“A snapshot from mountaineer's life”. Have you ever wondered how does a mountaineer's day start? I will give you a hint: you wake up at 3 am, set the stove, wake up your partner, pretend it is warm, quickly consume a high-calorie breakfast, watch your friends slowly ascending the icy slopes of your dream summit with their tiny head torches glimmering against perfectly blue ice, and hope for the good weather. One would ask: why all this trouble? The answer is easy: for the love of the adventure and the unknown. Location: Chamonix, Haute Savoye, France. (Photo and caption by Kamil Tamiola/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

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This handout photograph released by Taipei City Zoo on July 11, 2013 shows a newly-born panda cub of giant panda Yuan Yuan in an incubator at Taipei Zoo in Taipei. The public will have to wait three months to catch a glimpse of the first panda born in Taiwan, officials said after she was successfully delivered by parents who were gifted from China. (Photo by AFP Photo/Taipei City Zoo)

Revelers enter the cold water during the annual Polar Bear Plunge on New Year's Day, Wednesday, January 1, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Andres Kudacki/AP Photo)

In this May 8, 2015 photo, sisters Zoraida Infante, left, and Graciela Trujillo pray on Fishermen's Beach before therapeutic swimming in the Pacific Ocean in Lima, Peru. Under overcast skies, the bathers practice thalassotherapy, which derives from the Greek “thalasso”, for “sea”, and draws on the ocean's healing properties. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

Large waves break at Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast,, Queensland, Australia, 05 June 2016. Recent wild weather unleashed heavy rainfalls, powerful winds and abnormally high tides in Southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales. (Photo by Dan Peled/EPA)

A young oriental small-clawed otter at the zoo in Neumuenster, Germany, March 5, 2014. The six young otters (one male, five female) were born on December 7, 2013. (Photo by Maja Hitij/EPA)

A diver wearing a Santa Claus costume feeds a sunfish to attract visitors at the Hakkeijima Sea Paradise aquarium in Yokohama, suburban Tokyo on December 17, 2014. Christmas attractions will be held till Christmas Day. (Photo by Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP Photo)

A person takes photos of Vervet monkeys that are eating in a parking lot near the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Dania Beach, Florida, USA, 10 May 2022. Over 40 descendants of smallish vervets, escaped from now closed breeding facility, are living within 1,500 acres around the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International airport. The Dania Beach Vervet Project is an organization established in 2016 with the purpose of promote the conservation, and education about the local free ranging vervet monkeys in Dania Beach, Florida. (Photo by Cristóbal Herrera/EPA/EFE)