Word: ascent
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After a 15-minute ascent in the cramped six-person plane, the pilot levels off at 10,000 feet and looks for a two-mile stretch of cloudless sky through which Noonan can jump. When suitable sky is located, a professional skydiving instructor attaches himself to Noonan’s back with a network of straps and four metal clamps strong enough to tow a car. When Noonan says he’s ready, the instructor leans off the edge—and down they...
...there are reasons to celebrate this anniversary other than the character of Hillary and Tenzing. The records of the 1953 British Commonwealth expedition - especially The Ascent of Everest, a magnificent book written by the team's leader, John Hunt - are a window on a lost world. The assault on the mountain was made by young men who had been forced to grow up fast. Many of them had fought in World War II; one of them, Charles Wylie, had been a prisoner of the Japanese at the notorious Changi camp in Singapore. The experience of wartime meant that the expedition...
...copy of The Ascent of Everest is autographed by George Band, who was the youngest member of the expedition - just 24 in 1953. His parents went to the same church as mine, and my father got his signature when Band gave the congregation a slide show on his exploits in the high mountains. (In 1954 Band and another legendary British climber, Joe Brown, were the first men to summit Kanchenjunga, the world's third highest peak, and technically a much tougher climb than Everest.) Now retired, Band still leads treks in the Himalayas. When I spoke to him last week...
...formed to know their enemies and seek to destroy them. Our delight is in the death-march of the argument over the novel notion, the heady idea: the sound of data crunching and uncertainty crushed beneath jackbooted convention. We drown the daisies in concrete and leave ourselves a toilsome ascent strewn with the rubble of our finest thoughts. And for what? At least Sisyphus realized when he was back at the bottom. We labor under the illusion that the ascent is never-ending...
...Over the next 50 years, top climbers from around the world converged on Everest's slopes to attempt their own groundbreaking firsts. In 1978, Reinhold Messner's ascent without bottled oxygen defied the conventional wisdom that time spent without artificial oxygen above 7,900 meters?in the "death zone"?would cause irreparable brain damage. In 2000, Babu Chiri Sherpa?the most famous Sherpa?climbed from base camp to the top of Everest in just under 16 hours...