I think those were the first words on the peak to be recorded by a Western explorer. Who’s to say some local didn’t climb the mountain in any of the years before, got there, and was like “Well, that’s a nice view but why did I bother doing this again?” and went back down?
The locals who’ve been exposed to the prevailing conditions(extreme cold, lower oxygen saturation) their whole life, and who passed through the evolutionary gauntlet of the region (higher chance of genetic material with weaker lung capacities to die out), might have been hardier than the wave of rich tourists who later conquered the peak.
All this is speculation though, based on the fact that people that live in such conditions their whole life DO have demonstrably better adaptations to do so. I don’t know if it’s enough to survive the conditions at the peak though.
spoiler
That’s Sir Edmund Hillary. He and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were the first two people to reach the peak of Mount Everest.
The first words ever spoken at the highest point of the world were “We’ve knocked the bastard off!”
We have a winner!
I think those were the first words on the peak to be recorded by a Western explorer. Who’s to say some local didn’t climb the mountain in any of the years before, got there, and was like “Well, that’s a nice view but why did I bother doing this again?” and went back down?
Until that point, they wouldn’t have had access to bottled oxygen.
The locals who’ve been exposed to the prevailing conditions(extreme cold, lower oxygen saturation) their whole life, and who passed through the evolutionary gauntlet of the region (higher chance of genetic material with weaker lung capacities to die out), might have been hardier than the wave of rich tourists who later conquered the peak.
All this is speculation though, based on the fact that people that live in such conditions their whole life DO have demonstrably better adaptations to do so. I don’t know if it’s enough to survive the conditions at the peak though.
Tenzing Norgay was a local. He still needed the oxygen.