International Everest Day 2022

International Everest Day is celebrated on May 29 every year. The day commemorates the first ever human on top of the world. On May 29, 1953, Nepal’s Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and New Zealand’s Edmund Hillary reached the summit of Mt. Everest. International Everest Day was started celebrating after the death of Edmund HillarySo as the day was first observed in 2008.

Mount Everest was discovered as the tallest mountain peak in world in 1841 by a British surveyor team and named after the Surveyor General Sir George Everest in 1865. In Nepal, the mountain peak is called Sagarmatha. It is also known as Chomolongma in Tibet and China. Nepal Government has assigned a surveyors’ team to measure the real height of Mt. Everest as the previously measured height of 8848 meters or 29029 ft. This has been redone after the earthquake of 2015 April. The new measurement established the height of Mt Everest as 8,848.86 m (29,031.7 ft). 

Since discovery as the top of the world Mount Everest has been a big dream for the mountaineers from around the world despite the risk of even death while climbing or descending after scaling the top of the world.

The first people to officially climb Mount Everest began their attempts in 1921. Two British expedition team attempts in 1921 and 1922 failed to reach the summit of Mount Everest. In 1924, two members of a British expedition team, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine were seen just 800 feet from the summit, before being engulfed by bad weather. Though Mallory’s body was eventually found in 1999, it could not be established whether he or Irvine actually reached the summit as nothing was found on him to prove it.

The first climbers to stand on top of Mount Everest were Edmund Hillary from New Zealand and a Tenzing Norgay Sherpa from Nepal on May 29, 1953 from the Nepal side. Hillary and Norgay were members of a British expedition led by Colonel John Hunt.

Since the first attempt in 1921, Everest has claimed over 250 lives. In May 1996, eight climbers lost their lives and a further four more perished during the season. These events were described in John Krakauer’s book ‘Into Thin Air’ and later turned into a Hollywood motion picture film ‘Everest’ which was released in 2015. There were a number of reasons for the 1996 disaster which included poor decision making, improper planning, climber bottlenecks, and a severe blizzard.

George Mallory was once asked: “Why climb Mount Everest?” His famous response was: “Because it’s there!” And the craze to scale the top of the world is growing since then. The number of climbers is increasing every year. Similarly, record breaking with different activities and categories are also increasing.    

In context to human encroachment on the Mt. Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary and other Mount Everest pioneers, in 2003, had suggested that the world’s tallest peak deserves a rest after a half century of more than 1,300 climbers scaling its slopes.

Late Hillary was saying that he had suggested to the Nepal government that they should stop giving permission and give the mountain a rest for a few years.

Other veteran climbers suggested limiting the number of expeditions, which turn into traffic jams on the fixed ropes and ladders that cross the icy ridges.

Likewise, Japanese climber Junko Tabei, the first woman to reach the summit asid that Everest has become too crowded. It needs a rest. Only two or three teams should be allowed in a season to climb Everest.

Hundreds of climbers who scaled Mount Everest recently taking advantage of favourable weather conditions have begun to return safely down the mountain.

A Nepali Sherpa broke her own record reaching the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) summit for the 10th time — the most times any woman has climbed Mount Everest. Lakpa Sherpa, 48, said she is next planning to scale the world’s second-highest peak, K2 in Pakistan.

Nepalese Sherpa climber Kami Rita holds the record with 26 summits after breaking his own record earlier this month. Similarly, two medical professionals Dr. Ram Kumar Shrestha and Dr. Preeti Bhushal also had scaled the peak this season.

Among them are climbers who set records on the world’s highest peak, including the first Ukrainian woman to scale Mount Everest.