HONG KONG — Some households pass to the seaside for holidays, others talk over with giant towns. Jamling Tenzing Norgay’s circle of relatives climbed mountains.
“We went on a trek to some beautiful ridges. That’s what we did all the time, with my father,” mentioned Tenzing, whose father, Tenzing Norgay, was once a Nepalese-Indian Sherpa who in 1953 changed into probably the most first two showed other folks to achieve the highest of Mount Everest along side New Zealand climber Edmund Hillary.
Tenzing’s father instilled a zeal for climbing in him from a tender age.
“I ultimately wanted to try to aspire to climb Everest because I looked up to my father as my greatest role model,” Tenzing, 59, instructed NBC News in an interview in Hong Kong this month. “He was my hero, and I wanted to become just like him.”
Tenzing accomplished his Everest dream in 1996, attaining the highest of the 29,032-foot mountain.
“I trained very hard and trained well, physically and mentally,” he mentioned of his climb, which was once documented within the 1998 IMAX movie “Everest.” “I prepared for this climb all my life.”
Mount Everest has “changed a great deal” since his father climbed it in 1953, Tenzing mentioned. Equipment has turn out to be lighter and extra subtle, and communique is way more uncomplicated.
That has made the mountain extra out there, but in addition a lot more crowded. In fresh years, viral footage have proven lengthy traces of climbers snaking down from the summit.
When there are delays, “that’s when accidents happen,” Tenzing mentioned. “More people are dying on the mountain because of the fact that there are too many people up there.”
Tenzing’s 1996 climb coincided with what was once on the time Mount Everest’s deadliest yr ever. Twelve climbers died throughout the spring mountain climbing season, together with 8 who were given stuck in a snowfall at the means down.
This yr, 8 climbers died or went lacking, when compared with 18 in 2023.
Tenzing and others reminiscent of Kami Rita, a Sherpa information who closing month scaled Mount Everest for a document thirtieth time, have additionally expressed worry concerning the mountain’s trash downside. The Nepali military mentioned after concluding its annual cleanup marketing campaign this month that it had got rid of about 11 heaps of rubbish, 4 human corpses and one skeleton from Mount Everest and two different Himalayan peaks.
New regulations this yr required climbers to pack out their very own excrement, which doesn’t totally degrade at the frigid mountain.
That didn’t dissuade the 421 climbers who have been issued lets in this yr, down from a document 478 in 2023. Those numbers don’t come with accompanying Sherpa and different enhance workforce.
“People will still keep coming, and I think the number of climbers coming is going to grow in the future, which is not good,” mentioned Tenzing, whose 2002 e book “Touching My Father’s Soul” recounted his 1996 Everest ascent and make clear the Sherpa enjoy.
A veteran mountaineer, Tenzing has guided climbers with various ranges of enjoy all through the Himalayan area on lengthy treks and mountain expeditions. One of the issues he enjoys maximum about it, he mentioned, is telling them about native historical past and tradition, together with tales from his father’s ancient climb.
“I feel proud to be in my country,” he mentioned, “in a country where people enjoy and they keep coming back.”
