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What drives men to test their will against the might of the world's highest mountain, asks Marlon Saldin
Mountain madness
Peak XV was given its name sometime between 1830 and 1843, by the then Surveyor General of India, George Everest. Measured from 110 miles afar, from the Indian-Nepal border (as Nepal was closed to westerners), the theodolite measurements would later confirm that the blip on the northern horizon was indeed the highest point of the globe.

Surveyor Andrew Waugh later re-named Peak XV as Everest, in honour of his predecessor. In 1953, a bee-keeper from New Zealand Edmund Hillary together with an Indian Sherpa named Tenzing Norgay conquered this peak much to the disappointment of the expedition owners - The British, who had to be satisfied with images of the New Zealand flag rather than the Union Jack on the top! Since this achievement by Hillary and Tenzing, almost 2000 have made it to the top of Everest with around 200 mountaineers making it their last resting place!

Today, it's not merely mountaineers who make it to the top but almost anyone who can fork-out $60,000. To this, add high altitude gear and food, acclimatization peaks, hotels, airfares and you would be looking at something in the region of $100,000. Not much it would seem as there are queues building-up with supply being limited!

To achieve the feat of conquering Everest requires spending almost three months above 20,000 ft where the human body slowly but surely starts to decay. What drives people to climb above 26,000 ft which, in mountaineering terms is called "the death zone" and starve without sleep or food for about 60 - 70 hours all for the thrill of standing on top of half a pool table sized area and having your photograph taken, whilst tying one's flag or talisman onto a tripod that marks the summit of Mt. Everest?

This year, 28 teams have made it into the South base camp to climb Mt. Everest. I'm told that there's heavy traffic on the Northern side too, the Tibetan face! Many records may be set which could include the youngest and oldest on the mountain. A crossing of borders where climbers from Tibet would descend into Nepal and vice versa is also planned. Unfortunately, the weather this season could be a decisive factor with avalanches and hailstorms already beginning to build-up,limiting the climbing window to the top.

However, all these figures take a backseat on the second tallest mountain, K2. Nestled between the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush, the Karakorams are sheer towers of ice & rock that look like church steeples, certainly not a place for novices. Compared to Everest, a mere 200 have succeeded in climbing K2 with a phenomenal fatality rate. In one calendar year, there were more deaths than climbs and some of the best climbers perished. Outside the North and South Pole these glaciers contain the largest amount of ice.

Mountain tourism is a very high revenue earner and I suspect is the mainstay of the Nepali economy. Currently there are 52 peak permits issued for climbing during the April - May season.

This is also a life-line to the mountain community, dominated by sherpas who use their earnings to see them through the year. The bonus would come if they are hired during the October - November season, making their smiles almost reach their ears! Most climbers are quite generous, especially if they "bag their peak" and in some instances Sherpa children have been provided accommodation and schooling overseas. Since the mid-80s, I have begun to see many changes, however slow, taking place. The foremost would be the introduction of kerosene cookers, mass copied from a Russian pressurized system, slowly dominating the mountain kitchens. Initially it was firewood, but with the decimation of forests it went to yak dung, which is still used at very high altitudes!

Another welcome change is sanitation where anything is an improvement to what it was! Some lodges even boast of flushing toilets and more surprising is that they actually work! The quantity and quality of food too is going through a change for the better, where once upon a time the same hands that added yak dung into the fire would then make your dinner!

But all this are mere cosmetics to the human body at high altitude. On the outside you could look like Mr. Sri Lanka or a famine victim but it’s what you've got inside that would ultimately decide whether you are worthy of succeeding. The mind takes over long before you are halfway up the mountain and if the body is adapted suitably enough to the altitude, would take you the distance. Time and time again able-bodied people flop beside the trail as their minds cannot come to terms with the experience.

Some take expensive helicopter rides out of the mountains and a few end on horse or yak back, feet and head pointing groundward!

This year was no exception with helicopters criss- crossing the mountainside. On April 14, 16 people were evacuated at a cost of $3,000 each. I was at the rescue association when a South African lady suffering from altitude sickness, took a turn for the worse and had to be evacuated. It was late evening and the satellite SOS was made to Delhi, since Kathmandu has no South African embassy.The embassy had got in touch with the British High Commission in Kathmandu, ordering an air evacuation. A compression chamber fed with oxygen kept her alive through the night until the helicopter arrived at first light.

The pilots are probably some of the finest in the world and manoeuvre their choppers with the same agility as we shift glassware on a shelf. For instance the pilot who came in to rescue the South African landed his machine inside a little fenced yak meadow, not that simple when you're at the machine's upper limit of 16,000 ft.

The machine was in relatively bad shape with a broken glass on the pilot's side, but cellotaped with plastic. Then one of the side plates was loose and was promptly fastened, yet they managed to fly into some of the hardest locations with consummate ease.

To get a perspective of the largeness of the Himalayas one has simply got to compare it with other peaks. For example, labouring up Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in Europe is similar to climbing upto a lodge, midway to Everest base camp considered one of the 10 'must do' things in life! Then reaching the top of Mt. Cook in New Zealand is the same altitude as Namche Bazaar, where you could be comfortably eating a pizza! This could be a reason as to why many get it wrong on Asia's greatest peaks.

Finally, the stresses of high-altitude climbing reveal your true character; they unmask who you really are. You no longer have the social graces to hide behind or roles to play. You are the essence of what you are. In the words of Sir Edmund Hillary, "It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves".

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