Chomolungma to the Tibetans, Sagarmatha to the Nepalese, Mount Everest to Westerners. A place of magnificence to all. The home of Miyolangsangma was unknown to the Western world until 1852, when it was first sighted by a British surveying team (the mountain is named after Sir George Everest, the surveyor general of India at the time of its ‘discovery’). From that sighting it took a further 101 years – and many failed attempts – before a human being finally planted a flag at the summit
The story of that first successful ascent of Everest – and the many prior failed attempts – fascinated people around the world. Since then, there have been at least 7,500 successful Everest summit climbs, but our interest in the stories of those who make the attempt has shown no sign of fading. Even today, almost everything we read in the media about Everest and the other 8,000-metre peaks (the 14 highest mountains on Earth), focuses exclusively on the climber and whether they ‘conquered’ their chosen mountain. Such is our interest in the heroic derring-do of the adventurers that we rarely hear about the people who spend their lives in the shadow of these giants.
