There is something new to see on the gentle slopes of the Garhwal and Kumaon region, the sharp ragged gorges of Kulu and Lahaul in Himachal Pradesh, the pristine untouched beauty of Sikkim, the almost unexplored Arunachal Pradesh, the fantastic moonscapes of the Zanskar range in Jammu and Kashmir. The high altitude peaks of Nun-Kun Massif in Ladakh, Nanda Devi in Garhwal, and Dunagiri in Kumaon offer challenging peaks for mountaineering.

In Kumaon, the popular areas are the Kalabaland glacier system, the Panch Chulhi, the Rajrambha, and Chaudhara peaks, and the peaks of the Nandakot basin. Yet in the words of Arjun Bajpayee, “The Everest is not a joke,” the youngest Indian, who conquered the Everest in May 2010. Since the legacy of Edmund Hillary and George Mallory, mountaineers have time and time again tried to conquer the fury of Mt Everest, standing tall at 29,029 ft.

The first successful ascent on Mount Everest, also known as Sagarmatha (goddess of the sky) was on 29 May 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary, NZ and Tenzing Norgay, NP, via the South Col Route. News of the expedition’s success reached London on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation on 2 June 1953. Returning to Kathmandu a few days later, John Hunt (who led the expedition), and Hillary discovered that they had been knighted in the Order of the British Empire.

If we look into the pages of history, climbers had been eager since 1885, when Clinton Thomas Dent, an English surgeon and mountaineer noted that the great mass could be climbed. One of the most intriguing of stories is that of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine who made their last ascent up the mountain on 8 June 1924 via the North Col/ North Ridge/Northeast Ridge route, but never returned. On 1 May 1999 the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition found Mallory’s body on the North Face in a snow basin below and to the west of the traditional site of Camp VI. Mallory had in total made three attempts.

Mallory is famously quoted as having replied to the question “Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?” with the retort: “Because it’s there”. Several hundreds have climbed and several hundreds have perished in the cold. The realm above 26,000 feet is called the Death Zone. Reports suggest that approximately 150 bodies were never recovered.

On 23 May 1984, Bachendri Pal became the first Indian woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. On 22 May 2010 Jordan Romero became the youngest person in the world to climb Mount Everest, at the age of 13. The previous record for youngest to climb Everest was held by Temba Tsheri of Nepal who was 16 years and 14 days old when he reached the summit in 2001.

EARLY TIMELINES OF MOUNT K2
1841: Sir George Everest, Surveyor General of India from 1830 to 1843, records the location of Everest.

1852: The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India determines the Peak XV is the highest mountain in the world.

1856: Surveyor Andrew Waugh completes the first height measurement, declaring Everest to be 8840 meters high.

1865: Peak XV re-named Mt. Everest to honour Sir George Everest, the Surveyor General of India.

1921: The First British Everest Reconnaissance Expedition to the mountain is led by Lt. Colonel Charles Howard-Bury. This is George Leigh Mallory’s first trip to the mountain.

By Deepa Srinivasan