Peak XV:
Mount Everest once went by the pedestrian name of Peak XV among Westerners. That was before surveyors established that it was the highest mountain on Earth, a fact that came as something of a surprise - Peak XV had seemed lost in the crowd of other formidable Himalayan peaks, many of which gave the illusion of greater height.
Everest, Mount:
Everest, Mount, peak, 29,028 ft (8,848 m) high, on the border of Nepal and Tibet, in the central Himalayas lies in Nepal. It is the highest elevation in the world, called Sagarmatha ("Goddess of the Sky") in Nepal and Chomolungma ("Goddess Mother of the World") in Tibet. It is named in English and received its official name in 1865 in honor of Sir George Everest, the British Surveyor General (1790–1866, British surveyor, b. Breconshire, Wales, UK) Worked on the trigonometrically survey in India from 1806 to 1843 who had mapped the Indian subcontinent. He had some reservations about having his name bestowed on the peak, arguing that the mountain should retain its local appellation, the standard policy of geographical societies. He became superintendent of the survey in 1823 and surveyor general of India in 1830. He was knighted in 1861.
It was first climbed on May 29, 1953, when Sir Edmund Hillary from New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay from Nepal reached the summit. The body of George H. L. Mallory, who died in an earlier attempt (1924), was found on the mountain in 1999.
The Great Trigonometrically Survey Arbitrates:
In 1852 the Great Trigonometrically Survey of India measured Everest's elevation as 29,002 feet above sea level. This figure remained the officially accepted height for more than one hundred years. In 1955 Mount Everest was adjusted by a mere 26 feet to 29,028 (8,848 m).
The Andes Muscle In On the Action:
Before the Survey of India, a number of other mountains ranked supreme in the eyes of the world. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Andean peak Chimborazo was considered the highest. At a relatively unremarkable 20,561 feet (6,310 m), it is in fact nowhere near the highest, surpassed by about thirty other Andean peaks and several dozen in the Himalayas. In 1809, the Himalayan peak Dhaulagiri (26,810 ft.; 8,172 m) was declared the ultimate, only to be shunted aside in 1840 by Kanchenjunga (28,208 ft.; 8,598 m), which today ranks third. Everest's status has been unrivaled for the last century-and-a-half, but not without a few threats.
Everest Undergoes a Growth Spurt:
Everest's official height was revised in 1999. On May 5, 1999, a team of nine climbers summited Everest, armed with state-of-the-art satellite measuring devices. Six months later the results of their survey were announced as of Nov. 11, 1999, the new official height of Mt. Everest was announced by the National Geographic Society to be as 29,035 feet (8,850 meters) - six feet or two meters higher than the last official (1955) measurement.
It is remarkable how accurate all the official measurements of Everest have been. Conducted 147 years earlier, the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India in 1852 recorded Everest's height at 29,002 feet--a mere 33 feet off the mark.
Of Metrics and Mountains:
The new height was determined by using satellite-based technology: the Trimble Global Positioning System (GPS). A team of seven climbers measured the mountain from the summit on May 5, 1999. The data was collected from various GPS satellite receivers - one of which had to be placed in bedrock - at the very top of Everest. It took the climbers a number of attempts over several years until they were able to successfully set up the equipment at the summit.
The Third Pole:
Once explorers had reached the North and South Poles, the next geographical feat to capture the international imagination was Everest, often called the Third Pole.
Into the Death Zone:
Although not considered one of the most technically challenging mountains to climb (K2 is more difficult), the dangers of Everest include avalanches, crevasses, ferocious winds up to 125 mph, sudden storms, temperatures of 40°F below zero, and oxygen deprivation. In the “death zone”—above 25,000 feet—the air holds only a third as much oxygen as at sea level, heightening the chances of hypothermia, frostbite, high-altitude pulmonary edema (when the lungs fatally fill with fluid) and high-altitude cerebral edema (when the oxygen-starved brain swells up). Even when breathing bottled oxygen, climbers experience extreme fatigue, impaired judgment and coordination, headaches, nausea, double vision, and sometimes hallucinations. Expeditions spend weeks, sometimes months, acclimatizing, and usually attempt Everest only in May and October, avoiding the winter snows and the summer monsoons.
Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world. Its elevation of 29,035 feet (8,850 meters) was determined using GPS satellite equipment on May 5, 1999. It was previously believed to be slightly lower (29,028 feet /8,848 meters), as determined in 1954 by averaging measurements from various sites around the mountain. The new elevation had confirmed by the National Geographic Society (See the National Geographic Society's Mountain Everest site for more information).
The first seven attempts on Everest, starting with a reconnaissance in 1921, approached the mountain from Tibet, where a route to the summit via the North Col and North Ridge seemed possible. All were unsuccessful. George Mallory, who spearheaded the first three expeditions, lost his life with Andrew Irvine during a failed ascent in 1924. Unsuccessful attempts continued through 1938, then halted during World War II. By the war's end, Tibet had closed its borders, and Nepal, previously inaccessible, had done the opposite. Starting in 1951, expeditions from Nepal grew closer and closer to the summit, via the Khumbu Icefall, the Western Cwm, over the Geneva Spur to the South Col, and up the Southeast Ridge. In 1953 Edmond Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit.
Since the first successful ascent, many other individuals have sought to be the first at various other accomplishments on Everest, including many alternative routes on both the north and south sides. Italy's Reinhold Messner has climbed Everest twice without oxygen, once in four days. He is also the first to solo climb Everest, which he did in 1980. Ten years earlier, Yuichiro Miura of Japan had been the first person to descend the mountain on skis. In 1975, Junko Tabei, also of Japan, was the first woman to climb Everest. The first disabled person to attempt Everest was American Tom Whittaker, who climbed with a prosthetic leg to 24,000 feet in 1989, 28,000 feet in 1995, and finally reached the summit in 1998. The record for most ascents belongs to Sherpa Ang Rita, who has reached the summit ten times.
Overall, more than 600 climbers from 20 countries have climbed to the summit by various routes from both north and south. Climbers' ages have ranged from nineteen years to sixty. At least 100 people have perished, most commonly by avalanches, falls in crevasses, cold, or the effects of thin air.
Both the Nepalese and Chinese governments very strictly regulate climbing on Everest. Permits cost thousands of U.S. dollars ($50,000 for a seven member party in 1996), and are difficult to obtain, and waiting lists extend for years. Treks to Everest base camp, minus the summit attempt, are becoming increasingly popular on both the north and south sides of the mountain. On the north side, a Buddhist monastery stands at the foot of the Rongbuk Glacier, beneath Everest's spectacular north face. The monastery is one of two whose locations were selected specifically to allow religious contemplation of the great peak. The other is the Thyangboche Monastery in Nepal. The once-active Rongbuk monastery in Tibet has required much rejuvenation from the destruction it experienced following China's invasion of Tibet.
Mallory and Irvine:
On June 8, 1924, two members of a British expedition, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, attempted the summit. Famous for his retort to the press - "because it's there" - when asked why he wanted to climb Everest, Mallory had already failed twice at reaching the summit. The two men were last spotted "going strong" for the top until the clouds perpetually swirling around Everest engulfed them. They then vanished.
Mallory's body was not found for another 75 years, in May 1999. No evidence was found on his body - such as a camera containing photos of the summit, or a diary entry recording their time of arrival at the summit - to clear up the mystery of whether these two Everest pioneers made it to the top before the mountain killed them.
Hillary and Norgay:
Ten more expeditions over a period of thirty years failed to conquer Everest, with 13 losing their lives. Then, on May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary, a New Zealand beekeeper, and Tenzing Norgay, an acclaimed Sherpa climber, became the first to reach the roof of the world. Their climb was made from the Nepalese side, which had eased its restrictions on foreigners at about the same time that Tibet, invaded in 1950 by China, shut its borders.
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