Qomolangma - because it's there

[Randy W]

An ongoing topic - click here for Most Recent Post

 

 

Swarming to Qomolangma

 

a Global Times article from the Chinese side

 

 

 

The Nepalese government has been criticized for letting unlimited numbers of climbers attempt the ascent, since pictures published on the recent issue of National Geographic Magazine depicting crowds of climbers generated public controversy.

Limiting the number of climbers seems to be an unlikely prospect, as the local Sherpa people mostly make a living guiding climbers and it has become an important part of the Nepalese economy, according to mountaineers contacted by the Global Times.

Lin Sen, who has guided mountaineers for 20 years in Yunnan Province, told the Global Times that the increased tourist activity on Qomolangma was creating profit for the local people, but tourist businesses are often faced with problems caused by excessive exploitation.

 

 

[Fu Lai]

Wealthier seek epiphany from holy mountain

 

Mountaineers climb towards the pinnacle helping the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping retake the height of Qomolangma in May 2005. The Tibetan mountain climbing expedition members climbed the 14 highest mountains, more than 8,000 meters high in 14 years. [Photo/Xinhua]

 

Quote

Six decades after humans first conquered Mount Qomolangma, a pioneering Tibetan mountaineer has told how he is helping booming numbers of China's nouveau rich to scale earth's highest mountain.

Having personally stood at the top of the world in 2003 and 2008, 45-year-old Nyima Tsering now runs a training camp that aims to help non-professional Chinese climbers reach the 8,844-meter-high peak of the mountain otherwise known as Everest.

"In the past, Mt Qomolangma could only be reached by professional teams, but now more and more ordinary Chinese wish to join us," says Nyima Tsering during an interview with Xinhua.

Wednesday marked the 60th anniversary of human beings' first successful expedition to Mt Qomolangma, with New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay from Nepal reaching the summit on May 29, 1953.

For much of the past six decades, scaling the snow-capped mountain on the Sino-Nepalese border has been an athletic feat and a demonstration of national strength due to the great difficulties and dangers it involved.

But for Nyima Tsering and others in the new generation of Chinese summiteers, the mountain is also becoming a longed-for destination and a source of enlightenment for ordinary people.

"The older Chinese mountaineers challenged the peak with a strong sense of a mission to glorify the nation, but to me, climbing the mountain is just part of my life," says Nyima Tsering, who is also head of the Tibetan Mountaineering Team.

Since establishing the camp in 1999, he has trained 40 local farmers into professional guides, who have led more than 200 expeditions to the summit.

Unlike others who regarded the ascendance to the summit as a victory of the human spirit over nature, Nyima Tsering says he always holds Mt Qomolangma in awe and veneration, and the feeling has not changed despite advances in equipment that have made the climb easier.

"We've prepared electric drills for digging footholds in our latest attempt to reach the peak this year, but I could not convince myself to use them -- Mt Qomolangma never speaks, but we know it has feelings," he says.

This reverence is now shared by his clients, many of whom are successful entrepreneurs. After making their fortunes amid China's transformation into a market economy, some of them arrived at the mountain in search of new life goals, according to Nyima Tsering.

"The trips to Mt Qomolangma gave them new ideas on life -- they became slimmer and thriftier, and they realized they had previously demanded too much from nature, " he says. "To climb the mountain, one only needs a few things, and fame and fortune are not among them."

The first Chinese team reached the summit in 1960, when the country was struggling to build a socialist society out of grinding poverty, a legacy of the civil war.

The nation basked in glory on May 8, 2008, when a team of Chinese mountaineers took the Olympic flame to Mt Qomolangma in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics Games, which was deemed a demonstration of China's economic and social achievements over the years.

But Nyima Tsering and other younger Chinese mountaineers believe the greater significance of the activity is to make modern people reflect on themselves and their relations with the nature.

"The feeling has been growing within me all these years that mountains have life, and that we should not attempt to overpower nature, but instead we should respect and live in harmony with it, " he explains.

"Mountaineering forces us to face our true self -- the mountain sees us equally as humans, and it makes no difference whether you're a boss or a celebrity," according to Xu Huan, who joined the Mountaineering Association of Peking University in 1996.

Xu says many of her co-climbers at the association left enviable jobs in their forties and resumed mountaineering or hiking to rethink their lives.

"They are asking whether, apart from pursuing wealth, are there any other higher meanings to life?" Xu says.

Edited May 29, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

From Nepal, the other side (and the Nat Geo) -

Maxed Out on Everest
How to fix the mess at the top of the world

 

 

 

Edited July 26, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[tsap seui]

Daisy chain

[Steve in USA]

Dominos waiting to fall.

[Randy W]

INFOGRAPHIC: Conquering the world's highest peak

This year the roof of the world had no visitors as Everest remained deserted for the first time in 41 years. The Himalayan earthquake, which struck Nepal on April 25, claimed 8,700 lives. The resulting avalanche to hit Everest Base Camp took the souls of 21 more people, the mountain's greatest tragedy. Some 170 climbers were evacuated from the south side for fear of further avalanches, while Chinese authorities closed the Tibetan side for security reasons. By the end of the monsoon season, only two teams had set out on unsuccessful expeditions. Here is a look back at some of the climbers, and the routes they took, who made history conquering the world's highest peak.

 

 

[Randy W]

A new video on YouTube that seems VERY thorough and interesting

https://youtu.be/yU2kANHyF1w

The link could not be embedded because there is no video at that URL.

Edited May 29, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

from the NY Times

 

On Everest, Traffic Isn’t Just Inconvenient. It Can Be Deadly.

 

 

[amberjack1234]

No thanks.

[Randy W]

How many Chinese surveyors does it take to measure Qomolangma?

 

Currently at 29,029′ 0″

 

From China Pictorial on Facebook

 

Quote

A team of over 30 Chinese surveyors Thursday arrived at a base camp at an altitude of 6,500 meters, as they endeavor to accomplish a mission to remeasure the height of the world's highest mountain.

The team will take a rest and continue to debug height measuring equipment at the base camp for at least one day before moving on.

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/553929144732479/posts/2758896960902342/

 

Edited May 29, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

drag 'n' move

The Tibetan name is Qomolangma (ཇོ་མོ་གླང་མ, lit. "Holy Mother"). The name was first recorded with a Chinese transcription on the 1721 Kangxi Atlas, and then appeared as Tchoumour Lancma on a 1733 map published in Paris by the French geographer D'Anville based on the former map. It is also popularly romanised as Chomolungma and (in Wylie) as Jo-mo-glang-ma. The official Chinese transcription is 珠穆朗玛峰 (t 珠穆朗瑪峰), whose pinyin form is Zhūmùlǎngmǎ Fēng. It is also infrequently simply translated into Chinese as Shèngmǔ Fēng (t 聖母峰, s 圣母峰, lit. "Holy Mother Peak"). Many other local names exist, including "Deodungha" ("Holy Mountain") in Darjeeling.

On 9 October 2005, after several months of measurement and calculation, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping announced the height of Everest as 8,844.43 m (29,017.16 ft) with accuracy of ±0.21 m (8.3 in), claiming it was the most accurate and precise measurement to date. This height is based on the highest point of rock and not the snow and ice covering it. The Chinese team measured a snow-ice depth of 3.5 m (11 ft), which is in agreement with a net elevation of 8,848 m (29,029 ft). An argument arose between China and Nepal as to whether the official height should be the rock height (8,844 m, China) or the snow height (8,848 m, Nepal). In 2010, both sides agreed that the height of Everest is 8,848 m, and Nepal recognises China's claim that the rock height of Everest is 8,844 m.

It is thought that the plate tectonics of the area are adding to the height and moving the summit northeastwards. Two accounts suggest the rates of change are 4 mm (0.16 in) per year (upwards) and 3 to 6 mm (0.12 to 0.24 in) per year (northeastwards), but another account mentions more lateral movement (27 mm or 1.1 in), and even shrinkage has been suggested.

[Randy W]

from China Xinhua News on Facebook

 

https://www.facebook.com/369959106408139/posts/3644593862277964/

 

珠峰除了美景，还有这些“小可爱”们！

珠穆朗玛峰，万山之首，冰雪的故乡。除了壮美的风景，也有顽强的生命，不畏高寒，将其作为家园。#美丽中国

 

In addition to the beauty of Mount Everest, there are these "little cute" people!

Mount Qomolangma, the head of The Great Mountain, the hometown of ice and snow. In addition to the magnificent scenery, there is also a tenacious life, not afraid of the high cold, as a home. #美丽中国

 

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/369959106408139/posts/3644593862277964/

 

 

 

[Randy W]

from CGTN via SCMP on Facebook

 

Building a 5G network on Mt. Everest - because, well, why not?

https://www.facebook.com/355665009819/posts/673932573440263/

Edited May 29, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

from the SCMP

 

The 60th anniversary of the first Chinese team to summit Mount Everest, when a climber scaled a cliff in the death zone in bare feet

BY MARK AGNEW

25 MAY 2020

May 25 marks 60 years since three Chinese men stepped foot on the world’s highest peak, becoming the first of their countrymen to achieve the feat

 

 

May 25, 2020, marks the 60-year anniversary of the first Chinese team summiting Mount Everest. Three men, led by Wang Fuzhou, reached 8,848m in the early hours of the morning, not only becoming the first of their nationality to reach the peak, but also the first people of any nation to climb via the North Col.

Wang was joined up high by Qu Yinhua and a Tibetan called Gongbu.

. . .

Qu Yinhua went above and beyond to reach the summit. He scaled a vertical cliff on a steep section called the “second step” in bare feet.

The team’s success was dismissed by the West and the rest of the mountaineering world. Qu’s claim that he could climb in the notorious 8,000m high “death zone” in bare feet seemed suspicious.

The official account of their successful expedition, written by the government, was so full of references to party solidarity that the entire story of the bare-foot climbing or anyone reaching the peak was considered mere propaganda.

 

 

[Randy W]

. . .and the NatGeo

 

High-altitude drone captures rare view of Mount Everest

 

PHOTOGRAPH BY RENAN OZTURK

 

Using a drone modified to fly in thin air, photographer Renan Ozturk captured a stunning 360-degree panorama of the roof of the world.

But Ozturk was prepared for the extremes. Before reaching the Himalaya, he’d tested his drone in a hyperbaric chamber in California to see how it would handle the mountain’s thin air. He also worked with the drone manufacturer, DJI, to unlock certain safety functions, allowing it to descend quickly and operate farther from the pilot. Even with those measures, he expected difficulties. “When we were first doing these flights, you don’t know if it’s going to work,” he said. “There is always a sense of discovery and a sense of fear.”

 

. . .

 

And that is how Ozturk found himself shivering in the subfreezing chill atop the mountain’s North Col, laboring to breathe the thin air at 23,000 feet, roughly a mile below the summit. He’d spent eight months planning for the moment but calculated that he’d only have 15 minutes to capture an image before his drone’s battery died in the brutal cold. With numb hands, he launched the device into the sky, its propellers emitting a high-pitched whine as it struggled to gain altitude into the diminished atmosphere.