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WORLD REPORT EDITION
May 9, 2003 Vol. 8 No. 26
On Top Of The World
It has been 50 years since two adventurers first climbed Mt. Everest
On May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary and his mountain-climbing
companion, Tenzing
Norgay, got a glimpse of Asia that no other human
had ever enjoyed. They became the
first to look down from the
dizzying height of the world's tallest mountain, Everest, while
standing on its snowy top. But it wasn't a time for celebrating.
"I didn't leap or throw my hands in the air or something,"
Hillary, now 83, recalled in an
interview with Robert Sullivan of
Life books. "We were tired, of course." This month,
the party's on!
Hillary, who lives in New Zealand, will join his friends and fans in
Kathmandu, Nepal, to honor the 50th anniversary of his towering
feat.
THE QUEST FOR THE TOP
Sir George Everest, an English surveyor who mapped India and part
of the Himalaya
range, probably never even saw the big mountain. But
his colleagues, who measured
the peak and declared it the world's
tallest in 1852, wanted to honor his work by
naming it after him.
The 29,035-foot-tall mountain straddles the border of Nepal and
the
Tibet region of China.
Climbing to its summit became an irresistible goal for
adventurers. When a reporter
asked George Mallory, a British
mountaineer, why he wanted to climb Everest, he
famously replied,
"Because it is there." Mallory's final attempt to reach the top
ended in
his death in 1924. At least 175 climbers are known to have
died on Everest since
1920. Nearly 1,200 others made it to the top.
ONE MEAN MOUNTAIN
Anyone who has climbed Everest can tell you that human beings are
not meant to hang
around 5.5 miles above sea level. The ice, snow,
frigid wind, deep ice cracks called
crevasses and lack of oxygen are
constant threats to climbers' safety and health.
Because of the thin
air, most climbers breathe from oxygen tanks. Others have lost
toes,
ears and fingers to frostbite. All of these factors force climbers
who do reach the
top to turn around and scramble back down right
away.
"You cannot conquer Everest. It's not possible," says Jamling
Norgay, 38, a son of
Tenzing Norgay's, who has climbed Everest with
Hillary's son, Peter. "Everest will give
you a chance to stand on
the top for a few minutes, and that's it."
IT'S STILL THERE
The mountain is much less a mystery 50 years later. Climbers have
attacked it from all
sides, reaching the peak by 15 different
routes. Satellite phones and other equipment
keep the adventurers in
touch with the world below. Climbing clothes are made of high-
tech
thermal fabrics now. Hillary and Norgay had layers of wool and
cotton, and a
simple cotton tent, to keep them warm.
Some modern climbers are inexperienced but pay a lot of money to
have professional
guides take them to the top. This can be risky,
and in 1996, tragedy struck. On one of
the mountain's busiest days,
a storm blew in, and eight climbers died in a single night.
Edmund Hillary continued a life of achievement. After being
knighted by Queen
Elizabeth II, Sir Edmund led a team across
Antarctica to the South Pole and climbed
many mountains. He has
worked for decades to build desperately needed schools and
hospitals
for Tenzing Norgay's people, the Sherpas of Nepal. "That's how I'd
like to be
remembered," says Hillary. "Not for Everest but for the
work I did and the cooperation
I had with my Sherpa friends."
THINK! People who climb Mount Everest risk their lives to get to
the top. Is the
challenge worth the serious risk? Why or why not?
By Martha Pickerill
Used with permission from TIME for Kids magazine, c 2003 |
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