The Himalayas are called the Roof of the World. Although it’s been over 60 years after New Zealand’s mountaineer Edmund Hillary left the first footprints on Mount Everest, which is 8,848 meters above sea level, in May 1953, the Himalayas are still called the Divine Realm as it is too rugged to approach.
Apart from such dangers as steep ice cliff, unpredictable avalanches, crevasses (deep cracks on the surface of glaciers) hidden like mines, and altitude sickness, there is also the Death Zone over 8,000 meters above sea level, where oxygen decreases to a third due to low air pressure, the temperature drops to minus 30 to 50℃ (22–58℉), and all the exposed parts of the body suffer from frostbite. Many climbers could not come down the mountain due to extreme sufferings and are still sleeping in the Himalayas. The climbers do not use the word “conquest” as they realize that men are insignificant before nature.
“How can humans conquer a mountain or nature? We climb the mountain not because we conquered it, but because we adapt ourselves to nature and the mountain accepts us.” Um Hong-gil, Korean climber who succeeded climbing 16 peaks of the Himalayas which are about 8,000 meters above sea level