Showing posts with label Earth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Earth. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Everest - where the earth meets the sky

where the earth meets the sky



Mount Everest, the highest peak in the Himalayas and the highest point on Earth, has many names. 
Tibetans call it Chomolungma, meaning ‘Mother Goddess of the World’ and the Nepalese call it 
Sagarmatha, meaning ‘Goddess of the Sky’. Others call it the ‘Roof of the World’. In English the 
mountain is named after a Welsh geographer Sir George Everest, who lived between 1790-1866. George 
Everest was a scientist and a researcher, who for many years and despite numerous hardships, carried out 
geographical research about India and Nepal and drew maps of these territories. 
The great Himalayas, the highest mountain range in the world, extend 2,400 kilometres along four 
countries of Asia: China, India, Nepal and Pakistan. Mount Everest, which is on the border of Tibet and 
Nepal, is 8,848 metres high, almost twice as high as Mount Elbrus which, at 5,642 metres, is the highest 
point in the Caucasus Mountains and in Europe. 
Everest, with its inspiring power and beauty, has always attracted courageous adventurers and climbers. 
George Mallory, a British climber, was the first to explore a practical route up the mountain in 1921. 
Later, in 1924, Mallory and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine disappeared during their attempt to make 
the first climb up Everest. It was only after 75 years, in 1999, that Mallory’s body was finally discovered 
by an expedition that had set out to search for the climbers’ bodies. Whether or not Mallory and Irvine 
reached the summit of Everest before they died is still unknown and this is a subject of debate and 
continuing research. 
Such unlucky histories never frightened brave climbers, among whom Sir Edmund Hillary, a New 
Zealander, and Tenzing Norgay from Nepal, were the luckiest. We say the luckiest, because they were the 
first to reach the summit of Everest in 1953. Since then more than two thousand and five hundred men and 
women have stood there. More than two hundred have died in attempts to make it to the top. They were all 
brave people who were not afraid of cold, hunger and death. In 1980 a famous climber Rein Hold Mesner 
reached the summit alone without oxygen. Before that, in 1963, Barry Bishop, from National Geographic, 
climbed Everest as a member of the First American Expedition. Each of these expeditions established new 
routes and produced better maps, thus making things easier for the next generations. 
Nepal is both lucky and unlucky to have Everest on its territory. Lucky, because they have the ‘Roof 
of the World’ and unlucky because this ‘Roof of the World’ attracts too many tourists. The Nepalese 
people joke: ‘We have three religions - Hinduism, Buddhism and Tourism. Tourism lays golden eggs but 
it spoils the nest’. The Nepalese realize that the Himalaya is much, much more than the highest point. It is 
true dazzling beauty and people have to take care of it.