Jamling Tenzing Norgay (l.) and Peter Hillary

Like their famous fathers Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, Jamling and Peter are friends and would also be a good rope team. Both followed in the footsteps of their fathers: Jamling Tenzing Norgay (in 1996) and Peter Hillary (in 1990 and 2002) also reached the summit of Mount Everest. Both are continuing the work of their fathers for the benefit of the Sherpas and keep the memory of the two Everest pioneers alive. „My father climbed the mountain and came back down the mountain as a simple man. He lived the rest of his life very humble and simple just like Edmund Hillary”, Jamling said when we met during the Everest Diamond Jubilee Celebrations at the Royal Geographical Society in London. „No two people could have climbed Everest first than Hillary and my father.” Peter Hillary is also proud of the performance of his father and Tenzing Norgay: „For us 60 years later the key thing is what it stands for: Someone does something new. They actually open the door to everyone who follows. These things are very liberating and as a consequence very important.”

Peter and Jamling about their father’s performance

Equal rights for all

Edmund Hillary (l.) and Tenzing Norgay

Until his death in 2008 Sir Edmund Hillary belonged to the most prominent critics of commercial climbing on Mount Everest. „I think he was sad that the wonderful adventure they had – there was no one else on the mountain, even near- has changed into what we have today”, Peter said. „It’s an industry.” The 58-year-old New Zealander thinks that we have to accept it „because if we are going to be consistent then we should go to Garmisch or Chamonix and say: No more mountain guiding, no more skiing, no more chalets and restaurants! We can’t take that away from the Nepalese.” But Peter calls for proving the standards on the world’s greatest mountain – like Jamling does. „I think there should be a control to limit how many people can climb or figure out the safety so that we have less accidents on the mountain”, Jamling said.

Peter and Jamling about climbing on Everest nowadays

True climbers respect each other

The 48-year-old is concerned by this season’s Sherpa attack against the European top climbers Simone Moro and Ueli Steck. „It should have never happened. The mountain is big enough for everybody to climb”, Jamling said. „True climbers respect each other.” This applied not only to the Sherpas: „The western climbers need to learn to respect the Sherpas while they are working.”

Peter and Jamling about this year’s brawl on Everest

For Peter Hillary the incident is „an unfortunate aberration” but he doesn’t want to overstate it: „When people climb at high elevation there are altitude, the emotions close to the surface, lots of egos and complications. This was an ugly, but not a particular serious incident.” Peter hopes that the traditionally very good relationships between foreign and Nepalese climbers will continue. „And I believe they will.”

Reinhold Messner

Ask the first man or woman you meet on any street in Europe after the name of a famous mountaineer and you will very likely get the response: „Reinhold Messner“. Although he did his pioneering ascents in the Himalayas andKarakorum more than a quarter of a century ago, the 68-year-old South Tyrolean is still very present in public awareness. Messner has been contributing his part by writing book after book, givings lectures and interviews – and polarizing with his statements. In my interview with him on the occasion of the upcoming 60th anniversary of the first ascent of Everest Reinhold Messner again had clear positions. Don’t wonder why I didn’t ask him about the recent incident on Everest. We met before.

Reinhold Messner, we first look back on the 29th May 1953, when the New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first men to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Would you say that this was an outstanding achievement of two courageous mountaineers or rather a team performance?

It was primarily a British team performance because the British have brought the know-how and the money and made huge preparatory works. From 1921 to 1953 many expeditions had failed on Everest. However, one must also attribute a part of the success to the Swiss who in 1952 had made two attempts with Raymond Lambert and had climbed up very high. Tenzing Norgay had belonged to this team too. I think without these experiences the British wouldn’t have reached the top in 1953. But we must also say that the summit success was due to Hillary’s talent to dare. The British had tried it themselves but had failed to reach the summit. But then this young lanky New Zealander proved his desire and courage to dare, and he and Tenzing were successful. It remains a magic moment of mountaineering. Hillary wasn’t an extreme mountaineer, but a traditional climber doing things as a matter of course. Typical New Zealand.

The first ascent was followed by a phase that I want to call the ‚sportive phase’ in the 1960s and even more in the 70s and 80s: new hard routes, first winter ascent. In 1978 you and Peter Habeler firstly climbed Everest without supplementary oxygen. And in 1980 you did a solo, again without oxygen, during monsoon. Was Everest the ultimate challenge for you at that time?

After the ascent via the Southwest Face by Doug Scott and Dougal Haston in 1975 I realized that only one option remained: to climb Everest with less and less equipment. For me the Everest solo was the icing on the cake of my climbs: the highest mountain in the world, during monsoon, and as far as possible even on a new route, of course without oxygen. Afterwards I was close to say I finish the 8000ers and go to Antarctica. But there were still a few of my old ideas like climbing three 8000ers in a row or a double traverse. Young guys like Friedl Mutschlechner or Hans Kammerlander urged me: ‚Let’s realize these things now!’ Then I organized it and we succeeded. Later in addition I got the chance to climb all fourteen 8000ers. By 1980, some of them had not been accessible.

Traffic on the normal route

In the 90s commercial mountaineering started on Everest and has been characterizing climbing on the highest mountain until today. What kind of mountain is Everest for you, 60 years after the first ascent? How do you think about what’s going on there just now?

It is still the same mountain. The oxygen partial pressure is still the same. And Everest is still relatively dangerous. I call the current phase ‚piste alpinism’. That makes the big difference. Before all the clients of the tour operators start climbing, not only dozens but one hundred Sherpas move up and prepare a via ferrata. It’s better prepared than any via ferrata in the Alps. Then the clients take this piste, any difficulty is excluded, and the dangers are minimized – not to zero, that isn’t possible.
Now it’s discussed whether a ladder – like at the Second Step on the north side since 1975 – should be put up at the Hillary Step, the only a bit difficult passage in the upper part of the route. I have suggested to install there a traffic light like in the city, so that everybody knows who is allowed to climb up and who to descend. In this case the climbers would have to observe the road traffic regulations and there would be fewer accidents. The accidents have been mainly caused by the chaos, by waiting and standing around in the cold. The people got hypothermic and some of them died of it.

Due to the development that you have described the type of climber who tries to scale Everest has changed significantly, hasn’t it?

Yes, today you find many people on Everest who aren’t climbers or, let me say, no experienced climbers. They know that many people have reached the summit, it is possible. Basically, Everest is possible for everybody who has climbed any easy 4000-metre-peak in the Alps – if the route is prepared. I guarantee you that no three of the thousand clients who are on Everest just now would start climbing if the route has not prepared before. The mountain has been enchained, with ropes and ladders. Thus it’s accessible to all. I don’t care whether it’s right or wrong. That has nothing to do with classic alpinism. People neither climb Hillary’s Everest nor my Everest. They climb another mountain, even if it is geologically the same.

What do you wish Mount Everest on occasion of the 60th anniversary of the first ascent?

I think it’s too late. Everest has already become a banal mountain. This is a shame. There are still new routes to be climbed and the possibility to traverse Everest and Lhotse. Just now two very good climbers (Denis Urubko and Alexei Bolotov) are trying to climb a new route in the southwest face, to the right of the line of Scott and Haston. This is very difficult in the upper part. If they are successful in Alpine style, I am the first to congratulate – although they reach the crowded summit of Everest.
I don’ think we ever can return the atmosphere of the past to Everest. The best climbers no longer go to the 8000ers, but to the most difficult mountains in the world which are 6000- or 7000-metre-peaks. There they find any kind of playground. But it is a pity that the really good climbers have fewer opportunities to finance their expeditions because so much attention is taken away by the Everest tourists.

Do you give Everest a wide berth or are you still attracted by the mountain where you have experienced so much?

I’m not hungry for Everest each year. But this year I’ll be there because I want to make a documentary for European television. I will not only visit the base camp, but look on it from above. Not by climbing up, but by watching these crowds of climbers.
I would also like to make a drug test. I am curious if anyone is willing to give an urine sample. It’s said that doping on Everest is at ‚university level’ compared to the ‚kindergarten‘ Tour de France. I wouldn’t go quite as far but it’s a fact that there are no drug tests on Everest. We know that in sports particularly amateurs dope themselves to be a bit faster than last year or climb Everest faster than their secretary.
I’m interested in the psychological point of view: What makes us climb Everest? Also for me the summit of Everest was a ‚vanishing point of vanity’. There are so many images and clichés connected with Everest. I can understand everybody who wants to scale Mount Everest. But they should have the courage to describe their ascent exactly as it was and not try to distort the facts afterwards, e.g. by being photographed standing alone at the summit after 50 other climbers have been put out of the picture – just to tell the world, look, I was alone on top.
Or climbers who are talking about Alpine style although they are climbing up on the prepared piste. It’s impossible. Even if someone is not touching the ropes, it isn’t Alpine style because the ropes are there. This has mainly to do with the psychological side. I have a very different fear if I’m all alone in the summit area of Mount Everest and if I know that there is nothing below me, no sherpa, no tent, no rope. And if a serac collapses I will not find my way down. If I know that the piste is prepared and under supervision of Sherpa specialists, I’m far less exposed. And the exposure is the key that makes sports an adventure.

Venables at South Georgia

This May Stephen Venables can celebrate a double Everest jubilee: the 60th birthday of the first ascent – and his more personal anniversary: On 12th May 25 years ago Venables was the first Briton to climb Everest without supplementary oxygen. A milestone. „I was lucky enough in 1988 to help write a new chapter in the mountain’s history, when I climbed a new route up the Kangshung Face with Robert Anderson, Paul Teare and Ed Webster”, Stephen wrote to me after I had asked him for his thoughts on Everest on occasion of the 60th anniversary of the first ascent. “Thanks to those fine American/Canadian climbers and a magnificent base camp support team, I enjoyed some of the greatest days of my life of Everest, living for over two months in the beautiful Kama valley.” But his life was hanging by a thread then. 

Mostly deserted 

Kangshung face

It’s for good reason that the Tibetan east face of Mount Everest is mostly deserted. It towers up steeply 3000 metres into the sky, glaciated with deep crevasses and the permanent risk of avalanches. When in 1921 the legendary British climber George Mallory was looking for a route to scale Everest and saw Kangshung face, he said it would be impossible to climb it. But in 1983 the Americans Carlos Buhler, Kim Momb and Louis Reichardt proved that it was possible. They matched the challenge using bottled oxygen. The expedition was successful very much thanks to the brilliant leading by George Lowe from Utah.

At his limit and beyond 

Paul Teare (below) in the Kangshung face

Five years later Stephen Venables, Paul Teare from Canada and the Americans Robert Anderson and Ed Webster opened a new route via the face and did it without oxygen masks. The route led to the South Col. Teare decided to descend from there, because he had symptoms of a high cerebral edema. Webster returned just below, Anderson from the 8690-meter-high South Summit. Only Venables reached the highest point on 8850 metres. On his descent he lost more and more of his power, he hallucinated. „I was at my absolute physiological limit”, Stephen later said in an interview. „All that day was a crossing barriers.” Below South Summit he bivouaced in open – and survived. But the odyssey continued. It took the three climbers three more days to descend via the Kangshung face, through waist-deep snow, in a white out and with no food. „Our ascent of the Kangshung was, for the four of us, the adventure of a lifetime”, Ed Webster wrote subsequently.

Two broken legs

Stephen lost three toes which were frozen and later had to be amputated. He was 34 years old, the expediton to the Kangshung face was his tenth in the Himalayas. In 1991 Venables climbed together with two Britons a new route on the 6000-metre-peak Kusum Kanguru near Everest. One year later he belonged to the British climbers who did the first ascent of  the 6437-metre-high Panch Chuli V in the Indian part of Himalaya. During the descent Stephen broke both his legs in a 80-metre-fall. Venables knew that it could have ended even worse. He finished to take part in extreme Himalayan expeditions. But the 58-year-old Briton is still climbing. In the past years he has often visited Antarctica, in particular the island of South Georgia.

Adventurous uncertainty

Stephen Venables

It’s not fair to reduce a man’s lifetime to an Everest expedition of two months. But Venables’ survival story on Mount Everest will always remain unforgotten. „It would be wonderful if Everest became again a place where climbers push the limits of human endeavour in an atmosphere of quiet contemplation: just three or four expeditions per year, climbing without supplementary oxygen, enjoying a sense of adventurous uncertainty”, Stephen answered my question, what he wishes Mount Everest for the future. He knows that this „will never happen, because it is not compatible with commercial imperatives.”

P.S.: You find Stephen’s full statements on the two Everest-60-pinboards on the right side of the blog.

Ang Tshering Sherpa

Ang Tshering’s biography can be assumed to be symbolic of the success story of the Sherpas in the past six decades. He was born in 1953, half a year after the first ascent of Mount Everest. In his home village Khumjung, on 3780 metres near the highest mountain of the world, Ang Tshering attended the school that was founded by Sir Edmund Hillary. The English skills which he had aquired there enabled him to work as a porter and interpreter for expeditions. In 1982 Ang Tshering founded „Asian Trekking”, today one of the leading agencies for expeditions and trekkings in Nepal. He married a Belgian woman, his son Dawa Steven studied in Scotland. Ang Tshering was and is not only a successful businessman with best worldwide contacts but has always been engaging for mountaineers. Since 1990 he is a member of the executive board of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, for nine years he was the president of the organization. In addition the 59-year-old Nepalese is the Immediate Past President of the Union of Asian Alpine Associations (UAAA) and Honorary Member of the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA). „Everest has put Nepal on the map as an ultimate (adventure) tourism destination”, Ang Tshering wrote to me after I had asked him for his thoughts about Everest on occasion of the 60-year-jubilee of the first ascent.

Threatened by the effects of climate change

As a young man

„Everest is regarded as a Goddess Mother of the Universe in Sherpa folklore. She is the guardian in who’s shadow sherpa children grow up. We think of Everest as massive, solid, unchanging, strong, lofty and unable to be hurt.” But according to Ang Tshering the truth is that only few people know that Everest is one of the most endangered places on earth due to the effects of climate change. „There are over 3000 glaciers in the high Himalaya and in the last 50 years, almost as many glacial lakes have formed.” This urgent message has been less immediately noticed at lower altitudes, Ang Tshering says.

Eco Everest expeditions

Garbage collecting on Everest

Since 2008 Ang Tshering and his son Dawa Steven organize the so called „Eco Everest expeditions” of Asian Trekking. The goal is that the mountaineers do not only reach the summit but also carry down garbage from the slopes of Everest on their way back. „It is the entire world’s responsibility to help conserve the mountain and its surroundings from environmental degradation. We need to respect and protect Mother Nature’s treasures”, Ang Tshering writes. (You find his full statements on the two Everest-60-pinboards on the right side of the blog.)

Only with Mother Nature’s blessing

On occasion of the diamond jubilee of the first ascent Ang Tshering wishes Mount Everest, that it „continues to keep inspiring people to explore their boundaries and push their limits, all the while realizing that only with Mother Nature’s blessing do we reach the top.” He himself has not stood on top of the world. In 1977 Ang Tshering Sherpa reached the South Col on nearly 8000 metres. But weather turned bad and he couldn’t reach the summit.

At the summit of Everest in 1999

In fact she was the second but in a way the first too. Helga Hengge summited Mount Everest on 27th May 1999. As second German woman after Hannelore Schmatz. But Hengge also survived the descent – in contrast to Schmatz who died from exhaustion on 8300 meters on the south side of the mountain on 2nd October 1979. For years climbers passed the corpse called „The German woman” which was sitting in the snow. Later the storm blew it into the depth. Almost twenty years after Schmatz Helga Hengge reached the highest point on 8850 metres after she had climbed up from the Tibetan north side. „I felt like a goddess”, Helga later said, „as if I could float.” Hengge was 32 years old when she stood on top of the world. Today Mount Everest sometimes gives her a nightmare, Helga, aged 46 now, wrote to me after I had asked her for her thoughts on occasion of the 60th anniversary of the first ascent.

Elevator to the ridge

„I dream that there is an entrance at the bottom of the glacier, a kind of cave where you can use an elevator from its depth up to the ridge.” The crowds push upwards using steep iron ladders via the Second Step, Helga continues. „At the summit there is a restaurant with a large terrace. Tea and cake are served. Suddenly the wind is getting stronger, clouds are gathering, a storm is coming up. The people with their colourful sneakers continue to climb up on the ridge. They are laughing, joking. I have to stop them, to tell them that it’s too dangerous, that they will die – but then they enter a long slide and rush down happily. And I wake up drenched in sweat.” In reality we’re not there yet, but Helga’s nightmare is initiated by what’s currently happening on Everest. „If everybody in addition would get a bravery medal and candy floss at basecamp only the mountaineers would be left to complain. This make me sad”, Helga writes.

From sport climbing to high-altitude mountaineering

Helga Hengge spent her life alternately in Germany and USA. She was born in Chicago and grew up in Bavaria. From the village of Deining, located between the cities of Nürnberg and Regensburg, on clear days she could see the Alps in the distance. Aged 25 Helga moved to New York, studied and worked as a fashion journalist. In her leisure time she did freeclimbing and later turned to high-altitude mountaineering. In 1997 she reached the summit of Aconcagua (6962 metres), the highest mountain of South America. Afterwards she climbed several other 6000-metre-peaks. In autumn 1998 Hengge reached 7500 metres on Cho Oyu. The following spring she succeeded on Everest, as the only woman in the commercial expedition team of the New Zealander Russell Brice.

On occasion of the 60th anniversary of the first ascent Helga wishes Mount Everest, that „year by year it shall grow a little bit higher in the sky with the objective to give a good life to the local people. And to inspire the climbers to push their limits, for the benefit of all.” (You find Helga Hengge’s  full statements on the two Everest-60-pinboards on the right side of the blog.) 

Eureka moment in a library 

Helga Hengge

Meanwhile she is a mother of two children and is living in Bavaria again, in Grünwald near Munich. After she had climbed Everest she continued going on expeditions. Among other things she reached the central summit of Shishapangma (8008 metres). At that time Helga already had her next major goal in mind: She wanted to climb the Seven Summits, the highest mountains of all continents, as first German woman. She had found a book of Dick Bass in a New York library. The American had firstly completed the collection of the Seven Summits in 1985 – however with Mount Kosciuszko in Australia and not as mostly common today with the Carstensz Pyramid in Ozeania. „What a great idea! At that time I regarded it as being a fantastic dream far away from realization. But that didn’t minimize my enthusiasm to dream that dream”, Helga writes. „Today I’m happy that this treasure has become a part of my life.” On 23th May 2011 she reached the top of Mount McKinley, the highest mountain of North America. Helga Hengge had managed to climb the Seven Summits. As first German woman. 

P.S. Sometimes Maria Gisela Hoffmann is called the first German woman on the Seven Summits. She completed her climbs on 21th May 2011, two days ahead of Hengge. But Hoffman was born as a boy and climbed the first of her Seven Summits as a man.

Apa Sherpa

Will Apa Sherpa feel melancholy these days? Climbers from all over the world are arriving at Everest basecamp on the south side of the mountain. Meanwhile the so called „Ice Doctors” have prepared the route through the dangerous Khumbu icefall up to Camp 2 on 6600 metres. The climbing season on the highest mountain of the world is ready to start. For more than two decades Everest was an integral part of Apa’s life. Nobody has reached the top of the world as often as this 1.63 metre tall man: He reached the summit 21 times and became a living legend. In 2011 Apa finished his Everest career. Now he is about 53 years old. He doesn’t know for sure because in the 1960s no birth certificates were issued for Sherpas in his home village Thame in the Everest region.

Committed to education and environment

Since the end of his Everest career Apa has been taking care of his foundation that promotes educational projects in Nepal – and of environmental protection. Last year he trekked together with Dawa Steven Sherpa on the „Great Himalaya Trail” 1555 km from the east to the west of Nepal. It was a campaign to raise awareness to the dangers of global warming for the Himalayas. Apa is also worried about Everest. „Meanwhile, first I want people to respect the mountain and protect it from harm”, Apa writes to me. „Everest belongs to everyone in the world. We need to save it for our future generations too.”

Everest opened doors of opportunity

Apa and Mount Everest (l., with snow banner)

Not only Apa’s life, the lives of all Sherpas are closely linked to Mount Everest. „People know us in the world because of Mount Everest. More importantly, it opened the doors of opportunity for Sherpa people in the rest of the world”, Apa says. „Where we are now is because of Mount Everest. Everest is Nepal’s pride and is our greatest treasure.” On occasion of the 60th anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest he wishes that „it continues to inspire climbers from all over the world to visit Nepal, dream big and take success all the way to the summit”. (You find Apa’s full statements on the two Everest-60-pinboards on the right side of the blog.)

No eternal record

Apa holding the record certificate

Records are there to be broken. That surely will also happen to Apa’s Everest record, perhaps even this year. Phurba Tashi, often referred to as the „Everest Yak” because of his immense strength at altitude, has already summited Everest 19 times. In 2007 he reached the top three times in one season, in 2011 twice. This spring Phurba, born in the village of Khumjung in 1971, is working for Himalayan Experience as sirdar (head) of the climbing sherpas.

Season’s first fatality 

Before any climber from abroad has set his feet on the normal route the first fatality of the season is reported from Everest. On Sunday 45-year-old Mingmar Sherpa, one of the “Icefall Doctors”, has died after falling into a crevasse below camp 2. RIP.

Ralf Dujmovits

Ralf Dujmovits is up to every Himalayan trick. For the last 25 years Germany’s most successful high altitude climber has been on the way on the highest mountains of the world. For him Mount Everest (the first ascent of the mountain 60 years ago will be celebrated in May) is an old acquaintance. In 1992 Ralf stood on the summit, 8850 meters high, in bad weather conditions. Above the South Col he used supplementary oxygen. It was the only one of the fourteen 8000-meter-peaks Ralf climbed with an oxygen-mask. The mountaineer from Bühl in the south of Germany feels this fact as a flaw that he wants to eliminate. In 2005, 2010 and 2012 Ralf tried to climb Everest without supplementary oxygen, three times he failed. But still he is flirting with another attempt. So it’s not surprising that Ralf talked about climbing „by fair means” – when I asked him for his statements for my Everest-60-pinboards (you can read and hear his words on the right side of the blog). 

As far as possible not on the normal route 

„Mount Everest has not changed. It’s the same big pile of stone, but also simply the highest mountain on earth”, Ralf said. „This explains the attractiveness for an incredible number of people and leads to the key issue: The mountain should be climbed by fair means.” That means without high porters, without fixed ropes, without supplementary oxygen and – according to Ralf – „as far as possible not on the normal routes”. Ralf also described a „light” version of climbing by fair means: “People who use supplementary oxygen should do this only above theSouth Coland should afterwards report about it honestly.” Exactly like he did in 1992. 

Not without experience

When he tried Everest last in spring 2012, Ralf was shocked looking at the long queue of climbers on the normal route and about the fact, that many of these tried their luck without having any climbing experience. For the 60th anniversary of the first ascent Ralf wishes Mount Everest, „that less people try to climb this mountain who actually do not belong there – and more who are able to make it on their own”. In 2013 Ralf will not visit Chomolungma. Together with his wife Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner he plans to climb in the mountains of Alaska.