[HN Gopher] A Man Who Raced to Tell the World That Mount Everest...
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       A Man Who Raced to Tell the World That Mount Everest Had Been
       Climbed
        
       Author : rtrunck
       Score  : 89 points
       Date   : 2024-05-08 22:36 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.outsideonline.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.outsideonline.com)
        
       | tromp wrote:
       | Poor guy wasn't even mentioned on Wikipedia's sherpa's list [1].
       | As of today he is...
       | 
       | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherpa_people
        
       | Staple_Diet wrote:
       | It's funny that they mention a Canadian climber being a threat to
       | the Crown getting the Everest mantle. Pretty sure in the 1940s
       | Canadians were still British subjects, much like Kiwis (of which
       | Hillary was one). So, a Canadian summiting would have been the
       | same as a Kiwi summiting.
        
         | afavour wrote:
         | It's all a matter of perspective. Despite being British
         | subjects Canadians still had their own sense of identity, as
         | did Kiwis.
        
         | dorfsmay wrote:
         | Even though Canadian citizenship first appeared in 1947,
         | athletes were recognised as Canadian as soon as the country was
         | created in 1867.
         | 
         | The first Canadians to win a anything were the "Paris crew" who
         | won a regatta days after the constitution. Canada started to be
         | represented in the Olympic Games in 1900.
         | 
         | https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/paris-crew
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_at_the_1900_Summer_Olym...
        
           | verve_rat wrote:
           | And NZ competed at the Olympics in 1920.
           | 
           | If Canada counts as not the Crown, then so does NZ.
           | 
           | It's a major oversight for an article on this subject.
        
         | ctippett wrote:
         | I was waiting for the article to acknowledge that Hillary was
         | from New Zealand, but it's never mentioned.
        
         | sandworm101 wrote:
         | 1931. Not 1940s.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Westminster_1931
         | 
         | >>Most of the remaining colonies in North America - everything
         | north of the United States with the exception of Newfoundland -
         | were merged into a federal polity known as "Canada" in the late
         | 1860s and early 1870s. Canada was termed a "dominion", a term
         | previously used in slightly different contexts in English
         | history, and granted a broad array of powers between the
         | federal government and the provincial governments. Australia
         | was similarly deemed a dominion when it federated in 1901, as
         | were Newfoundland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the Irish
         | Free State in the first decades of the 20th century.
         | 
         | >> No Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom passed after the
         | commencement of this Act shall extend, or be deemed to extend,
         | to a Dominion as part of the law of that Dominion, unless it is
         | expressly declared in that Act that that Dominion has
         | requested, and consented to, the enactment thereof.
         | 
         | In that language was/is Canadian independence from britain.
        
           | verve_rat wrote:
           | And NZ adopted the Statute of Westminster in 1947, so was on
           | the same footing as Canada with respect to claiming the
           | "first to the top" title.
        
         | soperj wrote:
         | Nah, you're wrong. There was a reason they waited a day to
         | declare war on Germany in WWII, where as in WWI they were
         | automagically at war.
        
           | kemiller2002 wrote:
           | I remember that in Canadian history. They did not go to war
           | because England did, but I think it was they went to war
           | because the monarchy declared it (?) (Please don't knock me
           | too hard Canadian history was over 25 years ago for me.)
        
           | verve_rat wrote:
           | Yeah but New Zealand also separately declared war in World
           | War II, so if that is your yardstick then there is still no
           | difference between a Kiwi and a Canadian getting there first.
        
         | verve_rat wrote:
         | I've replied to a few comments here pointing out why NZ and
         | Canada would be considered both on the same footing as part of
         | the Empire but also not at the same time.
         | 
         | Unlike, say the US, independence for the former Dominions isn't
         | something you can pin point to one event. It is mostly a slow
         | evolution of the legal environment and cultural separation over
         | the course of more than a century. (In NZ's case you could
         | argue that it took 163 years, or is not done yet because
         | reasons.)
         | 
         | The actual difference between the Canadian "expedition" and the
         | one that included Hillary is that the Canadian one was just
         | some dude. One guy that wanted to try his luck, whereas the
         | British one was organised (and I believe paid for) in Britain.
         | It just happened to have a Kiwi on it.
        
       | rvnx wrote:
       | Not sure it's so good to make promotion of Mount Everest and
       | their climbers in the current situation.
       | 
       | It's full of literal shit (including the smell) and empty oxygen
       | bottles due to too many tourists and everyday it gets worse.
       | 
       | It's like the highest open defecation place in the world.
       | 
       | https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/climbing/pea...
       | 
       | though there are some initiatives to solve that:
       | https://www.mensjournal.com/pursuits/mountaineering-report/t...
        
         | alephnerd wrote:
         | It'll only get worse.
         | 
         | Management of Mt Everest falls under the Ministry of Culture,
         | Tourism, and Civil Aviation, and each Minister lasts barely a
         | year because Nepali politics is extremely unstable because
         | Ministries are given to critical MPs who can make or break a
         | government.
         | 
         | Expect more permits to be issued and way less support and
         | cleaning especially because Nepal has some systemic economic
         | issues right now.
        
         | lostemptations5 wrote:
         | So we should just ignore previous accomplishments I guess...
        
         | wetmore wrote:
         | I'd bet a substantial amount that nobody is learning that
         | Everest exists from this article.
         | 
         | I agree that the current state of Everest is an embarrassment.
         | But that doesn't change the fact that it's the tallest mountain
         | in the world, and the efforts (both successful and failed) to
         | be the first to summit were audacious and inspiring to many
         | people. Stories like the one in the OP should not be suppressed
         | just because decades later the mountain has turned into a pile
         | of shit.
        
         | IncreasePosts wrote:
         | Why should I care if there is a bunch of garbage and feces in a
         | place that no one can even access without paying $70k? There's
         | beaches where normal people actually go that are covered in
         | trash and have raw sewage pumped into the nearby
         | waters...surely that is a more important aspect of the
         | environment to clean up or care about than a mountain in the
         | middle of no where that only rich people visit.
        
         | kinglawrence wrote:
         | The amount of virtue signalling going on to turn this article
         | into some kind of moral issue is just wild
        
         | generic92034 wrote:
         | So, just as a fun exercise - what would it take to remove the
         | top 250m from Mount Everest, making it only the second highest
         | mountain?
        
       | Amorymeltzer wrote:
       | This includes one of my favorite details, which is the coded
       | message sent to confirm the ascent:
       | 
       | >Snow conditions bad stop advanced base abandoned yesterday stop
       | awaiting improvement
       | 
       | Wikipedia[1] has the breakdown, as well as the rest of the code
       | for other individuals[2]:
       | 
       | >Snow conditions bad" was the agreed code to signify that the
       | summit had been reached; "advance base abandoned" referred to
       | Hillary and "awaiting improvement" referred to Tenzing.
       | 
       | 1:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_British_Mount_Everest_exp...
       | 
       | 2:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_British_Mount_Everest_exp...
        
       | lbeckman314 wrote:
       | Amazing story by Ang Pemba Sherpa! Only crossed paths briefly a
       | few times at the outdoor store mentioned in the article (Next
       | Adventure!) but I'm a big fan of all of his work and photography
       | [0,1].
       | 
       | [0] http://angpembasherpa.com/
       | 
       | [1] https://www.instagram.com/angpembasherpa
        
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       (page generated 2024-05-09 23:02 UTC)