Word: everest
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Seaborn Beck Weathers thought his chances of success were good. Mount Everest is a tough climb, to be sure, but not the monster it once was. Weathers, 50, a wealthy pathologist from Dallas, is not a professional mountaineer. But he was in the best shape of his life. He had clothing designed to protect him to 80 degrees below zero. And he had paid $60,000 to Rob Hall--a renowned New Zealand climber and guide who had seen 39 people like Weathers to the top of the world in the past four years. "Rob felt...
...Everest had become the accessible behemoth, or so it seemed. Never as murderously tricky to climb as K-2, the world's second-highest peak, its challenge lay in the brute facts of its extreme altitude, occasional storms and inaccessibility. As clothing and equipment manufacturers mitigated the first problem, and a sprawling base camp sprang up at 5,340 meters to provide warmth and food to dozens of would-be peak beaters, the issue for elite climbers was no longer whether they could reach Everest's pinnacle but rather how many paying customers they could take with them...
Communications breakthroughs increased the impression that Everest was accessible to nearly anyone. Climbers call home from the summit using satellite phones. They send E-mail. Over the past two months, socialite-alpinist Sandy Hill Pittman has been describing her ascent with Fischer's group on the Internet and throwing in remarks about books and recipes. One of her cyber correspondents inquired as to whether there were "any permanent markers at the summit. Flags, or plaques, or anything like that? A gift shop, perhaps?" Pittman didn't tell her new friend that the most enduring mementos on Everest's higher reaches...
...Most Everest expeditions take place in early May, when the weather is best. Friday before last was temperate and clear, a day to rival the one in 1993 on which 40 people reached the top. Now 11 groups were swarming up the mountain's top 900 meters like ants on a piece of cake. Fischer's and Hall's parties set out at around midnight and eventually merged, pushing together through waist-high snow up Everest's last 75 meters. Despite delays due to the number of people crowding through narrow passes, the mood was good. The daughter of Washington...
...typical Japanese politician. With his good looks, sideburns and slicked-back hair, he is a sex symbol. He once greeted U.S. trade negotiators wearing a green leather suit. And in a culture in which the supreme recreational passion is golf, Hashimoto likes scaling mountains (he was part of two Everest expeditions) and has practiced kendo, a Japanese style of fencing, on the roof of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry headquarters in downtown Tokyo...