Mount Everest

Climbing the world's highest mountain has long been a metaphor for overcoming apparently impossible odds.

In 1923, a reporter from The New York Times asked the legendary Everest climber George Leigh Mallory - An English mountaineer who took part in the first three British expeditions to Mount Everest in the early 1920s - why he wanted to climb the Mount Everest, his reply was priceless. "Because it's there", he said and the phrase passed in to legend.

Mount Everest, also known in Nepal as Sagarmāthā and in Tibet as Chomolungma (mother of the Universe), is the Earth's highest peak. Mount Everest lies on the border of Nepal and Tibet.It is located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. Its official height is put at 29,035 feet/ 8848 metres although the mountain is thought to be growing by around 4 millimetres a year due to the relentless pressure of tectonic plates in the Earth's mantle which have been pushing the Himalayas steadily higher for the last sixty million years. As soon as it was crowned the world's tallest mountain, people inevitably had to climb it. And just as inevitably, many of them failed. 

Expedition 

Climbing Everest is a bucket list item for many until they realise the great price involved—both monetarily and mentally. Because of the high cost, climbers usually range from the young, sponsored athlete to wealthy men in their late forties trying to battle personal demons, tackle insecurities, or otherwise satisfy some existential urges.

Preparations

Training - Prospective Everest climbers train in a variety of ways. Swimming, running, biking, weight lifting and climbing are all excellent ways to improve physical condition. Endurance, stamina, and strength are all necessary. Be aware that this include hiking days with around 7 to 8 hours of walking every day, so you have to be reasonably fit to be able to complete the trek successfully.

• Plan ahead: If you want to climb Everest, you're going to have to be in fantastic physical shape. Fitness won't fend off altitude sickness, but will enable more oxygen to reach your body. Basic fitness training should start well in advance with plenty of cardiovascular training in the 12-month run-up to the climb.
• Running: It is recommended that a programme of running seven to eight miles (or about an hour) per day, on hilly terrain, four days on, one day off would increase the stamina. If based in the city, run on a treadmill with a rucksack.
  
• Weight-training: a weight-training programme for developing upper-body strength should be carried out, which you'll require for carrying your 12-15kg pack and clearing ice and snow for tent platforms.
• Take supplements: Glucosamine Sulphate and Omega 3 and 6 oils for joints are helpful, as well as a mountain of dietary supplements to make up for the vitamins you will miss out on without fresh fruit and vegetables. Boosting the immune system is also vital, and antioxidants help in that department.
• Practicals: 'The best training to climb a mountain is to go mountain climbing,' says mountaineer Cathy O'Dowd. Expedition leader Gavin Bate likewise recommends regular expeditions to lower altitudes as part of your training. 'Start with lots of hill walking, then Mount Kilimanjaro is a good example of a mountain to start on, because it's high and will get you fit. Then I'd say to climb Mont Blanc or Ebrus would be the next step up. Mix that in with plenty of long-distance running when you're closer to sea level and you have a good training plan to work with,' he says.
• Gain weight: It's advisable to gain an extra stone in weight, as you can expect to lose up to 20 per cent of body weight on Everest.

Gear - Certain parts of the mountain are technically easier to climb than others, but what makes the peak so dangerous are the extreme winds, cold temperatures, frozen snow, and very little oxygen in places. Obviously, all of these obstacles are going to require that you wear and carry proper equipment if you expect to have half a chance at succeeding in both your ascent and subsequent descent. 

• The kit : The gear you'll need to tackle the highest mountain in the world.
• Essential equipment: Oxygen canisters: five to seven 3l bottles; a sack to collect ice and snow, for melting; and wet wipes for washing your body. These freeze, so you need to sleep with them inside your tent if they're going to be of any use. You'll also need a satellite phone, a two-way radio and some foot powder.
• Food: Mostly boil-in-the-bag meals as well as plenty of biscuits and chocolate. Your body burns up about 6,000 calories a day on the mountain, and, as you climb, your appetite decreases. So there is a great need to consume as many calories as you can. Don't forget cooking equipment and mug. Many mountaineers prefer a non-insulated mug to warm hands.
• Climbing apparatus: Harness, ice axe, jumar - a clip device that you attach to your harness and the fixed rope. It moves forward but not backwards, and is a great safety development on the mountain. Also essential are a head lamp, carabiners, Alpine climbing harness, rappel device, ski poles, altimeter and crampons. And you'll require a set of 'pigs' nipples' (rubber covers for the spikes so they don't tear your tent apart) as well as goggles for snow conditions.
  
• Clothes: Plastic frost-proof climbing boots, a base layer of thermals and a spare set to change into at night. Five to six pairs of socks for the whole trip. On the mountain, you'll have just two pairs: one to walk in, the other to sleep in. The 'wet' pair, that will absorb a wine-glass capacity of sweat each day per foot, will be dried in your sleeping bag at night. Your first fleece layer will include tight fleece trousers and tops. This first layer needs to dry overnight, to be worn the next day. Your second fleece layer will comprise two thicker fleece jackets and one pair of thicker fleece trousers. You'll also need a down suit, or down trousers and jacket. Two bandanas will protect the neck from sunburn. A thin neoprene face mask will be required to cover the face, along with a thick balaclava. Two fleece hats will cover ears, while a baseball cap with a big visor will protect from the sun. Two pairs of thin gloves for dexterity and several pairs of mountain mitts will keep hands warm. Huge Gore-Tex overmitts will go over all the other pairs of gloves.
• On top of this, you'll need a second set of everything. At the end of a day's climbing, wet clothing is dried inside your sleeping bag while you sleep, to be worn the next day. You don't wash higher than Base Camp, as there are no facilities and it is too cold. The best you might manage is a rubdown of your feet with some snow

Mind - Mental preparation is far more important than physical preparation in moulding fitness to climb. For sure, the mountain takes its physical toll on the body. But, the mind is what keeps you moving in the difficult times. The extreme vertical terrain, the relentless weather, those long and lonely nights in the tent, the sameness of the food, longing for family and friends and fear all conspire to create doubt and temptation to quit and go home. There is no antidote for this malaise in pills or medicine. Mental toughness, fierce determination and iron resolve are the only hope.

The mental preparation

• Don't rush your build-up. Before an expedition you should be accustomed to spending long periods at high altitudes and in spartan conditions, and be able to cope on your own. Being self sufficient is an important mental leap for the prospective climber to make.
• Understand it won't be easy. Since the 1996 disaster, terminology has shifted and guides are known as 'facilitators'. This is to dispel the idea that you'll be hauled up the mountain for a fee.
• Be prepared for lots of 'down time'. Of approximately seven weeks spent on the mountain, only about 21 days are taken up with climbing. The rest are given over to acclimatisation and rest days. Learn to relax while you have the opportunity. You'll need the energy stores. Impatience is a mental obstacle to the climber.
• Accept that you won't be mentally alert on the mountain. Above 8,000m your mental acuity drops to 30 per cent of normal levels. Basic arithmetic (crucial when negotiating the oxygen flow rate) becomes virtually impossible.
• Be ready for hallucinations. These can be blamed on the combination of hypoxia and fatigue. In Reinhold Messner's 1980 solo attempt, he imagined an invisible companion climbing beside him. In 1933 Englishman Frank Smythe reported 'two curious looking objects floating in the sky... one possessed what appeared to be squat underdeveloped wings, and the other a protuberance suggestive of a beak. They hovered motionless but seemed slowly to pulsate.'
• Picture yourself on the mountain, succeeding. Cathy O'Dowd works at visualising herself into the challenge. She says, 'I always try to look around, to look back at the view, rather than focus on the next step. I take pride in what I've achieved already, rather than what I have left to do, and I find that leaves me motivated to keep going.'

Educate -  Expanding your knowledge on Mount Everest's Hazards and prevention. Thousands of climbers have attempted to reach the summit of 8,850-meter (29,000-foot) Mount Everest since the 1920s. Factors most associated with the risk of death were excessive fatigue, a tendency to fall behind other climbers and arriving at the summit later in the day. Many of those who died developed symptoms such as confusion, a loss of physical coordination and unconsciousness, which suggest high-altitude cerebral edema, a swelling of the brain that results from leakage of cerebral blood vessels. Symptoms of high-altitude pulmonary edema, which is involved in most high-altitude-related deaths, were suprisingly rare.

• The health hazards: A climber's health is paramount, and never more so than in the rarefied atmosphere of Everest. Here are some of the common health concerns you can expect on the mountain:
• Alpine trench foot: Keeping feet dry is very important. Climbers lose toenails, especially on the descent, if they are not cut short.
• Coughs: A hacking cough caused by dry air can stick with you the entire expedition. It can be so bad you'll cough up throat tissue.
• Cuts: Wounds don't heal at altitude, they get worse. You'll see lots of people with plasters holding their fingers together.
• Altitude sickness: The primary concern of mountaineers. As altitude increases, the number of oxygen molecules per breath is reduced. At 12,000ft (3,658m), there are 40 per cent fewer per breath. To compensate, your breathing rate must increase a great deal, even at rest. The body can also overcompensate by allowing blood vessels to leak in the brain or lungs.
• Appetite: As the altitude increases, body function is streamlined to preserve vital organs. The stomach is not a necessity, so it ceases to digest food.
• Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS): is the result of ascending faster than the body can adapt to Hace (High Altitude Cerebral Edema, fluid on the brain) or Hape (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema, fluid in the lungs). Both conditions are caused by the combination of high altitude and low air pressure which leads to fluid leaking from the capillaries.
  
  Initial signs of AMS are a headache, accompanied by dizziness, nausea, fainting or weakness, difficulty walking or sleeping, and confusion. Pulmonary edema at an advanced stage can be recognised by what's known as the Death Rattle, when breathing rattles at the end of each breath. This is quite literally the fluid in the lungs rumbling, and by this late stage, the sufferer is drowning.
• Frostbite: An initial sign of frostbite is a cloudy white colour of the skin. This means that the tissue is frozen, but not yet dead. Treatment is no more advanced than the patient removing their boots and shoving bare feet into the armpits of a warm person. Advanced frostbite is when the flesh appears black. At this stage, nothing can be done to restore blood flow.
• Hypothermia: The core body temperature drops to such a degree that life is endangered. Overwhelming feelings of lethargy encourage a sufferer to fall asleep, resulting in death. Wrapping a patient in blankets is not going to raise body temperature, which is why two bodies will wrap together in a sleeping bag to restore warmth.
• Broken bones: A climber who is injured on the mountain needs to be capable of getting him or herself down to help. Some medical kits now carry morphine to enable the patient to descend to a level where help can be reached.
  
• Sunburn: A real hazard on Everest. The sun's reflection, coupled with excess time spent panting for oxygen, means that a sunburnt roof of the mouth is common. It makes eating almost impossible. Sunburn of the nostrils also occurs.
• Thrombosis/embolism: Altitude can thicken the blood to a consistency akin to custard. This can further complicate frostbite, due to the inability of thicker blood to flow to fine capillaries. The humble aspirin thins the blood and is a mountaineer's trusted tool.
• If all else fails... The nearest hospital to Everest is in Pheriche, which is one full day's hike from Base Camp.

Getting there

Distance between Kathmandu and Mt Everest is 160.51 km.

This distance is equal to 99.74 miles, and 86.61 nautical miles.

Nepal

As a normal traveller, with the wish to see the Mount Everest, you can book hikes with a couple of companies in Kathmandu in Nepal. There are a number of organised tours from 11 to 19 days, that take you from Jiri to Everest Base camp and back again. 

If you only want to catch a glimpse of Mount Everest and the Himalayas, you can book flights from Kathmandu, that make a roundtrip of about 2 hours to the Everest region and back to Kathmandu.

Find out more about the cost of the whole expedition here : 

http://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2014/01/06/everest-2014-the-cost-to-climb-everest/

Everest shows you the grace of great dreams, fears overcome and, sometimes, triumph following the most desperate of outlooks. This lesson is  perhaps Everest’s most powerful gift to all of us: whether we are on the summit, or wandering by its foot, or simply at home, gaining the knowledge by the testimony of others.

References:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/30/everest.features3