|
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Speak out: Climbing Mt. Everest
By Sam Bumatay
This year, three Filipino mountain climbers reached the summit of Mount Everest, the highest mountain peak in the world.
However, TV viewers were confused whether to treat them as heroes or not, considering their very extensive publicity by ABS-CBN and GMA.
I’m writing this to set the facts straight. The data on Mount Everest are facts taken from the National Geographic, which sponsored an American expedition to the highest mountain in 1963.
Mount Everest is located at the boundary between Nepal and China in the Himalayas. It’s about 150 miles from Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, and about 100 miles from Darjiling, India. Mount Everest has several peaks, but the highest is 29,035 feet or 8,850 meters. The highest mountain in the world was named in 1865 after Sir George Everest, a Welshman who served as surveyor general of India in the early 1880s.
In the spring of 1963, an American expedition partly sponsored by the National Geographic to reach the summit of Mount Everest was successfully launched. Six members of the American expedition reached the summit.
In 1975, the first woman, a Japanese mother of a three-year-old girl, reached the summit. In 1980, an Italian climber reached the summit without supplemental oxygen or radio from an advanced base camp on the north side of the mountain. In October 2000, a Slovenian became the first to ski uninterrupted from the summit to Base Camp. In 2001, a blind person, aided by friends, reached the summit.
According to records, almost 2,000 people, ages 16 to 65, from 65 nations have climbed Mount Everest since 1975. The mountain has also claimed the lives of 175 people attempting to reach the summit. The highest death toll, however, happened in the spring of 1996. Fifteen climbers died in a gale storm while attempting to reach the top.
Mount Everest and villages near it are tourist attractions. Every year, about 20,000 tourists from all over the world travel to the Himalayas to see the highest mountain in the world.
There are 15 routes to the summit and they’re on the west, north and east faces of the mountain. The mountain has many beautiful and majestic peaks and ridges, which one can enjoy without having to climb the summit.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (June 6, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
