15 killed in Nepal bus accident=

   Kathmandu (dpa)- Fifteen people were killed in Nepal on Wednesday, when a passenger bus skidded off the road, plunging into a gorge, police said.
   More than 20 people were injured in the accident in Sindupalchowk district,some 20 kilometres north-east of the capital Kathmandu.
   Police said the bus had fallen some 100 metres downhill.
   Accidents caused by bad roads, reckless driving and use of old vehicles is common in Nepal.291521 dpa pt

LEAD: Everest diamond jubilee celebrates apex of mountaineering

Eds: Adds events and quotes at awards ceremony, epa photos =
   Kathmandu (dpa) - The diamond jubilee celebrations commemorating the first ascent of Mount Everest ended Wednesday with a ride in a horse-drawn chariot and medals for those who made "human history at the top of the world."
   Relatives of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, who were the first to top the world's highest mountain on May 29, 1953, were taken around Kathmandu in the chariot as the four days of festivities drew to an end in Nepal.
   They were taken to the ancient palace area in the capital, where Hillary, a New Zealander, and Tenzing, A Nepalese Sherpa, had been honoured after their descent.
   "Two people worked together to take human history to the top of the world," said Amelia Rose Hillary, Edmund Hillary's granddaughter. "This is the celebration of that story."
   At least 4,364 people have since summited the 8,850-metre Everest, while more than 300 have reportedly died trying. As the climbing season ended Wednesday, 512 people had reached the peak this year while six deaths were reported, officials said.
   The awards ceremony at the Narayanhiti Royal Palace honoured Everest summiteers who had set records.
   "It is good to see the government acknowledge people's passion," said Hilary Carlile, Edmund Hillary's niece and deputy chairwoman of the Himalayan Trust he established.
   Speaking on behalf of the recipients, mountaineer Reinhold Messner, who made the first ascent without oxygen and the first solo summiting of Everest, said the mountain was cleaner than it had been 15 years ago.
   Garbage had become a problem on the mountain, known as the "Roof of the World," as traffic increased, but the government made it mandatory for climbers to bring back their garbage 15 years ago. There have been cleaning campaigns have also been conducted on the peak.
   "I greatly appreciate the initiative taken by the veteran mountaineers and mountain lovers in philanthropic actives in and around Everest region in improving conditions of local communities," said Khilaraj Regmi, the chairman of the Ministerial Council, who also acknowledged the work of rescue workers and doctors.
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NEWS FEATURE: Everest: too easy? Anniversary celebrated with debate

By Pratibha Tuladhar, dpa
Eds: epa photos =
   Kathmandu (dpa) - Mountaineer Reinhold Messner, the first person to scale Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen, on Wednesday slammed the peak's large number of climbers as "high-class mountain tourism."
   Messner, who first climbed the world's highest mountain without oxygen in 1978 and solo in 1980, charged that what is happening now on Everest isn't mountaineering.
   "As an alpinist, I climbed on my own line," he said, "but Hillary Step now has ropes going over it, so that people can go up and down more easily."
   Hillary Step is a sheer 12-metre rock face at 7,760 metres that represents the last main obstacle on the way to the 8,848-metre summit.
   The first climbers to top it were Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. As the 60th anniversary of their first ascent of Everest was celebrated Wednesday, a debate was also going on in the climbing community about the commercialism of the peak, the large number of climbers its draws and whether the ascent has become too easy.
   So far this year, 512 people have reached the summit during a climbing season that began in mid-April and ends at the end of May.
   Last year, overcrowding on the "Roof of the World" made headlines when nearly 200 people tried to go up at once, causing what was dubbed the "world's highest traffic jam."
   Climbing has become less difficult as equipment has improved, and more importantly, the local Sherpa people prepare the mountain every year for the climbers and now lay rope ladders for climbers to use.
   "You don't have to be a climber any more to climb a mountain," said Messner, who was the first person to reach the summits of the world's 14 mountains taller than 8,000 metres. "You pay and someone prepares the mountain for your climb."
   Sherpas earn 3,000 to 5,000 dollars for every expedition they join. A climber pays 10,000 dollars for the climbing permit from the government.
   "It is very difficult for the Sherpas," said Messner, who is from the German-speaking region of South Tyrol in Italy. "They do the high-risk job."
   Wednesday's anniversary was marred by an altercation in early May between Sherpas and a group of European climbers.
   "The Sherpas do the hard work of putting up the climbing ropes on the mountains, but there are climbers who do not give them any regard for it but still use their services for free, so it had been building up, and it showed in that incident," said Tashi Jangbu Sherpa, former president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association.
   Messner agreed: "It is not a clash between Sherpas and Europeans but a clash between commercial expeditions and alpinists."
   For the Sherpas, Chomolungma, as they call Everest, is sacred.
   "We consider Chomolungma the mother goddess of earth, so we ask her forgiveness by saying we are compelled to climb her for sustenance and ask her to protect us and save us from any mishap," Tashi Jangbu said.
   Sherpa porters carry more than 35 kilograms during the expeditions while also guiding clients. The job comes with a high risk of injury and death.
   "In the past, mountaineering used to feel like a serious challenge, but climbing now has changed completely," said Temba Chirri Sherpa, who lost his fingers to frostbite in 2001 when he became Everest's youngest climber at 16. "You don't climb anymore. People make you climb."
   During the anniversary celebrations, the government said it would implement strict policies on licenses and line control to prevent overcrowding.
   "We'll take health and age into consideration from now on while issuing permits," Minister for Tourism Ram Kumar Shrestha said.
   Meanwhile, some mountaineers in Nepal were contemplating putting up a ladder on the Hillary Step to make it easier for climbers — a move that doesn't have government approval.
   Putting up a ladder wouldn't be a question of right or wrong, Messner said, adding that mountaineering is a question of self-determination.
   "It's your enthusiasm that should make you climb a mountain and not because your sponsor is saying it," he said.
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Nepal's Everest diamond jubilee to culminate in awards ceremony

Eds: epa photos =
   Kathmandu (dpa) – Nepal's Everest diamond jubilee celebrations will culminate Wednesday with an awards ceremony for record climbers at the Narayanhiti Royal Palace.
   Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Nepalese Sherpa, became the first to reach the peak of the world's highest mountain on May 29, 1953.
   At least 4,364 people have since summited the 8,850-metre Mount Everest, while over 300 have reportedly died trying. This season, 512 people reached the peak, while six deaths were reported, officials said.
   Relatives of Hillary and Norgay were taken around Kathmandu in a horse-drawn chariot, as the four days of festivities drew to an end in Nepal.
   They were taken to the ancient palace area in the capital Kathmandu where Hillary and Tenzing had been honoured after their descent.
   "This has been absolutely fantastic," said Hilary Carlile, Sir Edmund's niece and deputy chairwoman of the Himalayan Trust he established.
   "It is good to see the government acknowledge people's passion and to be a part of this event."
   The last surviving member of the 1953 Everest expedition, Kancha Sherpa, was to be honoured at the palace ceremony.
   Italian climber Reinhold Messner, who made a solo ascent and later without oxygen, record summiteer Apa Sherpa were also due to receive medals.
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Keeping Hillary's dream alive in shadows of Everest

By Pratibha Tuladhar, dpa =
   Kathmandu (dpa)- When Elizabeth Hawley came to Nepal in 1959 as a journalist, the country had just opened up to the world, following the success of the first ascent of Mt.Everest in 1953.
   She came back the following year ‘to see how Nepal would cope with the 20th century’ and never left.
   Seated in her Kathmandu office in a neatly-ironed mauve shirt and khaki skirt, the 89-year-old maintains an archive of all expeditions that have climbed the Nepalese Himalaya, called the Himalayan Database. She also runs the Himalayan Trust, carrying forth the philanthropic work started by Sir Edmund Hillary, one of the first two men to climb Mt.Everest.
  When Hillary and climbing partner Tenzing Norgay reached the summit in 1953, the New Zealander laid the foundation of a lifelong relationship with the people of Nepal.
  
“He considered Sherpas his friends,” Hawley says of the man who became an honorary Nepali citizen. “When he was physically capable he traveled to Khumbu [the Everest region] all the time.”
   Hillary contributed in building 26 schools and two hospitals in Solukhumbu district, the seat of Everest. He also built several footbridges in the district and raised funds to rebuild the Thangboche monastery, which was destroyed by fire in 1972.
   “Hillary understood the importance of the monastery for the people of Khumbu. It was their cultural centre,” explains the octogenarian, who is responsible for "maintaining the schools, sending up food, books, medical supply and equipment."
   “Hillary raised the funds we needed while he was alive.”
   Peter Hillary, his son and five-time Everest summitter, does that job now.
   Hillary had made Khumbu his second home, returning every other year to make sure the schools and hospitals being established near the roof of the world.
   “The impact Hillary had on the region is judged by the fact that during the Maoist revolt, there was not a single resident Maoist in Khumbu,” says Hawley, a former journalist.
   Nepal witnessed a decade-long civil war from 1996-2006, during which villagers across the country joined the rebels.
   The southern part of the district, Solu, remains relatively poor, with people trying to scrape out a living from the land. Many head abroad in search of work.
   “For them, the Maoist promise of change was very attractive. But in Khumbu (northern part of the district), they had developed lodges for foreigners who went there for trekking and life was more comfortable.”
   Today’s Everest scene, however, is a far cry from what the “modest and honest” Hillary had imagined.
   From the "first innocent climb," as Tenzing Norgay Sherpa’s grandson Tashi Tenzing put it, the sport has changed. Each year, hundreds of people scramble up the world’s highest peak, fighting for a place on the summit or in record books.
   “Too many people who don’t belong there and don’t know how to climb are going up. It’s slowing down others. You don’t start learning how to climb after you get on the mountain, which is what people are doing now!” Hawley said.

   In 2013 alone, 515 successful summits were made, taking the total to 4,336 since 1953. Six deaths were added to a record of roughly 300 confirmed or suspected.

   “The mountain doesn’t mind. It’s a rock. It’s insensitive. But it’s just a problem of how it affects the climbers themselves.  They’re going to kill themselves if they don’t know what they’re doing,” Hawley draws a niche in the air with a hand.
   The government has been under some pressure from environmentalists to limit the number of climbing permits and to manage the garbage on the mountain.
   “There was no system of monitoring in the past, but since we made it mandatory for climbers to bring back garbage, things have improved in last 15 years,” says Sharad Pradhan, the spokesman for Tourism Board.
  “Climate change has led to thinning of snow on the mountain because of which garbage and dead bodies have surfaced.”
  Last year, Everest made headlines as experiencing the "world’s highest traffic jam as nearly 200 people competed to go up the mountain. But no criteria have yet been set by officials.
 
   For Hawley, who has been keeping a count of the expeditions on 300 peaks since 1980, the spring gets busier each year as more and more people attempt to climb during the brief season.

   Her job involves meeting with expeditions, getting bio-data of the climbers and meeting them again upon their return from the Everest, to record the successful summits made.
   Reinhold Messner, the first man to climb Everest solo and later without oxygen, once reportedly said that Hawley knows Everest better than any climber.
   Elizabeth Hawley first learned about mountains from Lt Colonel Jimmy Roberts, a retired British officer who was the first to set up the business of commercial treks in 1955. But she has never climbed a mountain.
   “What for?” shrugs Hawley, who prefers her warm bed and meals at the table to trekking. “I never thought of climbing. I grew up in towns and cities. It’s not the thing for me.”
   And yet, she worked closely with men like Tenzing and Hillary. Did they ever prod her?
   “They knew better,” she says.
    Hawley has only left Nepal three times since 1960, once for medical treatment in Bangkok, once to visit her family in the United States and the last time to attend Sir Hillary’s funeral in 2008.
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Nepal celebrates 60 years of first successful Everest ascent =

   Kathmandu (dpa)- Nepal began a four-day celebration to mark the anniversary of the first successful ascent of Mount Everest, in 1953, officials said Sunday.

   Dipendra Poudel, section officer at the Mountain Department, said the celebrations opened with a conference in Khumjung among climbers to address the impact of climate change on the Himalayas.

   The events would conclude Wednesday, the 60th anniversary of the ascent by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa.

   By Sunday, 515 climbers had been atop Everest this season, taking the total of those who have reached the summit to 4,367.

   Nearly 300 people are said to have died trying to scale the world's highest mountain, with six deaths recorded in 2013 alone.
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In his grandfather's footsteps: Tashi Tenzing Norgay

By Pratibha Tuladhar, dpa
Eds: Anniversary of first successful Everest climb is Wednesday, infographic 19179 =

   Kathmandu (dpa) - One of Tashi Tenzing Sherpa's favourite memories of his grandfather is, fittingly, following him up a mountain.

   “I was 12 when I tagged along on a trek in Kanchanjunga in Sikkim, where he was guiding a group of American tourists,” Tashi, now nearly 50, says of Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, one of the first two men to successfully climb Everest.

   “We had to walk up the jungle to the alpine region and herds of yaks were running down the hill and we were petrified!” Tashi raised a hand as if to wave them off.

   “Grandfather ran to the top of the hill and said something to the yaks, and they stopped!

   “I thought that was cool!” he said of Tenzing's skills learned as a boy yak-herder in his Nepali hometown of Khumbu.

   “At 5 feet 10 inches (1.77 metres), my grandfather stood out,” said Tashi, who is also taller than most Sherpas. His mother, Pem Pem, was Tenzing Norgay’s eldest child, his English tutor and traveling partner.

   Sherpas migrated to Nepal from Tibet 800 years ago, and form the majority of the country's Himalayan population.

   Some moved on to Darjeeling, India in search of work, which is how 12-year-old Tenzing arrived in his new home.

   British-run expeditions to attempt to climb Everest were run out of the northern Indian city, and Tenzing got his first job with them aged 18, but it wasn't easy, Tashi explained.

   “You had to be recommended by a friend who was working for the British in Darjeeling, which Tenzing didn’t have,” Tashi said, pointing at a faded photograph of his grandfather standing with other Sherpas outside the Planters Club in Darjeeling in 1935.

   Tenzing was passed over twice by English climbers Eric Shipton and Bill Tinman, but "he persisted with Eric who had seen him standing there to put him in the team.”

   “He had carried stones to build a chapel in Darjeeling, so he knew he could take hard work.

   “Eric said, 'We’ll take one more and that’s you' - and Tenzing was hired,” Tashi said. “I think it was his persistence and his smile that won.”

   Shipton wrote that he saw Tenzing as a "different" Sherpa, with a competitive desire to impress and, he suspected, four lungs.

   Shipton took Tenzing on his first attempt at Mount Everest, from the northern face in China. But it would be many more years before success from its southern face in Nepal in 1953.

   “Learning the ropes of mountaineering was different, but Tenzing was a fast learner,” said Tashi, who co-authored a book with his wife called Tenzing Norgay and the Sherpas of Everest.

   In 1938, Tenzing was decorated with the Tiger of the Snow medal for his work with British expeditions.

   Sherpa renown grew when Tenzing paired with Edmund Hillary, who selected him for the successful 1953 attempt on Everest after Tenzing saved his life during an earlier expedition.

   “The mountain people worship the mountains and when they heard Norgay climbed Everest the Nepalis thought he was like a god. They wrote songs and poems about him.”

   Tenzing Norgay was awarded the Nepal Tara by King Tribhuvan, the highest civilian award at that time. Britain's Queen Elizabeth II gave him the George Medal when Edmund Hillary was knighted.

   “Knighthood didn’t matter to him because he wasn’t an educated man,” Tashi explained, and spoke of his grandfather's "culture shock" when the queen placed a drawn sword on his climbing mate's shoulder.

   “He didn’t expect there to be so much drama about climbing Everest,” the grandson said.

   Tashi himself has summitted Everest three times.

   “Next year, I will attempt my fourth climb,” he points at a collage poster of him, his grandfather and his uncle - who also reached the summit. “I will turn 50 and my grandfather would have been 100, had he been alive.”

   Aside from professional mountaineering, Tashi also gives motivational talks.

   “When people invite me to do these talks, I tell them a simple story - the story of my family.

   “My grandfather came from nowhere to become a world famous man, but no one knows how hard life was for him, or my own dream of climbing Everest was for me.”

   The part-time photographer, who worked with the Happy Feet penguin documentary team in Antarctica, has also set up free schools in Nuwakot, one of the poorest districts in Nepal.

   Tashi’s next door neighbor in Kathmandu is Hillary's granddaughter  Amelia Rose Hillary, who is following in Sir Edmund's footsteps with her own philanthropic work in Nepal.

   “The Everest region has benefited a lot from mountain tourism, so Amelia and I are focusing on other parts of the country that need more attention.”

   When Tashi was growing up, it never occurred to him that his grandfather was a star.

   “We don’t have a culture of asking questions of elders, but as children, we used to love watching him move around the house.

   “He was a handsome, tall man, very humble, very loving and you could see by his face he had a confident, positive energy. And he never abandoned his old friends,” Tashi recalled.

   “Tenzing was a man born in the shadows of Everest and destined to climb Chomolungma (the Tibetan name for the mountain).”
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