| sally |
Posted
on 26-May-01 10:09 PM
Read this carefully and thoughtfully, folks ...
New records on Everest
Post Report
KATHMANDU, May 25 - Erik Weihenmeyer scaled Mt. Everest on Friday becoming the first blind climber to summit the world’s highest mountain ... (he) reached the summit at 10 a.m. with Eric Alexander, 31, Luis Benitez, 28, and Jeff Evans, 31, his climbing partners from the United States.
Minutes before they reached the summit, Chris Morris, 33, and Bradford Bull, 33, and his father Sherman Bull, 64, also reached the summit WITH EIGHT NEPALESE SHERPA GUIDES ...
Unlike most climbers who depend on coordinating carefully between their eyes, hand and feet to make their climb, he follows the sounds of bell that will be tied to the jackets of his climbing mates AND Sherpa guides ...
The number of people who have reached the summit since Tuesday from the Nepali side has reached 94 and there are more reports of success on the northern side in Tibet.
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A couple of questions:
Do the "Sherpa guides" count as people? Are they among the 94, or if a climber is Nepali and getting paid, will he get counted with, say, the backpacks?
Why do foreigners get to be named, but the Nepalis are mentioned as if they're part of the climbing gear?
Why are Nepalis not "climbing mates"--but instead, apparently, require some other classification? Maybe they're some kind of super-high altitude yak. You know: hardy, loyal, and a separate species. Or maybe it's just that the more work you do, the less respect you get. Of course, it seems to me that lots of white climbers (such as the late Rob Hall and Scott Fischer) have also worked as guides for their livelihood, but they at least were dignified with the term "climber."
I don't know about anyone else, but I get pretty tired of this. I'd like to see the Nepali press, at least, acquire the same amount of sense as the fourth-grade girl in Kathmandu who once told me, "Mount Everest was first climbed by Tenzing Norgay Sherpa of Nepal and one tourist from New Zealand."
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 28-May-01 04:06 PM
Dear Sally:
The Sherpas are human and Nepali too.
For a Sherpa to get his name publicized, he needs to mount the
Everest at least four or five times, I guess.
That's not the case of non-Sherpas. Non-Sherpas will get the
attention even with botched attempts. It is not foreigners and
Nepalis, it is Sherpas and non-Sherpas.
And you are right, it is the most pathetic thing to omit their
name, and treat them as " et al".
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| sally |
Posted
on 29-May-01 09:58 AM
Here we go again, from today's nepalnews.com:
"Two Americans, an Australian and three Sherpa guides of the IMG Everest Expedition 2001 also climbed the peak Friday, the Ministry of Tourism said."
If any editors from the KTM Post or other papers scrolls this site, let me respectfully suggest an alternative way of reporting--as found in the Washington Post:
"Five Climbers Rescued Near Everest Peak
"In a dramatic rescue near the summit of Mount Everest, an American-led team of climbers last week brought down five other dazed and near dead mountaineers ...
"The rescue was accomplished by AMERICAN AND NEPALESE CLIMBERS who were part of a team searching for proof that George Mallory and his partner in 1924 because the first to reach the Everest summit ... [W]ithin 500 feet of the top of the 29,035 feet ... the rescue team, three Americans AND TWO NEPALESE, found a Guatemalan climber and a guide just as the sun came up ...
"In addition to (Andy) Politz, of Columbus, Ohio, the other rescuers were Dave Han, of Taos, N.M., Tap Richards, of Seattle, Jason Tanguay, of Tacome, Wash., AND SHERPA GUIDES PHU NURFU AND PHU DORGE ..."
full story at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A82616-2001May26.html
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