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THE LEGACY OF SIR EDMUND HILLARY - Chapter 1

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Contributed by: Dave Hughes on 1/12/2008

Chapter 1 - Media and My Part

Sir Edmund Hillary, first man to summit 29,028 foot Mount Everest in the Himalayas 56 years ago, left more than a mountaineering legacy behind dying at 88 years old a few days ago.

I had the opportunity to see the long term effects of his achievement, up close and personal four years ago. And I had the opportunity to extend what he started in a few small and unusual ways among the native Sherpas of Nepal, without whose generous help 55 years ago none of the Western expeditions, including the British Hunt group that Hillary was part of, would ever have succeeded, not only climbing Everest, but also all of the other 15,000 foot or higher Himalayan peaks that stretch for hundreds of miles, dividing Tibet from Nepal, Bhutan, and India itself. Their help was critical, and I don't think their role has gotten proper attention.

For openers, while the media has made passing reference to the Sherpas help as 'guides' for the climbing parties, the reality was that the Hunt team of perhaps 20 westerners, required no less than the incredible carrying strength and very high altitude endurance of 300 THREE HUNDRED hired Sherpas to support that one effort by the 20 white guy members of the Hunt team that included Hillary. The Sherpa help was far more substantive than just being 'guides.'

It is no accident that Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa from Thame who shares with Hillary the credit for making that record shattering summit, was from the Sherpa race of men who not only have lived for centuries between 8,000 and 15,000 feet on the slopes of Everest, but have lived far above where the Nepalese and Indian people have lived in the 'lowlands' for thousands of years. Sherpas are citizens of Nepal because their national boundaries enclose them. But they are as ethnically different from the lowland Nepalese, as Tibetans are from the Chinese who invaded Tibet 55 years ago and made it part of 'China.'

I had the good fortune to meet and interview, up at 14,000 feet in Namche, Nepal, one of the Sherpas who helped Hillary in 1953. Geysalten Sherpa, 90 years old now, still hale and hearty, he himself got as high as the 24,000 feet camp in 1953, carrying heavy loads of filled oxygen bottles, fuel, and food supplies to support the climbers who carried as little as they could while preparing for the final assault. Geysalten's story of what HE did after the Hillary success is incredible by itself. I will make his tale a future Hub article.

But here is an incredible fact. The Sherpas historically, never climbed the mountains above them for fun, or just 'because its there' like crazy westerners! They only got into technically climbing those mountains, and started risked their own life and limb after westerners, starting with those even crazier British in the 1800's during their 100 year occupation and colonization of India first tried to climb those Himalayas without Sherpa help. The Sherpas were smart enough to realize they had far more strength and stamina, and ability to stroll over 20,000 foot passes while carrying huge loads without any artificial (oxygen) help than those soft white Europeans, Australians, or Americans ever could. Since they had to make a living in that harsh environment beyond just raising potatoes and herding Yaks, many (not all) cashed in!

Media reports of Hillary's death in his home country of New Zealand at 88 years of age, contained many recountings of what led up to the final successful attempt by he and Sherpa Tsering Norgay in 1953 after at least 8 failures by highly organized expeditions, and scores of deaths on that unforgiving mountain. They also have reported on his creation of the 'HimalayanTrust' which has helped bring education, health systems over the last 50 years to Sherpas.

Now where did I learn all these things? And what did I do in 2003 and 2004 that gave me an insight into what Hillary's climb 50+ years ago did to change the lives of many?

Largely because of the accident of my world reputation for wireless connectivity of remote peoples I was contacted by email in 2003 by one Tsering Sherpa of Namche, Nepal, grandson of Gysalten Sherpa who climbed with Hillary 50 years before.

Tsering had been able to visit the US, saw the Internet, and decided to set up the first CyberCafe in Namche, Nepal. 15,000 feet up on the trail to Everest. He had gotten as far as getting a satellite Internet system set up in Namche, which is the most famous 'stop over' village for trekkers and climbers and their support parties enroute to the highest country.

Now you have to understand that while 'climbing' Everest and all those other now-famous peaks - Ama Dablam, Lhotse, Nuptse - get all the press attention - in fact it is the tens of thousands TREKKERS who only trudge up the very long Solu Khumbu valley for up to 10 days so they can just say 'they did it' even with not doing any technical climbing themselves, and to take the wonderful photographs of the mountain peaks, the valleys, the Buddhist temples and their monks, Stupas on the trail, the native Sherpas and their villages, other trekkers from America, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Austria and Australia, Japan, as well as the endless parade of Yaks on the trail.

In fact ONE THIRD of the gross national product of Nepal comes from trekking tourism as fat wallet outsiders pay for transportation, hotels in Katmandu, air travel inside Nepal, then Lodges on the trek, food, shelter, guide and PORTERING services. While proportionately - to the trekker sightseeing horde - a much smaller number of technical climbers and their parties, pay big prices - $80,000 to climb Everest, and hire scores of Sherpas to carrying in all their gear, and even, over the last 50 years, climb themselves to set up ever higher tent camps, or as companion climbers to the westerners, or leaders of climbs.

The first huge Legacy Hillary left was to popularize trekking and climbing up the Solu Khumbu toward Everest! Before he died he regretted that outcome.
So May of 2003 would not only be the 50th Anniversary of Hillary and Norgay's feat, but thousands of trekkers would be coming, as well as hundreds of 'climbing party' personnel who would set up a 'Base Camp' supporting their own climbers trying Everest.

Tsering Sherpa wanted to set up the world's highest Cybercafe at the 18,000 foot Base Camp to serve them where there was virtually NO outside communications (only by a scattering of very costly satellite phones). Tsering wanted to carry up - on the backs of at least 18 Yaks - a complete full sized Satellite ground system that could connect up any computer to the world Internet, with all the heavy batteries it would take, and solar panels to keep them charged.

But the Sherpas had a major technical problem. IF they placed the Satellite Ground station AT the Base Camp (which is at the foot of the infamous Ice Fall over which the technical climbing for the summit starts) it would be sitting on the Khumbu glacier which moves 4 feet a day! They wouldn't be able to keep it aligned!

So somebody said 'Lets find that American named Hughes who knows wireless backwards and forwards and see if he has a solution!' So that's why I got involved. They e-mailed me.

I wont bore you with the technical details, but I swiftly told them how they could set up the satellite ground station on hard ground at about 19,000 feet across the valley from the Base Camp, use Wi-Fi class radios over the 5 kilometer distance. Then, since they had no such data radios, I swiftly convinced Cisco Corporation that I could get them world wide favorable publicity if they would donate sets of such radios and get them through Nepalese customs in a hurry.

Suffice it to say that worked, Cisco got their world publicity, (front page with me in the New York Times) Tsering Sherpa got his world's highest Cybercafe working, and the Climbers, Base Camp personnel, and media got their Internet right from the scene of the action. Reuters even got to send pictures when a huge Russian helicopter crashed at 17,000 feet near the camp, killing several. Flying is very dangerous there. In fact the Nepalese government refuses to permit trekker tourists to be flown, even by helicopter to lower locations like Namche. So everyone has to trek in from the nearest small airstrip at Lukla, for 2 or 3 days to reach Namche.

So my contribution to Sherpa's entrepreneurial venture, part of Hillary's Legacy of attracting thousands to Everest was to make communications work, technically, from afar, making Tsering Sherpa world famous, not for climbing, but for bringing the highest Internet tech to the roof of the world!

You can see a gallery of pictures of that 2003 venture at

http://gallery.linkingeverest.com/main.php?g2_itemId=6929

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Dave Hughes

Colorado Springs , CO

Dave Hughes has posted 69 stories and 79 comments since joining on 3/1/2007. Dave Hughes 's average story rating is 4.89.

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