Himalaya posts
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (1 day ago)
May 24th, 2013 at 8:00AM: AP Photo
Yesterday, 80-year-old mountaineer Yiuchiro Miura successfully reached the summit of Mt. Everest, setting a new age record in the process. Miura, who has climbed the mountain on two previous occasions, is now the oldest person to ever stand on top of the tallest mountain on the planet. But just how long he'll hold that distinction remains to be seen.
There were some concerns about the ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (16 days ago)
May 9th, 2013 at 8:00AM: Two octogenarians are preparing to go head-to-head to determine who will hold the record for the oldest to summit Mt. Everest; 81-year-old Min Bahadur Sherchan of Nepal and his 80-year-old rival Yuichiro Miura of Japan are both currently in Everest Base Camp on the South Side of the mountain. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, the two climbers will set out for the 29,029-foot summit as they ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (25 days ago)
Apr 30th, 2013 at 8:00AM: The 2013 spring climbing season on Mt. Everest took a strange and unexpected turn this past weekend when a team of three climbers was assaulted by a mob of angry Sherpas. The incident first began at one of the mountain's high camps, then reignited further down the slope when tempers flared up once again. If it weren't for the brave intervention of other Western climbers, the conflict could have ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
Apr 9th, 2013 at 8:00AM: The spring climbing season on Mt. Everest is barely a week old and the mountain has already claimed its first death of the year. On Sunday, 45-year-old Mingmar Sherpa took a fatal fall into a crevasse while descending from Camp 2 on the mountain's South Side. His companions attempted to mount a rescue operation but it took several hours to retrieve his body from the crevasse, at which time it was ...
by Anna Brones (RSS feed) (3 months ago)
Feb 10th, 2013 at 5:00PM:
Somewhere at the core of every human being is a pull to a fire. We are drawn to that place where we sit as a tribe around a source of warmth, sharing stories and building connections. That spirit is embodied in this photo by Flickr user arunchs, who snapped this scene of three men in Zanskar, a valley region in eastern India where nighttime temperatures can reach upwards of 20 below zero.
...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (4 months ago)
Jan 22nd, 2013 at 8:00AM: Eighty-year-old Japanese skier and mountaineer Yuichiro Miura has announced his intentions to attempt a summit of Mt. Everest this spring, returning to a mountain that made him famous back in 1970. If successful, Miura would become the oldest person to ever climb the mountain and the first octogenarian to do so.
This won't be Miura's first visit to the world's tallest mountain. He first climbed ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (8 months ago)
Sep 24th, 2012 at 9:00AM:
Nine climbers are dead after an avalanche on one of Nepal's tallest mountains, the Guardian reports. At least five climbers were injured and have been evacuated to Kathmandu.
The avalanche hit the climbers' camps at 7,000 meters (22,966 feet) on Mount Manaslu, a 8,163-meter (26,781-foot) peak and the eighth tallest in the world. More than 200 climbers and guides were on the mountain, but not ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (8 months ago)
Sep 11th, 2012 at 8:00AM: Most mountaineers, both actual and armchair, know that for two months each spring, Everest and the other big Himalayan peaks become the epicenter of the climbing world. From April to June, hundreds of mountaineers from around the globe descend on Nepal and Tibet with the expressed goal of scaling one of the tallest mountains on the planet. As a result, Base Camps across the region can become ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (11 months ago)
Jun 10th, 2012 at 8:00AM: In April, Russian mountaineer and base jumper Valery Rozov traveled to a remote region of the Himalaya Mountains in India to climb a peak known as Mt. Shivling. After spending a month acclimatizing to the altitude and preparing for the climb, he and two companions started off for the summit located at 6543 meters (21,466 feet).
The technically difficult climb took six days to complete but Rozov ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (1 year ago)
May 19th, 2012 at 8:00AM: It will be a very busy day today at the top of the world. After months of planning and weeks of preparation, today is the day that the climbers on Everest will begin heading up to the summit en masse. For most it will be the culmination of a lifelong dream to climb the highest mountain on Earth, for others it will simply be the latest climb in their pursuit of mountaineering greatness.
The road ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (1 year ago)
May 8th, 2012 at 8:00AM: At 8848 meters (29,029 feet) in height, Mt. Everest is a significant challenge for climbers even under the best of conditions. Thin air, the threat of altitude sickness and physically exhausting technical challenges are commonplace on the mountain, which has seen more than its fair share of fatalities over the years. But unusual weather conditions this spring may make climbing Everest more unsafe ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (1 year ago)
Apr 4th, 2012 at 8:00AM: The spring climbing season is about to get underway in the Himalaya where teams of mountaineers are already descending on Kathmandu in preparation for their expeditions to come. Amongst them is veteran British climber Kenton Cool who is not only seeking his tenth successful summit of the world's tallest peak, but is also looking to fulfill an 88-year-old Olympic pledge before the games return to ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (1 year ago)
Feb 12th, 2012 at 9:00AM: A new climate change study, released this past Thursday, has surprised some experts and blown some major holes in the doom and gloom predictions that have been given out in recent years. In fact, the new study, which was published in the scientific journal Nature, found that there has been virtually no ice lost in the Himalaya over the past decade, which runs contrary to reports that many ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (1 year ago)
Nov 27th, 2011 at 8:00AM: For decades Mt. Everest has held sway over the imagination of adventurers everywhere. Standing 29,029 feet in height, it is the tallest mountain on the planet and the focus of countless books, television shows, and movies. But a new documentary entitled 40 Days at Base Camp looks to offer new insights into what it takes to climb the mountain and spend more than a month living in its shadow.
As ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (1 year ago)
Oct 22nd, 2011 at 9:00AM: Three Korean climbers have gone missing on a remote Himalayan peak that has a reputation for being amongst the most deadly in the world. The men had hoped to reach the summit along a new route yesterday, but search and rescue were initiated when there had been no word from them in nearly three days.
Park Young-seok, Kang Ki-seok and Shin Dong-min left Base Camp on Annapurna, the tenth highest ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (1 year ago)
Jul 22nd, 2011 at 8:00AM: The government of Nepal has announced that it will remeasure the height of Mt. Everest in an effort to settle a dispute with China. This new survey is expected to take up to two years to complete and will likely provide the most accurate measurement of the height of the mountain ever.
Back in 1955 a team of Indian surveyors, using the best instruments available at the time, recorded the height ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (1 year ago)
Jun 3rd, 2011 at 8:00AM: Way back at the beginning of April we told you about Nepal's Save Mt. Everest campaign, a project sponsored by that nation's tourism board that hoped to clean up the world's tallest mountain, and the region that surrounds it. Now, two months later, the group has wrapped up their activity, at least for now, and reports that they have removed eight tons of garbage this spring alone.
In all, there ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (2 years ago)
May 24th, 2011 at 9:00AM: There is a well known adage amongst mountaineers that says "getting to the summit is only halfway to the finish," as obviously they have to safely come back down the mountain after they've completed their ascent. There are few places where this is more apparent than Mt. Everest, where climbers not only have to make a long, grueling trek to the top, they also have to negotiate a tricky descent as ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (2 years ago)
May 7th, 2011 at 8:00AM: Yesterday we mentioned that the Sherpas had finished fixing the ropes to the summit of Everest, clearing the way for all the commercial climbing teams to soon follow. We predicted that the big push to the top of the mountain was still a week away, but a British climber took advantage of good weather and empty slopes, to rush to the summit yesterday. Once there, he not only savored the view from ...
by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) (2 years ago)
May 6th, 2011 at 8:00AM: The first successful summits of Mt. Everest for the 2011 spring climbing season took place yesterday, and as you might guess, they were accomplished by a group of Sherpas. The six-man team stood on the highest point on the planet after fixing the ropes to the summit, the same ropes that will now be used by the foreign climbers who will soon begin the long, challenging climb for themselves.
Each ...
Next Page →