Home United States U. Africa 54 - November 11, VOA Africa Listen live. VOA Newscasts Latest program. VOA Newscasts. Previous Next. June 05, PM. Agence France-Presse. This spring, the allure of the highest peak in the world brought climbers rushing back. Summiting the mountain has always been deadly. You can get a permit to climb any of the 30 named routes on Everest or make up your own.
If you want to traverse from Nepal to Tibet or the other way, you will need to get permits from both countries however China has refused to issue permission from their side for many years now. In a climber illegally made the traverse and was deported and banned for 5 years. He claimed it was a medical emergency. Officially, No. The Nepal Ministry of Tourism requires every climber to hire a Sherpa guide.
The CMA has a similar requirement. But like everything around Everest, there are exceptions and most rules are never enforced. As previously addressed, it is almost impossible to climb Everest completely alone on the standard route. However, you can climb independently with no oxygen, Sherpa or cook support but using ladders and ropes on the south side. Even then this price assumed no support, no oxygen, not contributing to the cost of the fixed ropes or ladders, no weather forecasting, etc.
This post assumes most people want to climb in a relatively comfortable style and not eat rice every meal for six weeks. The general rule is that the lower the price, the larger the team. At the high end, it is often profit, overhead, and the number of western guides.
Also how many services are bundled into one single price versus offered as options. One UK based outfitter offers a low price for the north side but does not include oxygen, summit bonuses or other options that almost every one includes in their base price. Another common practice to keep expedition costs low is to pay support staff the absolute minimum whereas the guide companies pay a livable wage for their entire team.
But often it is the availability of resources: extra Sherpas, back up supplies ropes, tents, oxygen bottles, etc , medical facilities, communications and profit and overhead for the operator. One well known low-cost operator had their tents destroyed one year, had no backup and had to beg other operators for spares … they also ran out of food.
A low price service may not include a bonus whereas another may. This is not shown as part of the base price. But a different company includes these bonuses in their overall package. In both cases, it is customary to tip your Sherpa, and western guide, an additional amount. How many people have summited Everest?
The Himalayan Database reports that through August there have been 10, summits 5, members and 5, hired workers on Everest by all routes, by 5, different people.
There have been summits by women members. The Nepal side is more popular with 6, summits compared to summits from the Tibet side. The Nepal side has deaths or 2. Most bodies are still on the mountain but China has removed many bodies from sight on their side.
The top causes of death are from avalanche 77 , fall 71 , altitude sickness 36 and exposure There were 11 deaths. Everest is actually getting safer even though more people are now climbing. From to people died on Everest with 1, summits or But the deaths drastically declined from to with 8, summits and deaths or 1. However, three years skewed the deaths rates with 17 in , 14 in and 11 in The reduction in deaths is primarily due to better gear, weather forecasting and more people climbing with commercial operations.
Of the meter peaks, Everest has the highest absolute number of deaths at but ranks near the bottom with a death rate of 1. Annapurna is the most deadly er with one death for about every four summits or a 3. Cho Oyu is the safest with 3, summits and 52 deaths or a death rate of 0. Which side should I climb, north or south?
Both sides have a lot to offer: Tibet with the mystery of Mallory and Irvine in and Nepal with the first summit by Hillary and Norgay in The comparison between sides is pretty simple. The north is colder, windier and some feel technically harder since you climb on exposed rock. The south has the Khumbu Icefall which some now fear. The Nepal side is more popular with 6, summits compared to 3, summits from the Tibet side.
When choosing sides, keep in mind that as of , China does not allow helicopter rescues on their side. That might change by as they are building a massive Mountaineering Center at base camp to cater to tourists and have said they will start helicopter rescues as part of the center.
One can cherry-pick the numbers to prove almost any point on which side is safe, but the bottom line is death happens on both sides of Everest and it often comes down to being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
If you choose not to, you will be in a tiny group. Supplemental oxygen gives the body a 3, foot advantage. In other words, when the climber is at 28, feet, the body feels like it is at 25, feet. The main benefit of supplemental oxygen is that you feel warmer thus allowing the heart to pump blood, and oxygen to fingers and toes thus reducing the risk of frostbite. While climbing without Os is a serious accomplishment, it is not for everyone. Many try and few succeed. Getting the money is almost always harder than climbing Everest.
Because of this, scientists have determined that the human body is not capable of remaining indefinitely above 19, feet. As climbers move higher up the mountain and their oxygen intake is reduced, their bodies are increasingly at risk for a number of ailments, including pulmonary edema, cerebral edema, and blood embolisms.
The chances of frostbite are also dramatically increased at such altitude as the heart works harder to pump blood around the body delivering oxygen. The life-giving organs are first priority; digits are last. The vast majority of climbers ascending Everest use tanks of oxygen to reduce the effects of the extreme altitude.
However, bottled oxygen has its own drawbacks and risks. Lastly, oxygen units are notoriously unreliable, as Everest guide Adrian Ballinger discovered in on summit day when his team experienced a systematic failure of their breathing systems.
The glowing mass of tents forms Everest Base Camp, which completely assembles each spring amidst the moving glacial ice and rubble and disassembles at the end of the season. Each tent platform is painstakingly carved out of the ice by the Sherpas before the foreigners arrive, but once complete, it's a veritable city with international chefs prepping sushi, giant party tents with glowing TV screens and libraries, and blanketed wi-fi networks.
It was a bustling base camp scene this season, until the unexpected and tragic avalanche hit. Although 17 different routes have been pioneered to the summit of Everest, almost everyone climbs it via one of two routes.
Although experienced mountaineers say the overall difficulty of the two routes is comparable, the challenges are different. Despite the risks, Everest draws hundreds of mountaineers from around the world to its slopes each year.
In the Nepal Ministry of Tourism issued individual climbing permits to foreign climbers, and reports that of them summited, along with high-altitude workers. On the North side of the mountain, meanwhile, respected Everest chronicler Alan Arnette estimates that an additional people reached the summited. For local logistics companies and the Government of Nepal, Everest is big business. The industry is built on the backs of a small cadre of professional Nepalese guides who work together each spring to prepare the route with fixed ropes and ladders, stock each camp with essentials like tents, stoves, bottled oxygen, and food, and then patiently coach their foreign guests up to the summit.
In recent years, thanks to educational opportunities like the Khumbu Climbing Center , Nepalese guides have begun to receive training and certifications to international standards.
I heard hoofbeats and a voice, and when I turned, there was Tenzing. He was riding a brown pony, wearing English-style boots over khaki trousers, and using an English saddle with a bright Tibetan rug under it. The pony was just under thirteen hands, fit, and well groomed; stopping to chat for a moment, Tenzing said it came from Tibet, and showed me a brand on its hind quarters that looked like a Chinese character.
Mount Everest has been a British institution—or at least climbing it has—since a year or two after the First World War. This came as something of a surprise, for Everest does not appear to stand above the peaks around it.
Since then, there have been threats from flash contenders, like Amne Machin, in northwest China, but Everest is still rated highest, even though there have been arguments over exactly how high it is. In , the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, a British project, called it 29, feet—admittedly an approximation. Some authorities say it is 29,—the result of later sightings—but 29, has prevailed, on the ground that no sighting can be reliable and it is better to choose one and stay with it.
A custom developed early in the history of Himalayan climbing whereby, to avoid confusion, different nations in general took on different peaks. In the division, the British got Everest, and except for two Swiss parties, which tried the climb in , with Tenzing along both times, they have had it pretty much to themselves. Between the two World Wars, the only way to approach Everest was from Tibet, because Nepal did not admit climbing parties, and Britain was the only Western country on speaking terms with Tibet.
In , Nepal opened up, and in , with the arrival of the Communists, Tibet closed down. In the days when the road lay only through Tibet, Darjeeling, which is near the caravan track from India to Lhasa, made a natural jumping-off place, where climbers could assemble, start breathing mountain air, check their equipment, learn something about the Himalayas, and, if they liked, be blessed before setting out by lamas from the nearby monastery of Ghoom.
In Darjeeling, too, the expeditions could recruit Sherpas, whose worth as high-altitude porters was discovered at the start of this century and who have helped in all the major attacks on Everest and the other high peaks in this stretch of the Himalayas.
Last year, however, a German-Austrian party climbing Nanga Parbat, near the northwestern end of the range, had to do without them, for Nanga Parbat is in the part of Kashmir now held by Pakistani troops, and Pakistan is not hospitable toward Indians. Being stopped by a frontier was a new experience for the Sherpas, who, all this century, have drifted innocently and unhindered across the otherwise stern border of Tibet and Nepal. If peaks were forbidden, it was not to Sherpas but to their Western employers—though this amounted to the same thing, since most Sherpas are not interested in climbing mountains by themselves.
For them, it is a livelihood, made possible by Western whim. Katmandu, the capital of Nepal, has become the usual jumping-off place for climbers, but Darjeeling remains the recruiting ground for Sherpas. They are generally hired through an organization called the Himalayan Club, which provides expeditions with advice and services, and which keeps dossiers on more than a hundred Sherpas, listing their vital statistics, their working records, and their good and bad qualities.
The Sherpas report early in the year, often walking from Namche Bazar for the purpose, so that they can have jobs by March, when the climbing season begins, and the Club assigns them tasks from sirdar, or foreman, down to common porter.
Tenzing was born in a village called Thami, near Everest and at an altitude of fourteen thousand feet. His father owned yaks, and as a boy Tenzing herded them, often in pastures thousands of feet above Thami. He also went on caravan trips over the Nanpa La, a nineteen-thousand-foot pass near the western shoulder of Everest. From the start, he lived as close to Everest as a human being could. Two legends, both circulated by Tenzing and both perhaps true, have grown up to explain why he wanted to climb it.
As everybody knows, he left an offering—a chocolate bar, biscuits, and candy—on the summit. Recently, however, he has been inclined to explain, making no reference to the Deity, that he had wanted to master Everest since his boyhood, when he caught glimpses of climbing parties and heard stories about them from older Sherpas.
There seems room for both motives, but the difference is there, and it reflects a general de-emphasis of the Buddhist faith in his affairs since last year. One reason for this, it seems, is that many natives have become touchy about their religion; some Westerners laugh at it, so Asians keep silent. The Moslems broke off into Pakistan, some Sikhs would like to break off into their own Punjab, and the Himalayan Buddhists might get a similar idea. When Tenzing was a boy, his heart was set on going to Darjeeling, but his father insisted that he stay home and herd yaks.
He obeyed until he was nineteen, and then, in , he and a few other young Sherpas fled to Darjeeling. For a couple of years, he made his way by renting out his pony and doing odd jobs, and in he was hired as a porter for a British Everest party.
He went again in and again in , learning the things that Sherpa guides must learn, including how to cook Western meals for sahibs. His cooking is said to be good. The war suspended climbing for a decade, and it was not until that he tried Everest again, with the Swiss.
He has tackled many other peaks as well. He has been through the mill. At times, one hears, he has been very down and very out, but long before his final success he was known as one of the most able Sherpa sirdars of this generation. Another is Ang Tharkay, who went on the Annapurna expedition with the French and is now helping a group of young Californians scale Mount Makalu, a 27,foot peak not far from Everest.
Tenzing and Ang Tharkay began climbing at about the same time, and people often compared them. A Buddhist might argue that he was incarnated for that end, and it does almost appear that he was destined to climb it.
It seems as if barriers opened when Tenzing drew near. Tenzing and Hillary were not the first men in their group to try for the summit; two British climbers, Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans, went ahead of them, but had to stop because their oxygen was running out. The weather was perfect for Tenzing and Hillary, though there was every reason to expect it would be bad.
Because of a siege of malaria, on top of the strain of the two climbs, Tenzing was run-down when he joined Hunt at Katmandu in March, , but between Katmandu and Everest he walked himself into shape. On the other hand, I have been told that in January, , Tenzing vowed at a dinner that he would climb Everest or die.
For the British, this was a rather revolutionary idea—a bit like commissioning a man from the ranks—but the Swiss, who have no colonies, had set a precedent for it by treating Tenzing as a mountaineer in their own class and assigning him, along with Raymond Lambert, an Alpine guide, to make the big try. They nearly got to the summit. All this was in the background at the time Hunt asked Tenzing to be one of the climbers.
When Tenzing and Hillary reached the top, on May 29th, it was the end of the climb and the beginning of the arguments. Issue No. This came from the outside world, from a public conditioned to thinking that there must always be a winner. Mountaineers, especially when they are roped together, as Tenzing and Hillary were, seem to lack the zest for personal triumph.
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