mount Rushmore.

Cary Grant was portrayed climbing on Mount Rushmore in the role of Roger Thornhill in Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 thriller "North by Northwest." Actual action on the presidential faces was not allowed by the National Park Service, however, and those scenes were filmed on mock-ups in MGM Studios.

Answer: Fortress of Navarone

The three accomplished thespians had lead roles in the 1961 World War II flick, "The Guns of Navarone," based on the novel of the same name by Alistair MacLean. Distributed by Columbia Pictures, the movie was a combined British and American effort produced by Carl Foreman and directed by J. Lee Thompson. It is the story of an Allied unit whose assignment is to destroy an island-based fortress which threatened British naval operations in the Aegean Sea.

Navarone is fictional and most of the film locations were on the island of Rhodes. The map of Navarone used by the commandos in the film was actually that of another actual Greek island, Antikythera.

Some of the extras in a cafe scene were actually members of the Greek royal family, who were visiting the set.

Answer: Mt. Everest

Hillary was from New Zealand and Norgay was a Sherpa from Nepal. Sherpas were originally a Tibetan people who also live in Bhutan and several regions of India in addition to Tibet and Nepal. There are four major Sherpa clans who moved into Nepal about AD 1400, and today that country contains the largest portion of the Sherpa people.

The term "Sherpa" is from their language and is a combination of "east" and "people." New York City has a population of about 3,000 Sherpas.

Answer: Mt. Suribachi

Mount Suribachi is the highest point on the island of Iwo Jima, the site of a horrific battle in World War II. The battle began on 19 February 1945 when U.S. forces invaded the island which today is known as Io-to. On 23 February six Marines raised the American flag on Suribachi, a moment that was captured by a now famous photograph by Joe Rosenthal. Four of the flag raisers are the subject of this question.

The other two Marines were Rene Gagnon and John Bradley. Strank, Block, and Sousley died in action during the battle.

Although Iwo Jima was declared secure on 16 March, fighting continued and the island was officially secured on 26 March. Even so, another three months of action continued as an Army regiment fought small groups of Japanese soldiers in tunnels and other defensive positions, resulting in the deaths of another 1,600 more enemy combatants.

Answer: Hindu Kush

Famous for conquering "the known world of his day," as history books like to inform us, after conquering the Persian Empire, Alexander and his army continued east of that great empire and entered India, where the Macedonian found himself fighting even more kingdoms, including armies which employed war elephants, which presented a frightening element to the Greeks. To cross from Persia into the Indus Valley, Alexander had to cross the Hindu Kush, a mountain range that today separates Afghanistan and Pakistan. Still rising, the Hindu Kush is a section of the Himalayas.

Of course, Alexander did not have to cross the tops of the mountains. Two passes put forward as the likeliest routes for Alexander are the Salang Pass (3878 meters or 12,723 feet) and the Kushan Pass (4,370 meters or 14,337 feet), both higher than anything confronted by Hannibal in his invasion of Italy roughly 100 years later.

Answer: A giant beanstalk

Jack and his beanstalk is an English fairy tale based in oral traditions. Its first appearance in print is found in 1734 under the title "The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean." It next appeared in 1807 and then in 1845. The former tale was authored by Benjamin Tabart, a London bookseller and publisher.

The form of the story most like today's version was written in 1890's "English Fairy Tales" by Joseph Jacobs, who was actually an Australian.

Answer: The Seven Summits

"The Seven Summits" refers to the seven peaks which represent the highest elevations on each continent. It also represents the achievement of a person's climbing each. Richard Bass, originator of the concept of the Seven Summits as a climbing goal or prize, was the first recorded climber to attain that status, having done so on 30 April 1985 when he stood atop Everest. When he finally reached Everest's peak, on his fourth attempt, it was unfortunately without his climbing partner, Frank Wells, who had been with Bass on their first six peaks, but perished on an attempt at Everest.

Rheinhold Messner was the first to climb six of the seven, topping Everest in 1978, and then became the second to get all seven in 1986 when he topped Mt. Vinson.

Junko Tabei, a Japanese climber, was the first woman to conquer Everest (in 1975) and also the Seven Summits, in 1992.

Interestingly enough, several different lists exist that claim to be the actual seven summits, due to varying definitions of what constitutes a "continent." For example, one list is defined using tectonic plates, which would place Europe and Asia together as Eurasia.

The seven mountains conquered by Bass, who conceived the concept used by the pair, included South America's Aconcagua, North America's Denali (or Mt. McKinley), Antarctica's Vinson, Europe's Elbrus, Australia's Kosciuszko, Africa's Kilimanjaro, and Everest for Asia.