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.
One thing I always think about with these kinds of codes: what would they have said if the snow conditions were actually bad and they had to abandon their base?
Uehreka
10 days ago
"Tenzing and Hillary have reached the summit!"
dodslaser
7 days ago
Poor guy wasn't even mentioned on Wikipedia's sherpa's list [1].
As of today he is...
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.
Staple_Diet
11 days ago
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.
>>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.
sandworm101
11 days ago
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.
verve_rat
11 days ago
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.
verve_rat
11 days ago
Thanks, that explains it well. It seems it's less about who climbed but more so who funded the climb. I daresay though they'd still have claimed the Canadian as a Commonwealth victory if he'd summited and likely knighted him too like they did Hillary.
Staple_Diet
10 days ago
I was waiting for the article to acknowledge that Hillary was from New Zealand, but it's never mentioned.
ctippett
11 days ago
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.
soperj
11 days ago
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.)
kemiller2002
11 days ago
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
11 days ago
It’s all a matter of perspective. Despite being British subjects Canadians still had their own sense of identity, as did Kiwis.
afavour
11 days ago
[deleted]
11 days ago
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].
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.
wetmore
11 days ago
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.
IncreasePosts
11 days ago
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.
alephnerd
11 days ago
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?
generic92034
11 days ago
As part of the same fun exercise, also imagine what it would take to prevent K2 (which is currently the world's 2nd highest mountain) from becoming a pile of shit.
mangamadaiyan
10 days ago
Deaths due to snowstorms. It's not know as killer mountain for nothing.
trueismywork
10 days ago
K2 is quite a bit more difficult to climb compared to Everest.
fooker
10 days ago
I doubt it would help, of the top 5 mountains, everest is second the easiest to climb.
trueismywork
10 days ago
So we should just ignore previous accomplishments I guess...
lostemptations5
11 days ago
The amount of virtue signalling going on to turn this article into some kind of moral issue is just wild
kinglawrence
11 days ago
Petty virtue signalling is very much a curse of social media, even modern discourse.
It is at its worst when used to pile-on a speaker or post for uttering some perceived slight, or daring to suggest an unpopular idea or political view. It is bad for open discourse, even open society, and needs to stop.
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...
Amorymeltzer
11 days ago
One thing I always think about with these kinds of codes: what would they have said if the snow conditions were actually bad and they had to abandon their base?
Uehreka
10 days ago
"Tenzing and Hillary have reached the summit!"
dodslaser
7 days ago
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
tromp
11 days ago
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.
Staple_Diet
11 days ago
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...
dorfsmay
11 days ago
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.
verve_rat
11 days ago
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.
sandworm101
11 days ago
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.
verve_rat
11 days ago
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.
verve_rat
11 days ago
Thanks, that explains it well. It seems it's less about who climbed but more so who funded the climb. I daresay though they'd still have claimed the Canadian as a Commonwealth victory if he'd summited and likely knighted him too like they did Hillary.
Staple_Diet
10 days ago
I was waiting for the article to acknowledge that Hillary was from New Zealand, but it's never mentioned.
ctippett
11 days ago
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.
soperj
11 days ago
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.)
kemiller2002
11 days ago
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
11 days ago
It’s all a matter of perspective. Despite being British subjects Canadians still had their own sense of identity, as did Kiwis.
afavour
11 days ago
11 days ago
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
lbeckman314
11 days ago
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...
rvnx
11 days ago
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.
wetmore
11 days ago
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.
IncreasePosts
11 days ago
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.
alephnerd
11 days ago
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?
generic92034
11 days ago
As part of the same fun exercise, also imagine what it would take to prevent K2 (which is currently the world's 2nd highest mountain) from becoming a pile of shit.
mangamadaiyan
10 days ago
Deaths due to snowstorms. It's not know as killer mountain for nothing.
trueismywork
10 days ago
K2 is quite a bit more difficult to climb compared to Everest.
fooker
10 days ago
I doubt it would help, of the top 5 mountains, everest is second the easiest to climb.
trueismywork
10 days ago
So we should just ignore previous accomplishments I guess...
lostemptations5
11 days ago
The amount of virtue signalling going on to turn this article into some kind of moral issue is just wild
kinglawrence
11 days ago
Petty virtue signalling is very much a curse of social media, even modern discourse.
It is at its worst when used to pile-on a speaker or post for uttering some perceived slight, or daring to suggest an unpopular idea or political view. It is bad for open discourse, even open society, and needs to stop.
GJim
10 days ago