Record Number of Climbers Reach Top of World's Highest Mountain, Part 1

VOICE ONE: I'm Shirley Griffith. VOICE TWO: And I'm Steve Ember with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today, we tell about efforts to climb Mount Everest. Last month, an eighteen-year-old American became one of the youngest people to climb the tallest mountain on Earth. And, a seventy-one-year old Japanese man became the oldest. VOICE ONE: Mount Everest is at the border of Nepal and Tibet. It was named for Sir George Everest, who recorded the mountain's position in eighteen forty-one. Since nineteen fifty-three, more than ten thousand people have attempted to climb to the top of the world's highest mountain. The summit of Mount Everest is eight thousand eight hundred forty-eight meters high. Climbers have reached the summit more than three thousand times. However, more than two hundred people died while attempting to get there. They all battled low temperatures. Wind speeds of up to one hundred sixty kilometers an hour. Dangerous mountain paths. And they all risked developing a serious health disorder caused by lack of oxygen. All for the chance to reach the top of the world. VOICE TWO: The first and most famous of the climbers to disappear on Mount Everest was George Mallory. The British schoolteacher was a member of the first three trips by foreigners to the mountain. In nineteen twenty-one, Mallory was part of the team sent by the British Royal Geographical Society and the British Alpine Club. The team was to create the first map of the area and find a possible path to the top of the great mountain. Mallory also was a member of the first Everest climbing attempt in nineteen twenty-two. But the attempt was canceled after a storm caused a giant mass of snow to slide down the mountain, killing seven ethnic Sherpa guides. VOICE ONE: Mallory was invited back to Everest as lead climber of another expedition team in nineteen twenty-four. On June fourth, Mallory and team member Andrew Irvine left their base camp for the team's final attempt to reach the summit. The climbing team had great hopes of success for the two men. A few days earlier, expedition leader Edward Norton had reached a record height of eight thousand five hundred seventy-three meters before he turned back. VOICE TWO: Mallory and Irvine were using bottles of oxygen. Mallory believed that was the only way they would have the energy and speed to climb the last three hundred meters to the top and return safely. Team member Noel Odell saw Mallory and Irvine climbing high on the mountain the following day. Odell said they had just climbed one of the most difficult rocks on the northeast path. He said they were moving toward the top when clouds hid them. He never saw them again. The disappearance of Mallory and Irvine on Mount Everest remains among the greatest exploration mysteries of the last century. VOICE ONE: During the next twenty-nine years, teams from Britain made seven more attempts to climb Everest. Until the early nineteen fifties, British teams were the only foreigners given permission to climb Mount Everest. On May twenty-ninth, nineteen fifty-three, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers known to reach the summit of Everest. The two were part of a British team lead by Jon Hunt. They had made a difficult climb from the southeast, through recently opened Nepalese territory. Edmund Hillary was a beekeeper from New Zealand. It was his second trip to Everest. He had been on the first exploratory trip to the mountain that had mapped the way up from the southern side. Tenzing Norgay was a native Sherpa from Nepal. He was the first Sherpa to become interested in mountain climbing. His climb with Hillary was his seventh attempt to reach the top. VOICE TWO: Hillary said his first reaction on reaching the summit was a happy feeling that he had "no more steps to cut." The two men placed the flags of Britain, Nepal, India and the United Nations. Hillary took a picture of Norgay. They looked out over the north side into Tibet for any signs that Mallory or Irvine had been there before them. Then they began the long and difficult trip back down. The success of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay led to many new attempts on the mountain. Today, Everest has been climbed from all of its sides and from most of its possible paths. Source: Voice of America