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Jackie: Sixty years ago two climbers reached the summit of the highest mountain in the world. So for this week's podcastsinenglish.com we're talking about Mount Everest.
Richard: Yes in 1953, Edmund Hillary, a New Zealander and Tenzing Norgay, a Nepalese climber, reached the summit of Mount Everest.
Jackie: Now, Richard last year we did a podcast about the 100th anniversary of the first people reaching the South Pole.
Richard: That's right, yes.
Jackie: What I don't understand is how can they... how come they got to the South Pole a hundred years ago but it wasn't until the 1950s that they got to the top of Everest?
Richard: Hmm, it's an interesting one because it's similar in many ways.Obviously very, very cold but obviously going to the South Pole you're just walking flat most of the time, you're going to Everest you've got to go up and of course when you go higher there is no air, so that makes it extremely difficult to breathe, the lack of oxygen um... I think it's colder and obviously the climbing hazards; very, very dangerous.
Jackie: And they had so many more people as well, Richard. There were 400 people who took part in that 1953 expedition to get those two people...
Richard: So who were the 400?
Jackie: Er... what okay, so 360 of them were porters. [Richard laughs] And then they have the Sherpa guides and... and the climbers, yeah. So perhaps going to the South Pole... Pole was more of an endurance where as actually more dangerous to go to Everest?
Richard: Yes, I think so.
Jackie: Okay. And the other interesting thing of course Richard is this week, how things have changed, this week, an eighty year old Japanese climber became the oldest conquerer of Mount Everest.
Richard: I know. You can take a holiday climbing Mount Everest nowadays, I think it's er... 5 and a half thousand people have now climbed the mountain.
Jackie: Since 1953.
Richard: Exactly
Jackie: And... and I think it was in 19, no 2007, right, over 600 people reached the top and there were so many people that sometimes, there's a kind of a bottleneck, a traffic jam of climbers.
Richard: I know it's incredible, isn't it? Well, because people now have oxygen and they've got all the gear and the equipment and the warm weather clothing makes it much easier.
Jackie: It's still a very dangerous thing to do, of course.
Richard: Many, many people have died over the years.
Jackie: Yeah, over... over 200 people have died. I think they say, 'cos you talked about the lack of oxygen and how difficult that is, from South Col, which is the last base before reaching to the top, it can take 12 hours to walk the last 1.72 kilometres.
Richard: Yes, so you've got be pretty fit to do it as well, and of course quite rich.
Jackie: It's expensive, is it?
Richard: Apparently, on average, it costs £40,000 per climber.
Jackie: £40,00?
Richard: Yeah
Jackie: To get to the top of Mount Everest?
Richard: Yeah
Jackie: My goodness. So...
Richard: [Both laugh] I don't think that's the only reason we won't be going up Mount Everest any time soon.
Jackie: No
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