The Mount Everest, the highest mountain on earth with 8.848 meters above sea level,
is part of the Himalaya range in High Asia and is located on the border between
Sagarmatha Zone, Nepal and Tibet, China. It is called Sagarmatha, Chomolungma, Qomolangma
or Zhumulangma. Name in Nepal is Sagarmantha which means “goddess of the sky” and
the name in Tibet is Chomolungma which means “mother goddess of the universe”.
Around 1856 when the Great Trigonometric Survey of India established the height
of Everest 8,840 m, the mount was known as Peak XV. In 1865 upon recommendation
of Andrew Vaugh, the British Surveyor General of Indi, the English name was official
“Everest”. He was unable to purpose a local name in common for Nepal and Tibet people
however Chomolungma had been use by Tibetans for centuries.
The Mount Everest attracts climbers of all levels, from experienced to novice climbers
which willing to pay substantial sums to professional mountain guides to complete
a successful climb. The mountain still has many inherent dangers such as altitude
sickness, weather and wind. In spite of that information by the end of the 2007
climbing season, there had been 3679 ascents to the summit by 2436 individuals,
which this means climbers are a significant source of the Nepal tourism. The government
requires to prospective climbers to obtain an expensive permit, coasting up to $25,000
per person. Everest has claimed 210 lives, including eight who perished during a
1996 storm high on the mountain.
History
The discovering occurs when the British began the Great Trigonometric Survey of
India to determine the location and names of the highest mountains, using giant
theodolites (500kg) around 1808. They reached the Himalayan foothills by the 1830s
in spite of Nepal was unwilling to allow them to enter the country due to suspicious
of political aggression and a possible annexation, so several requests by the surveyors
to enter Nepal were turned down. They were forced to continue their observations
from Terai a region south of Nepal, but the conditions were difficult due to torrential
rains and malaria, three survey officers died from malaria and the two others had
to retire due to health hazard.
Mount Everest
In 1847, Andrew Waugh made a number of observations from Sawajpore station at the time Kangchenjunga was considered the highest peak in the world. He noted a peak
beyond it, some 230km away, but he doesn’t the only one John Armstrong, one of the
officials saw the peak and called it peak “b”. However due to the great distance
of the observations, closer observations were required for verification. The next
year clouds thwarted all attempts to make closer observations of peak “b”. Finally
then numerous calculations in March 1856 Waugh declared to Kangchenjunga with 8582m
and Peak XV was given the height of 8840m and concluded that the mountain was most
probably the highest in the world.
The next challenge was clearly name the peak, the survey was anxious to preserve
local names (Kangchenjunga and Dhaulagiri where local names) but Waugh argued that
he was unable to find any commonly used local name because it was hampered by Nepal
and Tibet being closed to foreigners at the time. Chomolungma was the best known
local name in Tiber for several centuries but many local names existed too. Waugh
argued that would be difficult to favour one specific name over plethora of local
names and he decided that Peak XV should be named George Everest such as his predecessor
as Surveyor General of India. But George Everest opposed the name suggested and
told the Royal Geographical Society in 1857 that Everest could not be written in
Hindi nor pronounced by “the native of India”. However the name prevailed despite
the objections and in 1865 the name was officially adopted “Mount Everest” for the
highest mountain in the world by the Royal Geographical Society.
Actually there are two main climbing routes, the southeast ridge from Nepal and
the northeast ridge from Tibet as well many others less frequently climbed routes.
The first route is technically easier, more used by climbers and it was the route
used by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953, the first recognized of fifteen
routes to the top by 1996.
Ascent history
1885: Clinton Thomas Dent, president of Alpine Club suggested in his book Above
the Snow Line that it was possible climbing Mount Everest.
1921: The first expedition
was exploratory not equipped for a serious attempt to climb the mountain; it was
leaded by George Mallory. They will must to descend due to unprepared for the enormity
of climbing.
1922: The British returned. George Finch climbed using oxygen for the first time at a
remarkable speed 290m per hour. Mallory and Col.Felix Norton made
a second attempt where seven native porters were killed by an avalanche. Mallory
was faulted for leading a group down. 1924: George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made
and attempt on the summit via the North Col/Northeast Ridge route from which they
never returned. In 1999 the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition found Mallory’s
body on the North Face in a snow basin below and to the west of the traditional
site of Camp IV. The mountaineering community has raged as to whether or not one
or both of them reached the summit 29 years before the confirmed ascent of Everest
by Sir Edmund and Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953. In an effort to deploy the
British Union flag at the top, Lady Houston a British millionaire funded the Houston
Everest Flight of 1933.
1953: A ninth British expedition led by John Hunt returned
to Nepal. Selecting two climbing pairs to attempt to reach the summit, Tom Bourdillon
and Charles Evans were the first pair and reach within 100m of the summit, but they
turned back after becoming exhausted. Their caches of extra oxygen were a great
aid to the following pair, the New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay who
two days later made its second and final assault on the summit. They reached the
summit on 29 May 1953 at 11:30am via the South Col Route, pausing at the summit
to take photographs and buried a few sweets and a small cross in the snow before
descending.
1980: Reinhold Messner climbed during three days entirely alone from
his base camp at 6500 m to finally reach the mountain summit for the first time
without supplementary oxygen or support on the more difficult Northwest route via
the North Col to the North Face and the Great Couloir.
1996: The deadliest year in Everest history, where fifteen people died trying to come down from the summit.
2005: The pilot Didier Delsalle of France landed a Eurocopter AS 350 B3 helicopter
on the Mount Everest summit.
2008: China paved a 130km dirt road from Tingri County
to its Base Camp and will become the highest asphalt-paved road in the world. A
China Telecom cellular tower near the Base Camp provides phone coverage all the
way to the summit.