Top Of The World?
summit of Mt Everest
Congratulations, ladies. Congratulations, Singapore. The NATAS Singapore Women’s Everest Team is literally on top of the world after reaching the summit of Mount Everest
Over at Republic Polytechnic where Lee Li Hui and Jane Lee are staff members, their colleagues and students could barely contain their pride and joy.
27-year-old Lee Li Hui, 26-year-old Esther Tan and 25-year-old Jane Lee reached the world’s tallest mountain standing at 8850m early Wednesday morning.
Let’s see what some of the folks watching the ladies in action from the comfort of their armchair have to say.
David Lim, staff, Republic Polytechnic, said: “It really represents that if women put in the time and effort and they set their objectives right, they can achieve things on par with men.”
Well said, Mr Lim. It certainly represents that if our women put in two years of their time and effort into charging up hills … oops, what was I thinking about?
No, I’m not belittling the women’s achievement. Having climbed lesser peaks, I’m well aware that climbing Everest is no easy task. You need a lot of endurance, a lot of time and a lot of money. That’s why it took so long for our women’s team to raise enough funds for the expedition. They could have done this much earlier if funding was not such a problem.
But in case you haven’t been following the news on the highest mountain in the world, the summit has already been claimed many times over, not just by able-bodied women, but folks with all kinds of disabilities. Blind people have made it to the summit. Amputees with one leg have made it. They were quickly overshadowed by amputees without any legs. And I heard from my friend Sumek that some senior citizen in Nepal is trying to break the record set by 71-year-old Katsusuke Yanagisawa as the oldest man to summit Everest.
What’s more, at about this time last year, Chinese men and women brought some Olympic torches and lit them on the summit of Everest after climbing from the Tibetan side - without the use of supplemental oxygen and in less than ideal weather conditions to boot. The unbelievable strength of the Chinese climbers on the summit has been witnessed by thousands of Olympic fans all over the world on YouTube.
So this begs the question: what’s the point of “conquering” the peak that has been “done to death” in all imaginable styles, variations and approaches since 1959? Apart from excluding men from the limelight of the summit teams, using them only as base camp managers, rope-fixing, guiding and load-bearing Sherpas, there is everything Singaporean and nothing unique about this expedition. Again, I’m not belittling this achievement. It is a good achievement, just not a spectacular one to boast about.
Today newspaper’s Sports editor Leonard Thomas wrote that our women’s Everest team ”deserves a sense of mystery only a little over 4,000 people who have climbed Everest will understand.” Mystery? What mystery? Mr Thomas seems unaware that there are more than a few climbing enthusiasts amongst us who consider the ladies in this expedition a rather privileged lot. Mr Thomas is right to say that mountaineering is not a race. However, there are recognised ways of judging a climb within the fraternity. Even among the armchair mountaineers and fans, few would disagree on what makes a great climb and what makes a run-of-the-mill expedition.
Mr Thomas is also right to say that climbers today can no longer become household names like Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Why? Because reaching the summit won’t make such sensationa news anymore. So how did Reinhold Messner do it? Well, I think Messner became a household name because he outdid Tenzing and Hillary by being the first man to climb Everest without oxygen and Sherpa support.
Messner, Doug Scott, Ed Viesturs are so famous and their books sell so well because they are such accomplished mountaineers with more fans than our local celebrities. Messner is a household name because he is the first man on earth to climb all the fourteen 8,000m peaks on earth. Our women could well become household names or at least clinch a Phelps-like million-dollar payday if they did something similar.
It’s just a job for him! Record holder, 49-year-old Apa Sherpa brought clients to the summit of Everest 19 times.
