Mount Everest

MOUNT EVEREST HISTORY

In 1852, stationed at the survey headquarters in Dehradun, Radhanath Sikdar, an Indian mathematician and surveyor from Bengal, was the first to identify Everest (then known as Peak XV)  as the world's highest mountain, using trigonometric calculations.

Four years later Andrew Scott Waugh, the British Surveyor General of India, calculated the peak of Mount Everest to be exactly 29,000 ft. Fearing that nobody would believe that this was the exact height and nothing more than an estimate, he publicly declared the height to be 29,002 ft.

Peak XV was named Mount Everest in 1865 after the former Surveyor General of India George Everest, despite his objections by the Royal Geographical Society. Andrew Scott Waugh was Everest's successor.

By Joe Hastings. wikipedia Commons

Sir George Everest pronounced his name as two syllables Eve-Rist, not the three-syllable E-ve-rest. He didn't want the mountain named after him—he worried that local Hindi speakers couldn't pronounce or write "Everest."

George Mallory may have been the first person to reach the summit of Everest. He was last seen 800 vertical feet (245 m) from the summit on June 8, 1924 but never returned. He carried a picture of his wife with him that he said he would leave at the summit which he did not have when his body was found 75 years later.

The 1924 British Mount Everest expedition; Mallory is highlighted

The first flight over Mount Everest was undertaken on April 3, 1933 by two Westland biplanes. They were piloted by Douglas Douglas-Hamilton ( (then known as Lord Clydesdale) and David McIntyre. The expedition was financed by Lady Houston. It was also the first detailed and scientific survey of the Himalaya region.

British soldier Maurice Wilson died on c. May 31, 1934 in an ill-fated attempt to climb Mount Everest alone. Wilson's plan had been to fly halfway around the world, crash-land on the mountain, and then walk to the summit despite having no experience in either mountaineering or aviation.

Everest was identified as the world’s highest mountain in 1952 from calculations made by the British Great Trigonometric survey.

New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary and Nepali-Indian Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay were the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest. On May 29, 1953, Hillary and Norgay crossed a 40-foot vertical crack in the ice and struggled to the top of the earth, ending a two-month trek up the planet's coldest, wildest, most suffocating wilderness.

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953. By Jamling Tenzing Norgay - Wikipedia Commons

Hillary and Norgay were accompanied by a team of 400 people on their conquest of Everest. They included 20 sherpas and 362 porters carrying 10,000lb of baggage.

Jim Whittaker became was the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest on May 1, 1963. He summited with the Sherpa Nawang Gombu (a nephew of Tenzing Norgay). Once there, Whittaker planted a US flag at the top.

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In 1969, The Beatles originally planned to have an album titled Everest. However, the Fab Four didn't want to travel all the way to Mount Everest for the LP cover photoshoot. This led to the title being  changed to Abbey Road, which was the street right outside their studio.

Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest on May 16. 1975. She was also the first woman to ascend all Seven Summits by climbing the highest peak on every continent. Tabei created her own climbing equipment from scratch out of old curtains and the cover of her car,

The first ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen was completed by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler on May 8, 1978. It was the first time anyone had been that high without bottled oxygen and Messner and Habeler proved what certain doctors, specialists, and mountaineers thought impossible.

In 1990, Peter Hillary, son of Sir Edmund, became the first mountaineer to follow in his father's footsteps by climbing Everest.

33-year-old British mother Alison Hargreaves became on May 13, 1995 the first woman to conquer Everest without oxygen or the help of sherpas.

Swedish mountaineer Goran Kropp rode a bicycle 6,000 miles (9,700 kms) from Stockholm to the base of Mount Everest in 1996 with his mountain equipment, successfully climbed it solo and without bottled oxygen or Sherpa support, and then cycled back home.

32-year-old Erik Weihenmayer, of Boulder, Colorado, became the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 2001.

The fastest ever ascent of Mount Everest with supplemental oxygen was achieved by Nepalese climber Lakpa Gelu.  He started from Everest Base Camp at 5:00 p.m. on May 25, 2003, and reached on the summit  just 10 hours 56 minutes and 46 seconds later at 3:56:46 a.m. on May 26. This is an incredible feat, considering that the average time it takes to climb Everest is about 20 days.

Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer Pem Dorjee Sherpa and Moni Mulepati were the first couple to marry on top of Mt. Everest on May 30, 2005.

American mountain climber Jordan Romero became on May 22, 2010, the youngest person to climb Mount Everest. He was 13 years 10 months 10 days old when he reached the summit. Jordan was accompanied by his father Paul Romero, his step-mother Karen Lundgren, and three Sherpas. When he got to the top of Everest, Jordan called his mom, telling her, "Mom, I'm calling you from the top of the world."

In 2012, a record 234 climbers scaled Everest on the same day — there was a queue for the summit, with some waiting two hours to get to the top.

On May 23, 2013, Japanese mountaineer Yuichiro Miura became the oldest person to reach the summit of Mount Everest at the age of 80.  While the climb up was difficult, Miura said the descent nearly killed him.

Miura was also the the first person to ski on Mount Everest. On May 6, 1970, he descended nearly 4,200 vertical feet from the South Col (elevation over 8,000 m (26,000 ft)).

The Hillary Step was a nearly vertical rock face with a height of around 12 metres (39 ft) located near the summit of Mount Everest. It gave climbers the last real challenge before reaching the top of the mountain via the southeast route. The Hillary Step collapsed during a massive earthquake that hit the region in 2015 and is no longer a feature on the mountain.

No one reached the summit in 2015 — for the first time in 41 years — when routes were closed after the Nepal earthquake. in 2015 nobody made it to the top of Mount Everest.

FUN EVEREST FACTS

Everest climbing is a good source of income for Nepal, generating around $100 million a year.

In November 2020 Nepal and China announced a new measurement of the world’s tallest mountain: 29,031.7 feet (8848.8 metres) about three feet taller than previously thought.

The peak is known as Sagarmatha in Nepali and Chomolungma in Tibetan.

Mount Kea in Hawaii is some 4,000ft taller than Everest if measured from its undersea base.

In 1999, GPS satellites showed that Everest was 7ft higher than had previously been thought.

Mt. Everest grows about 4 millimeters a year: the two tectonic plates of Asia and India, which collided millions of years ago to form the Himalayas, continue to press against each other, causing the Himalyan peaks to grow slightly each year.

The “Death Zone” is what climbers call the highest part of Mount Everest (everything above 26,247ft). Due to its lack of oxygen, the body literally begins to die, cell by cell. This can result in health risks like impaired judgement, altitude sickness and even heart attack or stroke.

Climbers who ascend Everest pay $530 (£330) for every canister of oxygen they use.

Mount Everest is covered with so much trash, now the Nepalese government requires each climber to carry with them 8 kgs (17lb 10oz) of waste while descending the mountain.

This includes human excrement, empty cans, abandoned tents, etc.

Over 5,000 climbers have successfully reached Mount Everest's peak.

There is a part of Mount Everest known as the Rainbow Valley. It is named not because there are rainbows there, but because of the brightly-colored jackets on the frozen corpses that litter the valley.

The summit of Mount Everest is about the size of two Ping-Pong tables.

In July, the warmest month of the year, the average temperature near the top of Mount Everest is -2 ° F.

Wind speeds can reach 200 mph while temperatures reach minus 60C.

Mount Everest has 3G wireless internet. Trekkers can talk on their cell phones at the lower sections of the mountain and can tweet their ascent all the way to the summit.

Source Daily Express