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Get an Everest Base Camp Trek In Before the Mountain Melts
An Everest Base Camp trek is, for many, the challenge of a lifetime and the culmination of much time spent in training and preparation. Scientists maintain however, that Everest is changing – better get that climb in quick before the mountain melts away…
The Mighty Mountain
The world’s highest mountain, Everest stands tall at a recorded height of 8,848 metres, though those doing the Everest Base Camp trek will only reach an altitude of around 5,000 metres. There are suggestions that with the shifting of the tectonic plates on which the Himalayas lie, the entire mountain range is being pushed upwards at a rate of between 4 and 10 centimetres a year, making the mountain even mightier with every year that goes by. The first expeditions attempting to summit Everest all had one common denominator – George Mallory. He was a British climber who was determined to climb the mountain simply “because it’s there.” Mallory sadly never returned from his third attempt to climb Everest, and the first successful trip to the summit was made by Hillary and Norgay in 1953. However, relics from Mallory’s attempts remain today, and are in fact proving to be very useful to scientists studying the way the mountain is changing.
Everest on Candid Camera
Many people preparing for an Everest Base Camp trek look at photos remaining from Mallory’s climbs for inspiration and motivation. However, they have now proved useful for other purposes too, with scientists using them to compare the mountain today with the mountain many years ago. One photo taken in 1921 clearly shows a significantly wide S-shaped mass of ice sweeping down the mountain side. This year, the Asia Society sent mountaineer David Breashears to exactly the same spot where Mallory’s photo was taken in order to gauge the extent of ice loss. The society was however, unprepared for the dramatic results they found whilst comparing the two photos.
Changing Faces of the Mountain
Comparisons between Mallory’s and Breashears’ pictures show that the once prominent ice mass has dwindled significantly in the 89 years between photographs, suggesting that Everest’s main Rongbuk Glacier is shrinking over time. The Himalaya mountain range is home to an incredibly large sub-polar ice reserve, and water from the glaciers on the mountain sides act as a supply for many of the region’s largest rivers such as the Ganges, the Yangtze, the Mekong and several more, upon which many depend for their livelihood. The current melting rate shown by these photographs suggests that by the middle of the present century, the Himalayan glaciers may well have shrunk to a point that will severely affect the flow into the rivers. The difference between the two photographs is certainly very noticeable, suggesting that if you were to do an Everest Base Camp trek today, it could possibly look very different to one you would do at the end of the century.
Though the mountain is certainly not going anywhere and will be waiting for any who want to take part in an Everest Base Camp trek for many, many years to come, it seems that its appearance may well change much sooner should the current melting rate of the glaciers continue.
Jude Limburn Turner is the Marketing Manager for Mountain Kingdoms, an adventure tour company who have run the classic trek to Everest Base Camp for over 20 years. They now offer treks and tours worldwide, including destinations in North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Central and South East Asia.
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“Hello Mum. I’m calling from the top of the world.” These were the words of 13-year- old Jordan Romero. He was calling home via a satellite phone before descending to the Chinese Everest Base Camp trekking down the treacherous North Col route, and into the history books as the youngest climber ever to have successfully climbed Mount Everest (8,848 metres).
Jordan’s youth record on the world’s highest mountain was not only historic, but controversial, with some experienced mountaineers and doctors suggesting that it was irresponsible to risk the safety of someone so young. In fact, Jordan’s tender age meant a change in the Romero team’s planned ascent of the mountain, since Nepal does not permit climbers under the age of 16 to make a bid for the summit. For this reason, their itinerary involved driving from Kathmandu out of Nepal and round to the Tibetan Everest Base Camp, trekking from the Chinese side of Everest up the Northeast ridge. It’s a more difficult approach than the route up from Nepal via the Southeast ridge.
The Tibetan and Nepalese routes to Everest are quite different in character. The staging area on the Nepalese South face of Everest, which has hosted the greater share of successful summit teams, is the climax of the popular Everest Base Camp Trekking route. At 5,360 metres, it is only accessible on foot, and trekkers arriving here in the climbing season are rewarded by a spectacular scene. The camp sits on the Khumbu glacier, nestled in the cauldron formed by the surrounding mountains of Nuptse (7,861 m), Pumori, and Lintgren, with Everest towering above them.
The Tibetan side of Mount Everest faces North, and falls within the borders of China. At an altitude of 5,180 metres, the Everest Base Camp on this side is relatively more accessible than its Nepalese equivalent, and can be reached with 4×4 vehicles via a rough, gravel road. Approaching by car this way somewhat detracts from the adventurous spirit of visiting Everest, as does the modest hotel located here. Although the Tibetan camp cannot compete with the romance and rugged appeal that the Nepal camp has in abundance, the view of Mount Everest from the North is striking nonetheless, with the mountain rising majestically at the end of a long, straight valley cut by the Rongbuk glacier.
It is this view that greeted the Romero team of six mountaineers, as they began their trek towards the Northeast ridge. The team comprised three Sherpa guides, Jordan, his father, and his stepmother, all experienced climbers.
On May 19th 2010, the support team received a garbled message by satellite phone. Over the crackle, Team Romero were able to report that they had moved to Camp 1, more than two thousand metres above Everest Base Camp, trekking into high winds. These winds forced them to delay a while, and wait for the weather to ease. Despite this, two days later they were ahead of schedule, stopping at Camp 3 only long enough to collect replacement oxygen bottles.
On May 22nd, with light snow falling, Jordan and his family reached the summit.
Their progress up the mountain was followed closely from the ground, and Jordan’s messages relayed to his website. The site depicted Jordan’s progress using a GPS tracker, which plotted his altitude and whereabouts on a map of Everest. The website invited Jordan’s online followers and sponsors to join the team around Everest Base Camp, trekking and get close the action as the team made history.
Despite the drama and his magnificent achievement, Mount Everest will not be the climax of Jordan’s mountaineering career. He hopes to keep Team Jordan together for a trek in the coldest place on Earth, Antarctica, and a bid for another youth record, this time for the Seven Summits accolade. It means reaching the summit of the highest peak in each of the world’s seven continents, and Jordan has already climbed six of these. The Vinson Massif (4,892 m) is last on his list.
Jude Limburn Turner is the Marketing Manager for Mountain Kingdoms, an adventure tour company who have run Everest Base Camp trekking itineraries for over 20 years. They now offer treks and tours worldwide, including destinations in North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Central and South East Asia.
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Hillary’s Last Chance to Depart From Everest Base Camp
Willi Unsoeld, a member of the first American expedition to conquer Mount Everest in 1963 once maintained, “You’ve climbed the highest mountain in the world. What’s left?” However, it seems there is a Sherpa who would strongly disagree with this sentiment, having made the journey from Everest base camp to the mountain’s summit a record-breaking nineteen times.
49-Year Old Nepalese Sherpa, Apa, is known only by a single name as is often the tradition for Sherpas. However, as he now holds the record for number of ascents of the highest mountain in the world, this does not seem to have hindered his reputation. Having grown up in the foothills, he began carrying equipment and supplies for climbers at the age of twelve, and completed his first Everest climb in 1990 at the age of 28. He has since made the climb from Everest base camp, which stands at 5,360 metres, to the summit which towers at 8,848 metres, almost every year.
Apa had recently made plans to make an astounding twentieth climb this spring, however this expedition would have been quite different as he had set a goal for himself and his team to collect and remove 15,430 lbs of rubbish from the mountainside as they climbed. The team of 17 Sherpas and 12 others would not have been working alone, but had plans to recruit porters who would assist them in getting the bags of litter from the side of the mountain back to Everest base camp.
However, this would have been more than just an Environmental expedition; Apa was also using the monumental occasion afforded by his twentieth climb as a way to contribute to Nepal’s tourist campaign. Nepal opened its borders to tourists in the 1950s but the industry has suffered during years of instability. A new target has now been set that aims to attract half a million tourists to the country in the year 2011; whether this be achieved by people visiting Everest base camp and the Himalayas, those wishing to trek the Annapurna Circuit, or those who might be fascinated by more remote places such as the Kingdom of Mustang. For Sherpas such as Apa, who relied on mountain trading and yak herding prior to the introduction of tourism into Nepal, this is a particularly important goal.
Apa had one final goal to add to this celebratory climb, as he intended to carry the remains of the ashes of Sir Edmund Hillary to the top of Everest with him in order to scatter them at the peak. Hillary was one of the first men to conquer the journey from Everest base camp to summit in 1953, and passed away in his home country New Zealand just two years ago. Whilst most of his ashes were scattered in Auckland Harbour, the rest were donated to the Sherpa community. The memory of Sir Edmund remains important to many of the Nepalese, for as stated by Apa, “without him we would have no clinics and we would have no schools.”
Unfortunately, Hillary’s final journey is not to take place, due to the predictions of Buddhist Lamas. The Lamas warned that the plan to scatter the ashes would bring bad luck, as they considered it to be a holy place. However, whilst Hillary’s final resting place may not be Everest itself, or even Everest Base Camp, it is not far away. The ashes are currently kept in a monastery not far from the mountain, whilst plans are being formulated for the building of a park that will commemorate the mountaineer.
Jude Limburn Turner is the Marketing Manager for Mountain Kingdoms, an adventure tour company who have run the classic trek to Everest Base Camp for over 20 years. They now offer treks and tours worldwide, including destinations in North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Central and South East Asia.
The online travel writing provided by Travel Content Online is free to take, providing you take the links in the text, too. Use it to add fresh online content to your website. Thank you for visiting us – hopefully our travel content will bring more visitors to your site, too.
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Places on the 1953 Royal Geographic Society expedition to Mount Everest (8848 m) were in great demand, so Edmund Hillary was extremely pleased to be part of it. In those days access to the Khumbu was restricted for political reasons so the Everest Trek and summit bid of British team lead by Colonel Hunt carried the hopes of the nation and had a high profile in the press.
After months of preparation, and one failed summit bid, the team made its second attempt at the summit on the morning of May 29th 1953. Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were chosen to continue up the south east ridge while Colonel Hunt went down to wait for them at camp four at the base of the South Col, and the rest of the team (including Tenzing’s fellow Sherpas) waited for news at Everest Base Camp. The entire expedition team consisted of a dozen climbers, 35 Sherpa guides, and 350 porters with 18 tonnes of food and equipment.
The First Successful Trek to Everest’s Peak
It was a beautiful, clear day, but Hillary and Tenzing could not start out until Hillary’s boots had defrosted, having frozen solid overnight. The final stint of their Everest trek to the summit took two and a half hours, and was hard going. They had to cut careful steps in a snow incline working diagonally upwards. Eventually, they reached a rock step which seemed impossible to overcome until Hillary found a crack to for them to wriggle up.
Their Everest trek could have finished with calamity. After they had been climbing for a while Tenzing had difficulty with his oxygen set. Its exhaust port had clogged with ice, and they found that Hillary’s was having the same problem. If they had not fixed it they would have been forced to abandon the summit bid.
Because of the steepness of the ridge, Hillary and Tenzing could not see the summit as they climbed, and only saw it when they were just thirty or forty feet away. As well as joy, the pair felt a sense of relief when they reached the very top, especially as Tenzing had been very close to summiting on an Everest Trek the year before.
In an interview a few weeks after their Everest Trek, Hillary recounted how the view from the summit was clear: “there weren’t any clouds at all.” They could see “long-range into Tibet and Nepal.” He also mentioned how the foreshortening effect of the great height they had achieved made everything below “look rather flat, very similar to the view from an aircraft.” They could also see the fifth largest mountain in the world, Mount Makalu (8,462m). Hillary realised that they were in a privileged position being able to see at that peak from above. “Makalu was a great sight below us.”
Looking down the northern side of the mountain, Tenzing was able to see the Rombuk monastery, and being a Buddhist, this was special for him. Hillary commented on how difficult the route up the northern face looked for an Everest trek.
They stayed on the summit for about fifteen minutes and then they set off down the mountain again. Hillary and Tenzing returned to Everest Base Camp as the first people to reach the highest peak in the world and get back safely.
The news of the successful Everest Trek took several days to reach Britain, and was announced the day before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. In the early fifties Britain was still enduring a period of austerity following the war, and rationing was set to continue a further year. Together with the coronation, the accomplishment of the British team buoyed-up the morale of the nation. On his return to England, the new queen knighted the mountaineer from New Zealand as Sir Edmund Hillary, in recognition of his fine achievement on Everest with Tenzing Norgay.
Jude Limburn Turner is the Marketing Manager for Mountain Kingdoms, an adventure tour company who have run Everest treks for over 20 years. They now offer treks and tours worldwide, including destinations in North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Central and South East Asia.
The online travel writing provided by Travel Content Online is free to take, providing you take the links in the text, too. Use it to add fresh online content to your website. Thank you for visiting us – hopefully our travel content will bring more visitors to your site, too.
Sir George Everest may never have even set foot on the mountain, let alone attempted the Everest base camp trek, but yet he was granted the honor of having the world’s highest mountain named after him. This came about as it was his line of work, refining and perfecting trigonometrical equipment for the Great Survey of India, which he led as Surveyor General. This enabled the first accurate measurement of the true height of the mountain by his successor Andrew Waugh who named the highest peak in the world in honor of Everest’s work.
Over a century later in 1952, Sir Edmund Hillary extended the Welsh connection by choosing the Pen-y-gwryd Hotel in the Snowdonia Mountains as the base to prepare him for his Everest trekking mission. The hotel is still functioning to date, as both a popular pub and resting place for walkers attempting to climb the famous Mount Snowdon. In fact, if you visit the Pen-y-gwryd Hotel, you will even see a pair of Sir Edmund’s famous hiking boots on prominent display in the bar. As the pub was the center of the Everest trek expedition for six months it is now a Mecca for Everest trekking memorabilia, with newspaper cuttings featuring pictures of the 1953 expedition.
Charles Evans, a surgeon, continues Everest’s Welsh connection. Raised in Wales and a fluent Welsh speaker, he was the designated lead climber of the 1953 Everest trekking expedition and set to be the first man to reach the summit of the mountain. However, just 300 meters short of the peak, he and his climbing partner, Tom Bourdillon, had trouble with their oxygen equipment and sadly had to return back to Everest base camp.
Although many British have successfully completed an Everest trek, it wasn’t actually until 1995 that the first Welshman reached the peak of the mountain. The man in question was Caradog Jones, who later told the press that his team had been under a lot of pressure to persuade those below them that they had the strength to continue with their Everest trekking mission.
However, whilst only a couple of Welshman have ever made it to the peak of Mount Everest, many more have trekked as far as Everest Base Camp. One of the most interesting of these tales is of the Cardiff cricket captain, David Kirtley, who was the organizer of a team that played a 20-over cricket match at the Everest Base Camp and successfully raised £250,000 for charity. The 31-year old first flouted the idea over two years ago after discovering that the flat plateau of the Everest Base Camp bore close resemblance to the Oval stadium in Twickenham.
The mountain has been successfully climbed by people of all nationalities, but it is still clear that Wales holds a special place in its heart. After all, the country not only provided the mountain with its name, but also with the training ground for one of the most successful Everest trekking missions to date.
Jude Limburn Turner is the Marketing Manager for Mountain Kingdoms, an adventure tour company who have run the Everest Base Camp Trek for over 20 years. They now offer treks and tours worldwide, including destinations in North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Central and South East Asia.
The online travel writing provided by Travel Content Online is free to take, providing you take the links in the text, too. Use it to add fresh online content to your website. Thank you for visiting us – hopefully our travel content will bring more visitors to your site, too.
Trekking to Everest Base Camp is an essential part of the route for every Everest summit attempt. There are various Everest Base Camp treks and most begin with a flight into Lukla airport at a height of 2860 metres. Each of these trekking routes provides a picturesque and rewarding way to tackle the rise in altitude of 2500 metres to Everest Base Camp on the Nepal side, situated at 5360 metres in elevation. Importantly, these Everest treks incorporate rest days to provide trekkers and mountaineers with a chance to get used to the thinner air while enjoying the scenery on the route.
For mountaineers, the trek to Everest Base Camp is just the start of their adventure. When they reach the head of the Khumbu Valley, they establish their Everest Base Camp on the Khumbu glacier as they launch into the final stages of their training and acclimatisation that comes before any summit attempt. It is a gradual process that can take months, and often years, of preparation and planning.
For the famous television survival expert, Bear Grylls, his 1998 expedition to Everest’s summit took three months to complete. At that time, he was the youngest Briton to safely reach the peak. The following year, his British record was then eclipsed by Rob Gauntlett from Sussex, aged just nineteen.
But in nine years later, Bear Grylls returned to the Everest trekking region and made an even more audacious and dangerous venture. He attempted to fly a paraglider to an altitude exceeding the summit of Mount Everest. Bear would fly in a supercharged vehicle designed by his friend Giles “Gilo” Cardozo, trying to exceed the existing altitude record for paragliding of 20,017 feet (6101 metres).
In May 2007, the team set up their “Mission Everest” Base Camp having trekked with their heavy equipment to an altitude of 4400 metres in Nepal. On the day of the flight, with three hours’ worth of good weather, fuel and oxygen, Bear and Gilo launched themselves into the air strapped to what looked to be little more than a chair with a motor and parachute attached.
Soon they were spiralling up to a height further than that capable by the camera helicopter that was following their progress. However, the cameras onboard the paragliders showed a spectacular sight of a ribbon of blue sky merging into the blackness of space above, which at the heights they reached they could see even though it was daytime.
After seventy two minutes of flying upwards, when he was sure he had succeeded, Bear turned off his engine and glided down through the stunning mountain landscape that makes Everest trekking so special. The plan was to corroborate their altitude with a global positioning system and altimeters; unfortunately, they found in the thin air and sub-zero temperatures, their instruments froze when they were about four miles above the Mission Everest Base Camp.
Although the reading the instruments took before they froze showed that Bear, at 7621 metres, had surpassed the existing paragliding record by 1524 metres and was still climbing, the record cannot be official without a valid reading from the altimeter. Nonetheless, is clear what Bear had achieved in Gilo’s machine. The images from the onboard cameras showed Bear had cleared the height of Mount Everest, and the team estimated he had reached about 150 metres higher. This took him to above 3640 metres higher than the Everest Base Camp (that’s more than two miles) and almost five miles above sea level.
So as you embark on your Everest Base Camp Trek, spare a thought to the complex preparations, activities and adventures that may be going on ahead of you at the high end of the trail.
Jude Limburn Turner is the Marketing Manager for Mountain Kingdoms, an adventure tour company who have run the Everest Base Camp Trek for over 20 years. They now offer treks and tours worldwide, including destinations in North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Central and South East Asia.
The online travel writing provided by Travel Content Online is free to take, providing you take the links in the text, too. Use it to add fresh online content to your website. Thank you for visiting us – hopefully our travel content will bring more visitors to your site, too.