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VOICE ONE:
This is Phoebe Zimmermann.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English programEXPLORATIONS. Fifty years ago, two mountain climbers became thefirst to reach the top of Mount Everest. Today, we tell aboutefforts to climb the tallest mountain on Earth.
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VOICE ONE:
Mount Everest is at the border of Nepal and Tibet. It was namedfor Sir George Everest, who recorded the mountain’s location ineighteen-forty-one. In the past fifty years, about ten-thousandpeople have tried to climb to the top of the world’s highestmountain. About one-thousand-two-hundred mountain climbers havesucceeded. However, about two-hundred people have died trying toreach the summit, eight-thousand-eight-hundred-fifty meters high.
They all battled freezing temperatures. Winds up toone-hundred-sixty-kilometers per hour. Dangerous mountain paths. Andthey all risked developing a serious illness caused by lack ofoxygen. All for the chance to reach the top of the world.
VOICE TWO:
The first and most famous of the climbers to disappear on MountEverest was George Mallory. The British schoolteacher was a memberof the first three trips by foreigners to the mountain. Innineteen-twenty-one, Mallory was part of the team sent by theBritish Royal Geographical Society and the British Alpine Club. Theteam was to create the first map of the area and find a possiblepath to the top of the great mountain.
Mallory also was a member of the first Everest climbing attemptin nineteen-twenty-two. But the attempt was canceled after a stormcaused a giant mass of snow to slide down the mountain, killingseven native ethnic Sherpa guides.
VOICE ONE:
Mallory was invited back to Everest as lead climber of anotherexpedition in nineteen-twenty-four. On June fourth, Mallory and teammember Andrew Irvine left their base camp for the team’s finalattempt to reach the mountaintop. The climbing team had great hopesof success for the two men. A few days earlier, expedition leaderEdward Norton had reached a record height ofeight-thousand-five-hundred-seventy-three meters before he turnedback.
VOICE TWO:
Mallory and Irvine were using bottled oxygen. Mallory believedthat was the only way they would have the energy and speed to climbthe last three-hundred meters to the top and return safely. Teammember Noel Odell saw Mallory and Irvine climbing high on themountain the following day.
He said they had just climbed one of the most difficult rocks onthe northeast path. He said they were moving toward the top whenclouds hid them. He never saw them again. The disappearance ofMallory and Irvine on Mount Everest remains among the greatestexploration mysteries of the last century.
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VOICE ONE:
During the next twenty-nine years, teams from Britain made sevenmore attempts to climb Everest. Until the early nineteen-fifties,teams from Britain were the only foreign climbers given permissionto climb Mount Everest.
On May twenty-ninth, nineteen-fifty-three, Edmund Hillary andTenzing Norgay became the first climbers known to reach the summitof Everest. The two were part of a British team lead by Jon Hunt.They had made a difficult climb from the southeast, throughrecently-opened Nepalese territory.
Edmund Hillary was a bee keeper from New Zealand. It was hissecond trip to Everest. He had been on the first exploratory trip tothe mountain that had mapped the way up from the southern side.Tenzing Norgay was a native Nepalese Sherpa. He was the first Sherpato become interested in mountain climbing. His climb with Hillarywas his seventh attempt to reach the top.
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Hillary said that his first reaction on reaching the top of MountEverest was a happy feeling that he had “no more steps to cut.” Thetwo men planted a stick holding the flags of Britain, Nepal, Indiaand the United Nations. Hillary took a picture of Norgay.
They looked out over the north side into Tibet for any signs thatMallory or Irvine had been there before them. Then they began thelong and difficult trip back down. The success of Edmund Hillary andTenzing Norgay led to many new attempts on the mountain. Today,Everest has been climbed from all of its sides and from most of itspossible paths.
VOICE ONE:
To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of that first successfulclimb, the sons of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay took part in aclimb to the top of Mount Everest last May. Peter Hillary andJamling Norgay were part of a team that included Brent Bishop. He isthe son of Barry Bishop, who was among the first Americans to reachthe top of Mount Everest in nineteen-sixty-three.
National Geographic Magazine paid for the anniversary climb andmade a film about it. The film also tells about the culture andclimbing ability of the Sherpa people. They have played an importantpart in the success of climbers who have reached the top of MountEverest. The film was recently shown on the National Geographictelevision station. There is also a new exhibit of photographs aboutthe historic climb at the National Geographic headquarters inWashington, D.C.
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VOICE TWO:
Reinhold Messner of Italy and Peter Habeler of Austria madeanother historic Everest climb in nineteen-seventy-eight. The twomen were the first to reach the summit without using bottled oxygen.Messner said when he reached the top he felt like a single giantlung. At the time, scientists believed that a person at the top ofthe mountain would only have enough oxygen to sleep.
Scientists believed that Messner and Habeler would die withoutoxygen. Scientists now know that two conditions make climbing atheights over eight-thousand meters extremely difficult. The first isthe lack of oxygen in the extremely thin air. The second is the lowbarometric air pressure.
VOICE ONE:
Today, scientists say a person lowered onto the top of themountain would live no more than ten minutes. Climbers can surviveabove eight-thousand meters because they spend months climbing onthe mountain to get used to the conditions.
Several things have made climbing Everest today easier than itwas for the first climbers. These include modern equipment andclothing. They also include information gained from earlier climbsand scientific studies.
VOICE TWO:
In nineteen-ninety-three, a record one-hundred-twenty-nine peopleclimbed Mount Everest. Many were inexperienced climbers. In recentyears, some expert climbers have begun leading guided trips up themountain. Some people have paid as much as sixty-five-thousanddollars for the chance to climb Everest.
In nineteen-ninety-six, Everest had its greatest tragedy. Arecord ten people died on the mountain in one day. Two of theworld’s best climbers were among those killed. Three guided groupswere trying to reach the summit of the mountain that day. Severalbooks by climbers have described the incident and the dangerousmountain conditions. The best known is “Into Thin Air” by JonKrakauer. The book sold many copies around the world and increasedthe interest in climbing Mount Everest.
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VOICE ONE:
Climbing to the top of Mount Everest is a major victory for anyperson, but imagine if the climber could not see. Two years ago, thefirst blind man successfully reached the top of Everest. ErikWeihenmayer (WINE-may-er) was a thirty-two-year-old American. Heclimbed to the summit with the help of his team.
Each member of the team wore bells on his clothes for Weihenmayerto hear. They also called out warnings to help him cross dangerousareas. It took the group more than two months to reach the summit.The National Federation of the Blind helped pay for the climb.
VOICE TWO:
Weihenmayer already had climbed several of the world’s tallestmountains. He said he often told himself that he could not fail toreach the top of Everest. Failing would confirm that mountainclimbing is a sport only for people who can see.
Historians may consider that the most successful climb of MountEverest in history, and not just because of Weihenmayer. A recordnineteen climbers from his team reached the summit. So did theoldest man ever to climb Mount Everest. He was sixty-four-year-oldSherman Bull.
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VOICE ONE:
This program was written by Linda Burchill and Jill Moss. It wasproduced by Caty Weaver. This is Phoebe Zimmermann.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Steve Ember. Join us again next week for anotherEXPLORATIONS program in Special English on the Voice of America.