The Kathmandu Post/ANN
Ever since it was first declared the highest peak on Earth in 1856 by the Great Trigonometric Survey of British India, Mount Everest has fascinated many. Once officially established as the highest point in the world, mountaineers and adventure seeks sought to stand on its peak and gaze out at the Earth beneath them. The first expeditions to scale Everest were led by British mountaineer George Mallory, who when asked why he was choosing to climb Everest, allegedly replied with the now famous phrase, "Because it’s there." Mallory, unfortunately, perished on one of his expeditions and whether or not he reached the summit is still under contention.
All this was happening early in the 21st century, when a significant part of the world was still being explored. Much of Europe still held colonies and the Western zeal for staking a claim on foreign lands were progressing full swing. Thirty years after the Wright Brothers made the first flight in human history, in 1933, two open cockpit biplanes with wooden propellers, piloted by two Scots, took off from Purnea in Bihar and successfully flew over the Earth’s highest point. David McIntyre and Douglas Douglas-Hamilton’s historic flight was touted over the world as a major achievement for the British Empire and laid ground for subsequent attempts to scale the peak on foot. While the first flights over the peak were successful enough, they failed to take adequate photographs, prompting the pilots to make another, this time illegal, flight over the peak and captured satisfactory photographs. The first successful land ascent of Everest, by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hilary in 1953, was aided by photographs from that expedition.
Eighty years later, on April 3, a Jetstream-41 aircraft carried 29 passengers on a route retracing that very flight. On board was Charles Douglas-Hamilton, grandson of Douglas Douglas-Hamilton and the Jetstream is manufactured by BAE System (formerly Scottish Aviation), the aircraft factory founded by the elder Douglas-Hamilton and McIntyre. Their feat shows that despite numerous successful ascents of Everest and regular mountain flights that take passengers close enough to take stunning photographs, Everest’s allure has not waned. Hundreds of mountaineers visit Nepal every year to try and stand on the top of the world. While not a technically difficult climb, Everest’s lure lies in the fact that it is the highest and so, satisfies an innate human desire to push the frontier ever farther, to attempt to stand at the very edge of what is possible and look out.
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