Mount Everest And Its First Heroes: Hillary And Norgay

Mount Everest is located in the Asian Himalaya range. Himalaya means in Sanskrit "abode of the snow". The Himalayas are the highest range in the Earth, being the Everest the highest mountain in the planet. Mount Everest separates Nepal from Tibet, and is also called "the top of the world". Mount Everest is called Sagarmatha in Nepal (which means "Goddess of the sky"), and in China it's known as Chomolungma o Qomolangma Feng ("the mother of Universe"). This mountain was called Everest in honor of Sir George Everest (a British surveyor-general of India) in the year 1865. They were the British who sought for the highest mountain in the Earth, and that took them to the Himalayas. When they found that mountain, the Everest, always covered by the clouds because of its altitude, they knew they had found it. They did many measurements, and each time the mountain seemed to be more and more high. The first British expedition to Mount Everest was in 1921 (from June to September). The second one was in 1922 and took from April to June. In 1924 there was another expedition in which 2 of its members disappeared: Andrew Irvine and George Mallory. In 1953, Edmund Percival Hillary (who has died recently) from New Zealand, and the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached the summit, which is 8,850 m high (29,035 feet). It was 29 May of 1953. Edmund had already taken part in a previous expedition. He was a great adventurer (he also reached the South Pole). And he spent a big part of his life helping the Sherpa people from Nepal. Edmund created a foundation that built hospitals and schools in the most remote places of the Himalayas. Edmund lost his first wife and his daughter in an airplane accident in Nepal. He married again, and his son Peter Hillary followed his steps, reaching the summit of the Everest two times. In the commemoration of the 50 anniversary of the first ascent to the Everest, the government named Edmund Hillary as honor citizen. This way, he became the fist foreigner that has received this award in Nepal. The Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, who reached the summit with Hillary, had taken part of other expeditions to Mount Everest before that. But with Edmund he reached the success. In 1974, Tenzing Norgay founded a business to offer his services to all the mountaineers and climbers that dream with reaching the summit of Mount Everest. One of Norgay's sons also followed his steps and climbed the Everest in 1996: Jamling Tenzing Norgay. As a curiosity, Tenzing Norgay has a monument to him, that represents the moment in which he reached the summit. After that moment of reaching the Everest's summit for first time, there have been many more who got it. One of them is when the Japanese Junko Tabei climbed the Everest in 1975, being the first woman in doing that. And in 1978, some explorers tried the first ascent without oxygen cylinders. In fact, the extreme conditions combined with the so high altitude make climbing very hard. The reason is that, the higher people ascend, the lesser the abundance of oxygen. So it requires a time of adaptation and a training, or using oxygen cylinders to add oxygen to blood in an artificial way. A curiosity: when Hillary and Norgay where in a critical moment of their ascent, they found some oxygen cylinders belonging to a previous expedition. After all these first pioneers, many people see Mount Everest like a goal to reach, and there have been are many expeditions, routes created... It is the summit which is in the dreams of many mountaineers: the highest summit, to be at the top of the world. -Emma Alvarez- © 2008 by Emma Alvarez. Link to this post without copying the text. Some Related Posts: If you liked this post, subscribe to Emma Alvarez Site or give yourself a gift Stumble it! Add me to your del.icio.us network