Khumjung (Nepal) (AFP) – The children of New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepali Tenzing Norgay Sherpa presided over the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the historic conquest of Everest, the highest mountain in the world, by their parents on Monday May 29 in Nepal.
“For many reasons it’s not just Ed Hillary and Tenzing Norgay who reached the summit of Everest, but all of humanity,” Peter Hillary told a school founded by his father Edmund in the isolated 3,790-meter village of Khumjung.
“Suddenly, each one of us could leave,” he added.
The conquest of the ‘Roof of the World’, which culminates at 8,849 m high, on May 29, 1953, changed mountaineering forever and covered the New Zealander and his Nepali guide with glory throughout the world.
Members of the respective families joined the villagers and officials on Monday morning to inaugurate the Sir Edmund Hillary Tourist Office, housed in the same building as the school that opened in 1961.
Lamps were lit in front of portraits of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa. His sons, Peter Hillary and Jamling Norgay Sherpa, cut the red ribbon officially inaugurating the center.
A renovated museum was also opened in the name of Tenzing Norgay at Namche Bazar, the biggest tourist hub on the Everest Base Camp road.
In Kathmandu, officials and hundreds of mountaineers participated in a demonstration with commemorative banners.
Nepal’s top mountaineers including Kami Rita Sherpa, nicknamed ‘the man from Everest’, who last week reached the summit for the 28th time, were honored at a ceremony.
They demand support for the sherpas, the heroes of the heights
Sanu Sherpa, the only one to have climbed the world’s 14 highest peaks twice, asked the government to support Nepalese guides, who take enormous risks to accompany foreign climbers during their ascents.
“The government has not done much for the Sherpas. I think it would be a great help and we would be happy if the government helps educate the children of the mountaineers killed on the summits,” Sanu Sherpa told AFP.
In the past seven decades, more than 6,000 climbers have climbed the world’s highest peak, according to the Himalayan Database site, and more than 300 climbers have lost their lives in the same period, including 12 this year.
With five climbers currently missing, 2023 is a record year in terms of mortality on Everest.
Nepal is home to ten of the world’s highest peaks, including Everest, and welcomes hundreds of climbers each spring, when temperatures are increasingly mild and winds are generally weaker.
Source: France 24
