People certainly try. As Bill noted earlier in the thread, a woman died this year climbing Everest who had little or no other climbing experience. And this is a woman that trained rigorously for it, too.
No, you don't eliminate risk. All you can be is informed, prepared and level-headed, but there's certainly a large risk involved. Still, there are deadlier mountains. For instance, K2, Nanga Parbat, and Annapurna are all tougher Himalaya mountains. Denali doesn't have the same altitude, but the more unpredictable weather and the vertical relief is actually higher than Everest, making it virtually as deadly as Everest.
I'm not sure that metaphor is apt. I've never heard of any regularly-paddled river that kills nearly 5% of the people who run it. Interesting, as this is precisely the reason that Everest (and similar undertakings) holds absolutely no appeal to me. When I take informed risks like paddling/climbing/etc, I want the outcome, as much as is possible, to be dependent on the application of my own skills, rather than a roll of the dice.
I've been reading Into the Silence, by Wade Davis, a book as tall as the Everest about the first three english expeditions in 1921, 22 and 24. The book centers around Mallory and his failed attempts to reach the summit by the north (Nepal was forbidden until 1950), but it's also about colonialism and the whole lost generation that fought WWI. It's a great read, extremely well documented. The minutiae can get overwhelming, but Davis makes it fascinating... His basic idea is that the climbers were fascinated by the purity of the mountain, as a sort of redemption from the horrors of the war. Mallory and his peers are painted in very nuanced ways, they're not heroes -- their racism is staggering -- even if they're often admirable. It's not only a book about the Everest, we also meet JM Keynes and Virginia Woolf, tibetan monks and Eton boys, ragged explorers and socialites. Anyone interested in the Everest or that time period should give it a try.
