July 22, 2019

Saturday, July 20, was the 100th anniversary of the birth of the famed New Zealand mountain climber Sir Edmund Hillary in 1919. Hillary was one of the first two men to reach the top of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world, and return. On May 29, 1953, he and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa tribesman from Nepal, reached the summit, which at the time was thought to be 29,002 feet (8,840 meters). Its official height now is 29,035 feet (8,850 meters). Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom knighted Hillary for his achievement. Hillary died on Jan. 11, 2008.

Sir Edmund Hillary, left, and Tenzing Norgay, right, became the first two men to reach the top of Mount Everest and return. Hillary was born 100 years ago on July 20, 1919. Credit: AP/Wide World

Hillary made his first five expeditions on Himalayan peaks after World War II (1939-1945). He climbed part of the way up Everest in 1951 and 1952. He recounted a 1953 climb in the book, High Adventure (1955). In 1957 and 1958, he blazed a trail from McMurdo Sound in Antarctica to the South Pole for Sir Vivian Fuchs’s transantarctic expedition.

In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbed Mount Everest in the Himalaya range on the frontier of Tibet and Nepal. Credit: © Robert Preston, Alamy Images

In 1960, Hillary headed an expedition, which was sponsored by our own World Book Encyclopedia, to climb 27,824-foot (8,481-meter) Mount Makalu I (also in the Himalaya). The expedition tested the ability of human beings to live without oxygen at high altitudes. The climbers also searched for but did not find evidence of the Yeti, a hairy beast said to live in the Himalaya and other mountainous areas of central and northeastern Asia. With the author Desmond Doig, Hillary wrote High in the Thin Cold Air (1962) about the expedition.

New Zealand mountain climber Sir Edmund Hillary shows an artist’s illustration of the legendary Yeti. Hillary hoped to discover proof of the Yeti’s existence on a 1960 expedition to the Himalayas sponsored by World Book Encyclopedia. Credit: © Bettmann/Getty Images

Hillary was born in Auckland, New Zealand. His first job was in apiculture (beekeeping). Following his successful ascent of Mount Everest, Hillary spent much of the rest of his life supporting environmental causes and sponsoring humanitarian work in Nepal, building clinics, hospitals, and schools.

May 8, 2015

The 2015 climbing season at the world’s tallest mountain came to a close this week, following a series of avalanches that killed at least 20 people on Mount Everest and injured many others. The avalanches were triggered by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck near Kathmandu, the capital and largest city of Nepal, on April 25, killing thousands throughout the country.

Mount Everest, in the Himalaya range on the frontier of Tibet and Nepal, is the highest mountain in the world. The lofty, snow-covered peak rises about 5 1/2 miles (8.9 kilometers) above sea level. © Robert Preston, Alamy Images

On Everest, the quake sent what one eyewitness described as “a tsunami of ice and snow” thundering into Base Camp, a city of tents that serves as the official start of the Everest ascent. There, the snow crushed or buried many climbers and Sherpa guides. The Sherpa are a people of Nepal, many of whom make their living assisting the foreign tourists who flock to climb Everest each spring.

Everest, known by the Nepalese as Sagarmatha, rises about 5 ½ miles (8.9 kilometers) above sea level. Avalanches, crevasses, and strong winds combine with extreme steepness and thin air to make the climb difficult. In fact, the peak remained unconquered until 1953, when Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa guide, became the first men to reach the top.

Sir Edmund Hillary, left, a New Zealand mountain climber, and Tenzing Norgay, right, a Sherpa guide from Nepal, became the first two men to reach the top of Mount Everest and return. AP/Wide World

Since the 1980’s, increased tourist demand and improvements in equipment have turned the once forbidding peak into a relatively popular destination for less advanced climbers, with hundreds of people each year paying about $100,000 each to attempt the summit. Their climbs are made possible in large part through the work of hundreds of Sherpas, who maintain camps, serve as guides, and carry equipment.

Despite its popularity, Everest remains a dangerous place, and over the years hundreds of people have died on the mountain. The 2014 climbing season ended with an avalanche that killed 16 Sherpa guides. The incident brought particular attention to the plight of the Sherpa, who take risky jobs to earn a living in relatively poor Nepal.

The 2015 earthquake and avalanches damaged routes that cross the treacherous Khumbu Icefall, a tumbled section of glacier just above Base Camp that climbers must traverse on the first leg of their journey. In the days following the quake, many survivors had left Base Camp, but others remained to help with rescue efforts or in the hopes of being cleared to continue their ascent. Such hopes were effectively dashed when the so-called “Icefall Doctors,” a group of Sherpas in charge of maintaining the Khumbu Icefall crossing, announced on May 5 that the route could not be made safe before the season’s end. More than 700 people had been on Everest at the time of the avalanche, some of them above the icefall, and efforts continued to rescue stranded survivors.

The closure of Everest for the season will be hard for the Sherpas, who depend on the climbing season to make a living, and for Nepal. Some 10 percent of its economy is based upon tourism (most of which comes from climbers and trekkers at Everest). The gross domestic product (GDP—the value of all goods and services in a year) is not likely to be large enough to cover the losses and damages from the devastating earthquake.

Other World Book articles:

• Journey to the Top of the World (a Special report from a 1962 edition of Year Book authored by Sir Edmund Hilary)

•  Mountain climbing
  

April 27, 2015

On Saturday, April 25, Nepal was hit with a large earthquake. As of this morning, April 27, the death count was around 3,600 people. More than 6,000 people were injured. About 80 percent of Nepal is hills, valleys, or mountains. The highest mountain range in the world, the Himalaya, is in Nepal, of which Earth’s highest mountain, Everest, is part. Eighteen of those killed were climbers at Mount Everest. The powerful earthquake, at a magnitude of 7.8, caused an avalanche on Everest that obliterated many of the dozens of tents that form the base camp used by climbers. The camp was full at this time of year, as the climbing season for the mountain is April and May.

On April 26, 2015, two men help clear debris after buildings collapsed in Bhaktapur, Nepal, some 8 miles (13 kilometers) from Kathmandu. A major 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit Nepal mid-day on April 25, and it was followed by multiple aftershocks. Many houses, buildings, and temples in the capital were destroyed during the earthquake, leaving thousands dead or trapped under the debris as emergency rescue workers attempt to clear debris and find survivors. Credit: © Omar Havana, Getty Images

The epicenter of the quake was some 50 miles northwest of Nepal’s capital city Kathmandu. The capital was badly hit by the earthquake; many people were killed, others buried in rubble, and many landmark buildings were destroyed. The aftershocks were also very strong, some of them at a magnitude of 6.7, even on the following day, April 26. A large percentage of people in the city slept outside in the cold on Saturday night, making many streets impassable. Hospitals in Kathmandu were overwhelmed by the size of the disaster, and patients lay outside of the hospital with IV drips in their arms when there were no more beds available.

Because of Nepal’s geography and the continuing aftershocks, rescue efforts were difficult and humanitarian aid from other nations had not yet reached Nepal a day later. The situation in the rural regions nearer to the epicenter were not known, as travel in the mountainous areas is difficult at the best of times. But, many feared the death count could escalate once rural areas were reached by rescuers.

Earthquakes are caused by the energy created when the plates that make up Earth’s crust—the tectonic plates—collide with each other or slip past each other. Over decades, centuries, or more, this energy builds, until the plates suddenly move, creating shock waves that shake the ground. So it is with Nepal, which sits atop the boundary of the Indian-Australian and Eurasian tectonic plates. The Indian-Australian plate has been grinding into the Eurasian plate for hundreds of thousands of years. Currently, the Indian plate slides about 2 inches (5 centimeters) per year to the north. This tectonic action pushes Earth’s crust to lift up, forming the Himalaya in the process.

Earth’s rocky outer shell consists of huge slabs called tectonic plates. Many plates include both ocean floor and dry land. This map shows Earth’s major plates and the boundaries between them. The plates slowly move with respect to one another, in the direction of arrows shown on the map. They spread apart at divergent boundaries, move toward each other at convergent boundaries, and grind past one another at transform boundaries. (World Book map)

Other World Book articles:

• Geomorphology
• Plate tectonics