Mt Everest Trivia

1. In 1985, Richard Bass summitted Mount Everest on his fourth attempt. At the time, he was the oldest man to do so, but it was his success at climbing an additional six peaks that made his Everest ascent special. What was he the first person to do?

From Quiz Top of the Mountain

Answer: Climb the highest mountain on each continent

Richard Bass climbed the Seven Summits: Denali (McKinley) in North America, Aconcagua in South America, Blamc in Europe, Kilimanjaro in Africa, Erebus in Antarctica, Kosciusko in Australia and of course Everest in Asia (when he was 55 years old). Since his climb, most Seven Summit lists now consider the islands of the South Pacific to be part of Australia and have replaced Kosciusko with Puncak Jaya, the highest mountain in Papua, Indonesia. The first man to climb this new list was Patrick Morrow in 1986.

From Quiz The Day the World was Conquered!

Answer: John Hunt

John Hunt was later knighted in 1953 (along with Edmund Hillary). Norgay was given special appreciation. Learn more about him at http://classic.mountainzone.com/news/hunt.html

From Quiz Climbing Everest - The South Route

Answer: Kathmandu

Kathmandu is the first stop on the exciting adventure which is Everest. One of the most famous attractions for Everest climbers is the famous Monkey Temple.

From Quiz Climbing Everest - 1996 Tragedy

Answer: Nepal

In Nepalese, Mount Everest is known as "Sagarmatha" which generally means top of the sky, earth, world, ocean. There are many accepted meanings.

From Quiz Sir Edmund Hillary Conquers Everest!

Answer: Auckland, New Zealand

He was born in Auckland, on New Zealand's North Island. His Grandfather Hillary had left England for India before settling in New Zealand. Grandmother Hillary was an Irish governess who came to New Zealand with a wealthy British family.

From Quiz A Mountain To Climb

Answer: Charterhouse

Once Mallory left Cambridge University, he started teaching at Charterhouse School in Surrey as an assistant master. It was here that he deeply fell in love with an architect's daughter, Ruth Turner, and they got married in 1914. Together they had two daughters, Frances and Beridge, and one son, John. Charterhouse School was founded in 1611 as a hospital and also a school for boys. Pupils at the school are called Carthusians as the school's founder, Thomas Sutton, was buried in the chapel at a Carthusian monastery in London. The school holds the largest war memorial in England inside the consecrated chapel - a memorial to almost 700 pupils who fell in World War I and 350 pupils who fell in World War II.

From Quiz Top of the Mountain

Answer: Transmit live pictures

In 1983, David Breashears lugged his camera equipment up Everest and transmitted live video from the summit. He and his camera equipment later accompanied Richard Bass to the top of Everest during Bass's ascent of the Seven Summits in 1985. The Emmy-award-winning Breashears worked on numerous films involving the Himalayas, including "Seven Years in Tibet" and the IMAX film "Everest".

From Quiz Climbing Everest - 1996 Tragedy

Answer: Jon Krakauer

Jon Krakauer continues to climb and write. His other works include "Eiger Dreams" and "Into the Wild".

From Quiz A Mountain To Climb

Answer: Mont Blanc

It is believed that Frenchmen Jacques Balmat and Michel Paccard were the first to climb the 4,810 high Mont Blanc in 1786. The mountain is the highest in the Alps and is situated on the French and Italian border. George Mallory visited the Alps several times before the outbreak of World War I, perfecting his mountaineering skills and doing what he loved the most.

From Quiz Top of the Mountain

Answer: Reach the top of Everest in winter

Although pictures of ascents of Everest show snow and ice, these expeditions almost always take place in the late spring, when the weather isn't as brutal. Although the weather is warmest in summer, monsoons from the Indian Ocean bring stormy weather that makes it difficult to climb. The possibility exists that some of the native climbers (Sherpas) may have also reached the summit in winter, but the Polish team was the first to be documented as doing so.

From Quiz The Day the World was Conquered!

Answer: 1999

In 1999, Mallory's body was found very close to the summit. His goggles were found in his pocket but not his camera! He was very confident (or rather overconfident) during his last message to his team, "Look for us either crossing the rock band or going up the skyline at 8 p.m."

From Quiz Climbing Everest - 1996 Tragedy

Answer: David Breashears

David Breashears has also filmed the mountaineering scenes for the Sylvester Stallone movie, "Cliffhanger".

From Quiz Sir Edmund Hillary Conquers Everest!

Answer: newspaper editor, farmer, and beekeeper

Percival Hillary was the managing editor of a Tuakau newspaper. He was also a great believer in self-reliance and grew most of their food on the family farm. Percival Hillary also took up beekeeping as a hobby which added to his family's ability to be self-reliant. Edmund Hillary's maternal grandfather had raised racehorses and was killed when one of his horses kicked him in the head.

From Quiz A Mountain To Climb

Answer: Royal Garrison Artillery

Mallory was reluctant to join up as it would take him away from the two loves of his life, mountaineering and his family. Teachers were still needed at home to educate the young and Mallory continued to do this until he joined the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1915 as a 2nd lieutenant. The regiment was responsible for manning heavy gun batteries along the coastline and behind the front line. He participated at the Battle of the Somme but his time helping the war effort was short lived as he suffered with an old ankle fracture which made him unfit to return to his duties.

From Quiz Top of the Mountain

Answer: Paraglide down the mountain

Frenchman Jean-Marc Boivin had previously set a record by paragliding from Camp IV on Everest (24,900 feet/7,600 meters) in 1979, but in 1988, he made a 60 feet/18 meter run from the top slopes of Everest to launch his paraglider, and he reached Camp II (19,400 feet/5,900 meters) in eleven or twelve minutes (depending on the source). Boivin's adventurous spirit eventually led to his death; he died from internal injuries while making a jump from Angel Falls in Venezuela in 1990.

From Quiz The Day the World was Conquered!

Answer: George Mallory

Mallory was a Surrey schoolmaster before he took on Everest. He went missing in 1924 during his third attempt to conquer Everest (his dead body was found later in 1999).

From Quiz Climbing Everest - 1996 Tragedy

Answer: 8

To date, this is the most climbers to die on a single day on Everest. It is believed that over 150 climbers have perished upon Everest.

From Quiz Sir Edmund Hillary Conquers Everest!

Answer: 16

He saw snow for the first time on a school trip to New Zealand's Mount Ruapchu.

From Quiz Top of the Mountain

Answer: Reach the summit without supplemental oxygen

As there is two-thirds less oxygen on top of Mount Everest than there is at sea level, climbing Everest without supplemental oxygen was thought to be impossible until the Italian Messner and Austrian Habeler accomplished it in 1978. In 2008, a team of medical researchers took their own blood samples near the summit of Everest and found that their blood oxygen levels were the lowest ever recorded in living humans. So, besides intrepid adventurers, Everest also attracts scientists looking to understand the effects of diminished oxygen on the human body. Incidentally, in 1980, Messner was also the first person to reach the top of Everest on a solo ascent, a feat he also accomplished without oxygen.

From Quiz The Day the World was Conquered!

Answer: George Everest

George Everest was a surveyor-general of India. Prior to this, Mt. Everest was simply called Peak XV. Detailed explanations about this can be viewed at http://www.outthere.co.za/everest/intro.html (thanks to gtho4)

From Quiz Sir Edmund Hillary Conquers Everest!

Answer: May 29, 1953

At 11:30 a.m. Hillary realized he had reached the 'top of the world' when he could not climb any further.

From Quiz A Mountain To Climb

Answer: "Because it is there"

George Mallory often wrote or gave interviews relating to his mountaineering experience, especially for the magazine, "National Geographic". He was once asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest and his response was, "Because it is there". This quote even reached the headlines in a 1923 issue of the "New York Times". Another thought provoking quote made by George Mallory was "So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for."

From Quiz Top of the Mountain

Answer: She was the first woman to reach the summit.

Junko Tabei was the leader of a team of Japanese women who had a treacherous climb up Everest in May of 1975. Their camp was hit by an avalanche, burying several of the women including Tabei, and they had to be dug out by their Sherpa guides. Twelve days later, Tabei was the first of the team to summit Everest. Tabei downplayed her experience, however; rather than focus on being the first woman to summit the mountain, she pointed out that she was the 36th person to climb Everest. In 1992, she also became the first woman to conquer the Seven Summits, the highest point on each continent.

From Quiz The Day the World was Conquered!

Answer: He was blind

To quote him, "You are a climber first, a blind person second." Erik was the first blind man to climb Mt. Everest in 2001.

From Quiz Sir Edmund Hillary Conquers Everest!

Answer: Tenzing Norgay

It was Sherpa climber Norgay that Hillary photographed on the summit. According to Hillary, Norgay was 'No photographer and the summit of Everest was no place to teach him'. Norgay was awarded the Star of Nepal, and was Hillary's friend until Norgay's death in 1986.

From Quiz A Mountain To Climb

Answer: Andrew Irvine

George Mallory and Andrew (Sandy) Irvine both perished while attempting to climb the north face of Mount Everest. Irvine was an experience, 22-year-old mountaineer from Cheshire in England, an accomplished engineer and sportsman, being part of the winning crew in the 1922 Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. He was always tinkering with devices carried throughout the 1924 expedition, making improvements to the oxygen tanks and cooking stoves and cameras. George Mallory was 38 years old. Fellow climber Noel Odell last saw them alive on the North East Ridge at 12.30pm on June 8th 1924. His last account has been picked apart by historians ever since that fateful day. "At 12.50, just after I had emerged from a state of jubilation at finding the first definite fossils on Everest, there was a sudden clearing of the atmosphere, and the entire summit ridge and final peak of Everest were unveiled. My eyes became fixed on one tiny black spot silhouetted on a small snow-crest beneath a rock-step in the ridge; the black spot moved. Another black spot became apparent and moved up the snow to join the other on the crest. The first then approached the great rock-step and shortly emerged at the top; the second did likewise. Then the whole fascinating vision vanished, enveloped in cloud once more."

From Quiz Top of the Mountain

Answer: Ski down Everest

Yuichiro Miura was "The Man Who Skied Down Everest", according to the 1975 Academy Award-winning documentary, but his 1970 descent down Everest has been mockingly labeled "The man who fell down Everest", since Miura only skied a small section before pulling a parachute and sliding several thousand feet down the mountain. Davo Karnicar didn't use a parachute, and he remained on his skis from the summit to the base camp. Besides skiing down Everest, Karnicar also skied down the Seven Summits, the highest peak on each continent. Miura may not have the skiing title, but he did go on to briefly hold the record as the oldest man to summit Mount Everest in 2003 (at age 70) and in 2008 (at age 75).

From Quiz Climbing Everest - The South Route

Answer: The South Col

The South Col has sometimes been called the highest junkyard in the world. It is a desolate place with little oxygen and winds that howl to a deafening roar.

From Quiz Climbing Everest - 1996 Tragedy

Answer: Rescue by helicopter

In the thin air altitude, it was believed that a helicopter could not fly. However, Colonel Madan KC, of the Nepalese army, made the daring rescue attempt to pick up climbers Beck Weathers and Makalu Gau. His bravery most likely saved the lives of these badly injured climbers.

From Quiz Sir Edmund Hillary Conquers Everest!

Answer: Nepal, India, United Nations, and United Kingdom

Norgay was photographed holding an ice pole with the 4 flags attached.

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