The mountain sports leave us great challenges, since from time to time we can see in the news how climbers and mountaineers of all the world perform true feats in standing up to nature. The why? It's hard to explain. Perhaps one of its reasons is the feeling of improvement, or experiencing high doses of adrenaline, perhaps the reason is to "get lost" among spectacular landscapes, not accessible to most mortals...
Mount Everest is one of the most impressive places that surely exist on the face of the Earth. One of the reasons is because of its height, as it is the highest mountain above sea level, with no more and no less than 8,848 meters. Where is? In the Himalayas and it was, without going any further, the "first eight thousand" on the resume of our national climber and the first woman to climb the 14 eight thousand in the world, Edurne Pasaban.
Being located between Nepal and China, we can find two meanings for its name. The Nepali name, Sagarmatha means "the forehead of heaven" and in the case of the Chinese name, Chomolungma or Qomolangma, Feng comes to mean "mother of the universe." For both of us, we can see that this mountain is very important and makes it have a special charm, not only for the inhabitants of the area but for all mountaineering lovers.
First expedition
Now that we know a little more about its location and the meaning of its name, we are going to investigate when the first ascent took place and who was the protagonist of such a feat.
1924. June 8. Two British explorers: Andrew Irvine and George Mallory. A story with an ending not yet resolved... The Vía de Collado Norte was the one that saw the two men appear although unfortunately it did not see them return... It was never known if they reached the top, since their bodies were found nearby from a Chinese base camp.
Although there were numerous expeditions during the following years and endless explorations, both on the north and south faces, it was not until 1953 when the first flag was placed to prove that the New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary and his Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached the top of the mountain. That morning the coronation of Queen Isabell II took place, who named them British knights.
Everest in data
- The 5,070 ascents carried out (as of May 2010) have concluded with the arrival of 3,431 people to the summit.
- In the last 50 years, 10,000 promotion attempts have been made.
- At 8,000 meters is the arrival of the "death zone", since from then on many climbers have to use oxygen masks.
- $10,000 is the price to pay to the Government of Nepal per person to climb the mountain.
- Yuichiro Miura was 75 years old when he broke the Guinness Record by climbing Everest in 2008.
