Everest again

This afternoon, Microsoft News (for once) brings me an interesting article (reference 1) about measuring the height of Everest. Coincidentally, on the very same afternoon, the NYRB brings me notice of yet another book about the glory days of the climbing of Everest, roughly concentrated on the period 1930-1950 – and ending with John Hunt leading a successful ascent in 1953. A job for which the otherwise very well qualified Eric Shipton was rejected on the grounds of not being aggressive enough, not being fanatical enough. A story dominated, if not monopolised, by white Caucasian males. Will I fall for it?

But today’s story, something of a extended reprise of that at reference 5, is about finding out how high Everest is.

First we have a team of Nepalese surveyors lugging the necessary equipment up to the top of Everest in May last year and spending a couple of hours up there with it, talking to satellites and such like. In the pitch dark, in the small hours of the morning. When most other people stay just long enough to take a picture and then head on down while they still can.

But then, what do we mean by height? Height above sea level is all very well, but the sea level varies from place to place, from time to time. How do we set the standard?

Or should we take a different tack altogether and measure from the centre of the earth – a proceeding which puts a much smaller mountain called Chimborazo, in Ecuador, at the top of the list?

And anyway, surely it is the height one has to climb on the day that counts. Can’t they come up with some way of scoring height from base camps? 

Against which one might argue that that would not give fair weight to the problems of climbing in thin air. Can’t they come up with some way of measuring down from somewhere up above, rather than up from somewhere down below?

A minor problem about whether the snow and ice at the top of Everest counts as part of the height.

And quite apart from all these difficulties, Everest moves around. Generally it moves slowly up as the Indian subcontinent presses up against Asia. Then one has earthquakes from time to time, one of which moved the summit down by a couple of feet in 1934. For which see reference 6.

Enough to keep the surveyors and the surveying standards people busy for years and years to come.

PS 1: or, as one might say, its all relative.

PS 2: BH's response was rather sexist. 'Only men would get into such a lather about exactly how high a mountain was. Sensible people would settle for it just being high'. While T. E. Lawrence attributed a similar sentiment, to do with stars, to Auda abu Tayi. Eastist rather than sexist in this case. See reference 7.

References

Reference 1: How do you measure Everest? It's complicated by frostbite and politics – Freddie Wilkinson/National Geographic – 2020. Brought to me by Microsoft News.

Reference 2: Because It’s Still There – Joshua Hammer/NYRB – 2020.

Reference 3: The World Beneath Their Feet: Mountaineering, Madness, and the Deadly Race to Summit the Himalayas – Scott Ellsworth – 2021. Perhaps the NYRB get a pre-publication copy for review.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/stupidity.html. The most recent, relevant notice of Everest. Various trivia since then.

Reference 5: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/02/mondays-factlet.html. I did once know about Chimborazo before.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1934_Nepal%E2%80%93India_earthquake. 

Reference 7: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-garden-of-eden.html.