The world's attention was briefly diverted from Iraq, SARS, the economy and other rolling crises this past month by the deeds, both old and new, of three men obsessed with icy worlds that most of us will never see.

First was the 70-year-old Japanese skier, Mr. Yuichiro Miura, who on May 22 became the oldest person to have climbed Mount Everest. Then came New Zealand's Sir Edmund Hillary, who was feted in Katmandu ahead of the 50th anniversary Thursday of his groundbreaking ascent of Everest. Finally, there was the British Arctic adventurer Pen Hadow, who last week honored Mr. Hillary's feat by becoming the first man to trek solo and unaided from northern Canada to the geographic North Pole. At the time of writing, Mr. Hadow was still waiting to be rescued from a melting ice floe at the pole.

It's hard sometimes to understand what makes heroic adventurers tick. Conventional heroes -- firemen, rescue workers, the police under certain circumstances, soldiers who risk their lives to save comrades under fire -- one can understand, if not necessarily emulate. They are, after all, basically just doing their jobs. There is also room in our personal pantheon of heroes for the great explorers who first charted the oceans and mapped the continents. Obviously, their voyages and discoveries served humanity as well as their own (and their royal patrons') egos. Their spirit survives today in those who venture into space, the last and most daunting frontier.