Everest the Ultimate Test

Everest the Ultimate Test

High atop the Himalayas rests a peak higher then any other on Earth. Most call it Mount Everest, and at 29,000 feet above sea level it is regarded as the highest peak on Earth. The summit ridge marks the border between Nepal and Tibet. It was named by an Indian surveyor- general, Sir Andrew Waugh, in honor of his predecessor and mentor Sir George Everest. A Bengali mathematician, Radhanath Sikdar, first discovered Everest as the highest peak on Earth in 1852.

Before it was called Everest it had gone by many other names. The people of Nepal called the mountain Sagarmatha (goddess of the sky), while the people of Tibet referred to it as Chomolungma (mother of the universe). To the rest of the world it was known as peak XV. It was not until Sikdar, stationed in the Indian station Dehra Dun, first calculated that Everest was the highest peak that anyone really paid attention to it. In Jon Krakauer's book, "Into Thin Air" he explains what it might have felt like the day Sikdar finishes his calculations, "A clerk rushed into the chambers of Sir Andrew Waugh, India's surveyor general, and exclaimed that a Bengali computer named Radhanath Sikhdar had "discovered" the worlds highest mountain."p3. (A computer was a job back then and not a machine.) 9 years after finding out that it was the highest peak in the world Waugh named the mountain after his old boss Sir George Everest.

Sikhdar calculated that the peak was at 29,005 feet high which was incredibly within 30 feet of what has been calculated now days using GSP. Located on the border between Nepal and Tibet, Everest is considered the highest mountain above sea level. Other mountains could technically be called taller mountains but none travel as far into the atmosphere. Mauna Loa in Hawaii is tallest when measured from its base while Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador is the furthest peak from the earth's center.

After being deemed the highest summit on earth it was just a matter of time before someone wanted to try and defeat it. It wasn't easy and took a long time before someone actually reached the peak. It took at least 24 men's lives, 15 different expeditions, and 101 years before anyone would reach the top. In 1924 a British explorer Edward Felix Norton was recorded getting to 28,126 feet before losing the battle with nature. The next day two more men set off from the highest camp at Everest in search for the top. Their names were George Leigh Mallory and Andrew Irvine. The two men were slowly on there way to the top when a snow mist started to set in. One companion Noel Odell says she saw them high on the peak but never actually at the top. Mallory and Irvine never made it back to camp and there was no evidence that they had reached the top.

After years of only being able to access the mountain from the Tibet side, in 1949 Nepal opened its borders to foreigners while Tibet closed theirs off. Climbers had to then focus their energy to tackling the mountain from a different route. Four years after Nepal opening its border two climbers, Edmund Hillary and Tenzig Norway set out from the last camp before the summit with one thing in mind reaching the top. They made their way to the top passing by one of the hardest parts of the mountain to climb now named after Hillary. After Hillary and Norway got through Hillary Step they caught their breath and fought the last leg to the top of the mountain. Shortly before noon on May 29, 1953 Hillary and Norway were recorded as the first official people to climb Mount Everest. After scaling the world's highest mountain the two men become icons. Hillary was put on everything from stamps to comic strips even movies. While Norway was considered as a hero among India, Nepal, and Tibet all trying to claim him as there own.

After the incredible summit had been reached in 1953 it was time for people to try and out do Hillary and Norway. On May 25, 1960 a Chinese group scaled the huge mountain for the first time from the Tibetan side. Then in 1963 the first Americans reached the top. Tom Hornbein a 32-year-old doctor from Missouri and Will Unsoeld a 36-year-old male who was a professor of theology from Oregon climbed the mountain using the West Ridge. Horbein and Unsoeld's ascent up the mountain is still considered one of the greatest feats in mountaineering. The West Ridge is by far the hardest trail to reach the top. It was so difficult that by the time they reached the top they knew they couldn't go back down the same way it would be too difficult. So instead they took the South Route back down. In 1965 a Sherpa Nawang Gombu became the first person to reach the summit of Everest twice. 10 years later a Japanese