Facts of the Highest Peak – Mt Everest - By: Grace Fan

Located on the border between Tibet of China and Nepal, Mt Everest, also called Qomolangma in China, is the highest peak in the world. As the main peak of Himalaya Mountains, Mt Everest is 8,844.43 meters. In Tibetan folk story, Mt Everest is considered as one of goddesses. It is in the shape of pyramid. There are 548 huge continental glaciers occupying an area of about 1,457 square kilometers and the average thickness of the ice sheet is 7,260 meters with many beautiful and wonderful serac clusters on it.

Mt Everest in Tibetan is Jo-mo glang-ma meaning “mother of the earth”. Jo-mo means goddess and meaning of glang-ma is female elephant. According to fairy story, Mt Everest is the place where tshe-ring mched lnga (five goddesses) live.

Himalaya area was a patch of sea about 60 millions years ago. The mountain gradually formed in the long period of earth evolvement under the action of the internal and external force. Due to orogenic movement, Himalaya area was uplifted under the action of pressure. It is estimated that Mt Everest rose of 20 meters to 30 meters every year about 10 thousand years ago. Till now, the Himalaya area is in upward movement.

The climate of Himalaya area is complex and changeable. During rainy season from June to September, strong monsoon winds cause the frequent rainstorms. From the mid-November to February of the following year, the cold spell takes control of the area and the average temperature is only minus 40 degree or minus 50 degree with winds of up to 90 meter per second. In spring (early March to late May) and fall (from the early September to the end of October), some days are fine for climbing.

Mt Everest is snow-capped all year round and the area of the ice sheet reaches more than 10 thousand square kilometers. The south side area below 1,000 meters is covered by the lush tropical rainforest, subtropical evergreen forest is distributed from 1,000 to 2,000 meters and above 4,500 meters is alpine meadow. Among the forest inhabit many kinds of rare animals and birds such as peacocks, gibbons, snow leopards, Tibetan antelopes, etc.

No mountain in the world has a greater attraction on climbers than Mt Everest. In the early 19 century, Mt Everest drew attention of climbers and scientists of the world. While till 1953 Sir Edmund and Tenzing Norgay were the first climbers to reach the summit of Mt Everest. By the end of 1998, 1,054 climbers successfully got to the top of Everest and they discovered 11 routes.

About the Author

Gracefan, an English editor of China Tours Dot com, works hard to provide the full range of tour service such as budget Yunnan tour package, budget Shanghai tour package, budget Hangzhou China tour package and so on.

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