Hillary, Tenzing’s son feted on 50th anniversary of Everest conquest
KATHMANDU, May 29: Fifty years to the day after conquering Mount Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary was feted on Thursday by royalty, politicians and fellow mountaineers, as festivities marking the historic ascent were held across Nepal.
Jamling Norgay, son of the late Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, who stood with Hillary on the summit of world’s highest peak on May 29, 1953, represented his father at a flurry of colourful functions in the Nepalese capital.
On a day which Hillary’s wife June told AFP had been “very hectic”, the mountaineer, now 83 and walking with difficulty, was awarded a special medal by Crown Prince Paras, and later sat down to tea with King Gyanendra and Queen Komal.
At another function, attended by hundreds of men and women who have followed him to the top of Everest in the past 50 years, honorary Nepalese citizenship was bestowed on him by Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand “for the valuable contribution he has made to Nepal.”
Soon after conquering Everest with Tenzing, Hillary set up the Himalayan Trust to help improve the standard of living and educational levels of the Sherpas of the Everest region.
The Trust has grown in size over the years and continues to make a significant impact on the lives of Sherpas, the often unsung heroes of the Himalayas without whom few expeditions up Everest would succeed.
Fittingly, Hillary was to end the Golden Jubilee celebrations in Kathmandu by sitting down to dinner Thursday night with Sherpas rather than attending a banquet being hosted for Everest summiters by the Crown Prince.
According to news reports here, celebrations were also held Thursday at Everest Base Camp and, led by Hillary’s son Peter, at the village of Tengboche where expeditions to Everest traditionally receive the blessing of Buddhist monks before setting off.
The Nepalese government marked the occasion by announcing the opening of 50 virgin Himalayan peaks to mountaineers, and by printing half a billion commemorative postage stamps depicting the south face of Everest, the country’s main tourism drawcard.
Street festivals were held in various parts of the capital and other major centres across Nepal.
Prime Minister Chand, meanwhile, presented commemorative medals to around 280 foreign and local Everest summiters, including to Jamling Norgay, who summited the world’s highest peak in 1996.
Paying tribute to the feat of his father and Hillary back in 1953, when equipment was rudimentary and the risks enormous, Norgay said the conquest of Everest had “taken us humans a step forward on the spirit of adventure.”
“I remember my father’s words: ‘Be great, make others great’.”
But far from using the jubilee to publicise Everest many of the conquerors of the mountain have paradoxically called for a reduction in numbers on the world-famous peak and have voiced disappointment about the increasing commercialisation of the Himalayas.
Hillary himself told reporters Wednesday he was “not very happy about the future of Everest” and said the number of expeditions should be limited to “one or two per route”.
Picking up the theme during a symposium on mountaineering here Thursday, Italian alpinist Reinhold Messner, the first to the top of Everest without bottled oxygen, urged the Nepalese government to restrict the number of expeditions each year.
Tourism Minister Kuber Sharma told the symposium the government hoped the opening up of the 50 new peaks would reduce some of the pressures on Everest.
The government, he added, had to weigh up the pros and cons of restricting access to Everest.
“Overcrowding and long queues is a matter of genuine concern,” he said. “We need to protect the environment but also to satisfy those who aspire to be close to nature.” —AFP
