New records, reflection mark Everest 60th anniversary
NEPAL: Sixty years ago this week two men became the first to stand on
the roof of the world in a remarkable feat of endurance and strength of
the human spirit. As the May 29 anniversary of Tenzing Norgay and Edmund
Hillary’s summit of Mount Everest approaches, hundreds of people from
all walks of life, and with varying motivations, are trying to follow in
their footsteps.
With May the ideal month to climb in the Himalayas, some 500 have
already succeeded this year, including an octogenarian, the first female
amputee, the first women from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and the first
female climber to summit twice in one season.
When they reached the top some triumphantly telephoned their loved
ones, while others posed for pictures on the peak.
Still more will attempt an ascent while the good weather window
remains open, including professional mountaineers with corporate
sponsorship, those attempting to break records, activists raising
awareness and charity fundraisers.
While the tourism generated by Everest is important for Nepal,
Norgay’s grandson Tashi Tenzing, 49, said understanding the value of the
Himalayas and protecting them for future generations was also crucial.
“I think the achievement by my grandfather and Edmund Hillary was
great and historic,” says Tashi, himself an Everest mountaineer, based
in Kathmandu.
“But I also think that the 60th anniversary is a time to reflect on
the mountain and what we have done to it. As we celebrate the 60th
anniversary we must learn the lessons from our experience on the
mountains,” he said.
To mark the anniversary, Hillary’s son Peter, and Norgay’s son
Jamling, will join Queen Elizabeth II at a diamond jubilee event at the
Royal Geographical Society in London.
Celebratory events back on Everest range from a clean-up campaign at
base camp to a high-altitude marathon.
In Kathmandu a gala featuring record-setting summiteers and top brass
from Nepal’s government will be held at the palace.
Despite the celebrations, the anniversary may already have been
marred by accidents and an outburst of violence that erupted on the
mountain earlier this year.
In a reminder of the treachery of Everest, an elite Nepalese
mountaineer plunged to his death in an icy crevasse. He had been rigging
ropes for hundreds of hopefuls behind him -- the first time an “icefall
doctor” has perished on the mountain.
And then in the season’s defining moment a brawl broke out high on
the mountain in late April.
Two European professional climbers, Ueli Steck of Switzerland and
Italian Simone Moro, along with a British alpine photographer, exchanged
blows with a group of Nepalese Sherpas, reportedly over turf rights
while negotiating an ice field.
Despite signing a ‘peace accord’ with the Sherpas, the trio left the
mountain 48 hours later saying the incident had killed their “climbing
spirit”.
The fight shocked and saddened the foreign mountaineering community,
which is used to working in tandem with Nepalese climbers -- as
exemplified by Norgay and Hillary’s cooperation 60 years ago.
Some blamed the outburst on growing competition and commercialism on
the money-spinning mountain, while others suggested the incident
reflected underlying economic tensions and jealousy caused by Sherpas
working for low wages to serve the influx of rich mountaineers. A
National Geographic article by an American who once lived in the Everest
region went as far as to call the Sherpas “noble savages”, a comment
which a Nepalese columnist excoriated as “cloying, condescending, and
racist” in a local daily.
Everest is no stranger to controversy, but the brawl shone a
spotlight on the state of the mountain, the adventure industry that made
it famous and the country whose government has come to rely on it for
revenue and reputation.
Increased crowding on the peak was captured in a now-famous
photograph showing climbers lined up like ants as they traversed the
Lhotse Face ice wall last year.
The image has become emblematic of a mountain that may have become,
as a later National Geographic piece suggested, “maxed out”.
Some 3,000 people have reached the top of the 8,848-metre
(29,029-foot) high mountain so far.
Cason Crane, a 20-year-old American university student, is aiming to
be the first openly gay person to reach the summit. Before leaving for
the climb he told AFP in Kathmandu: “It’s not about a personal
achievement for me, it’s about being a role model.” Everest was named in
1852 by the colonial-era Great Trigonometrical Survey of India which
singled out the until then unremarkable peak in the eastern Himalayas as
the tallest mountain in the world.
One hundred and one ye
ars later, two men -- one from New Zealand, one a Nepalese Sherpa --
reached the summit for the first confirmed time, following in the
footsteps of few men who had tried before.
As they approached the summit, the two conquered a nearly impassable
rock wall, which is today known as the “Hillary Step”.
At the top, Hillary reached out to shake Norgay’s hand, and Norgay
responded by hugging him.
The expedition that cemented the pair as mountaineering legends
lasted over two months and featured more than 300 staff carrying nearly
eight tonnes of equipment.
As veteran New Zealand-based Everest guide Russell Brice told
National Geographic: “You know who the first guided client on Everest
was? Ed Hillary.”
AFP
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