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Xtreme Team Celebrate Everest Diamond Jubilee
Members of the Xtreme Everest 2 research team joined climbers, Sherpas and diplomats at a reception at the British Embassy in Kathmandu on Wednesday 29th May, 2013, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the first ascent of Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa. The team were guests of the British Ambassador, HE Andy Sparkes, and the New Zealand Ambassador, HE Jan Henderson.
During the reception the team were delighted to have the chance to meet HillaryĂ¢€™s granddaughter, Amelia Hillary, and Reinhold Messner, who along with Peter Habeler became the first man to summit Everest without the use of bottled oxygen in a 1978 expedition. Expedition Leader, Dr Dan Martin, spent some time discussing the Xtreme Everest project with Messner, and the pair no doubt shared tales of their own experiences spent high on the mountain with low arterial oxygen pressures!
In an address, Messner underlined the importance of the Sherpas to every Everest expedition and explained how, by working together to reach the summit, Hillary and Tenzing demonstrated the importance of international cooperation. His words resonated with the team, who, having now worked alongside Sherpas throughout several major research expeditions, have the utmost respect for this remarkable and hospitable people. Our vital research would quite simply not be possible without the help of our many Sherpa friends or the enthusiasm of those that volunteered to be subjects in Xtreme Everest 2. Understanding how the unique physiology of the Sherpas allows them to perform in low oxygen conditions could hold the key to treating critically ill patients in hospitals in the UK and worldwide. It seems particularly fitting then that our study of Sherpa physiology, the biggest to date, took place in the year of the Everest Diamond Jubilee, when we celebrate the achievement of a Sherpa and a lowlander working together to stand on the roof of the World.
Dr Andrew Murray - XE 2 Investigator
Created 6th Jun 2013 |
Everest Diamond Jubilee
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