Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WORTH A TRIP
HIKING TO EVEREST
If you are not overly affected by the altitude, it's well worth walking the 4km from the tent
camp to Everest Base Camp. The way up is gentle and the altitude gain is less than 200m:
most people can cover the distance in around an hour. Along the way you pass scree
slopes, jagged ridges, broad glacial valleys and stunning views of Everest. Short-cut paths
avoid most of the road. Set off early as the buses start rumbling past around 9am.
Less than 10 minutes' walk from the tent camp, it's well worth visiting the
Dza Rong-
phu retreat
, on the left, with its photogenic collection of chörtens framed by Mt Everest.
The lone resident monk will show you the trap door that drops to the atmospheric medit-
ation cave of Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava).
IT'S PRONOUNCED EVE-REST, DARLING
In 1856, Andrew Waugh, surveyor general of India, released the most important finding of
the mapping of the 'Great Arc' of mountains from the south of India to the Himalayas:
Peak XV was the highest mountain in the world and would henceforth be known as
'Mount Everest', in honour of Waugh's predecessor, Sir George Everest (actually pro-
nounced 'eve-rest').
Waugh's proposal met with much initial opposition, including from Everest himself, who
thought a local name should be used. In response Waugh claimed that there was no 'local
name that we can discover'. But this was almost certainly untrue, even if Waugh himself
didn't know it. Very likely there were many scholars who knew the Tibetan name for the
mountain, Qomolangma, which can be interpreted as 'Goddess Mother of the Universe'
or (more literally, if less poetically) 'Princess Cow'. As early as 1733, the French produced
a map on which Everest is indicated as Tschoumou Lancma. In addition, on the very day
that Waugh's paper on Everest was presented to the Royal Geographic Society, another
was read that revealed the local Nepali name to be Deodhunga (it's currently called
Sagarmatha on the Nepali side).
Still, the Everest contingent gained the upper hand (even the writer of the Nepali paper
wanted the great man's name used) and in 1865 the Royal Geographic Society declared
'Mt Everest' would henceforth designate the world's highest mountain.
