Mount Everest

Up to seven people are missing, presumed dead, on the northern face of Mount Everest, a spokeswoman for a New Zealand expedition on the world's highest peak said. The climbers, who are believed to have perished in a storm, included three Kazakhs, one German, a Nepali sherpa and an unidentified climber, Sue Kelly of Adventure Consultants said.

After Sir Edmund Hillary's historic ascent of Mt. Everest, everyone knew Hillary's name. Far fewer knew about his indispensable partner, George Lowe. Hillary and his friend Lowe were the only two New Zealanders on the 1953 expedition to the top of the world's highest peak. If they could have had their way, they would have trekked to the summit together, but a number of circumstances, including the politics of giving two non-Brits on a British-led team the prime roles, conspired to leave Lowe among the unsung.

After Sir Edmund Hillary's historic ascent of Mt. Everest, everyone knew Hillary's name. Far fewer knew about his indispensable partner, George Lowe. Hillary and his friend Lowe were the only two New Zealanders on the 1953 expedition to the top of the world's highest peak. If they could have had their way, they would have trekked to the summit together, but a number of circumstances, including the politics of giving two non-Brits on a British-led team the prime roles, conspired to leave Lowe among the unsung.

The kitchen was hopping, orders flying in from every direction, and Jangbu Sherpa was smack in the middle, deep-frying samosas while eyeballing a simmering yak stew. Waiters rushed in ? more momos, more thupka, more papadums! Sherpa stayed cool, never breaking a sweat. And why would he? He's reached the summit of Mount Everest 10 times, seen men swept off high peaks, and survived an avalanche on K-2, the world's most dangerous mountain. "When I stood on Everest," he said, glancing up from a pot of boiling oil, "I felt like I was standing on top of the sky. " These days he stands over a hot oven at Sherpa's Adventurers Restaurant & Bar in downtown Boulder, serving up Nepali and Tibetan fare.

The kitchen was hopping, orders flying in from every direction, and Jangbu Sherpa was smack in the middle, deep-frying samosas while eyeballing a simmering yak stew. Waiters rushed in ? more momos, more thupka, more papadums! Sherpa stayed cool, never breaking a sweat. And why would he? He's reached the summit of Mount Everest 10 times, seen men swept off high peaks, and survived an avalanche on K-2, the world's most dangerous mountain. "When I stood on Everest," he said, glancing up from a pot of boiling oil, "I felt like I was standing on top of the sky. " These days he stands over a hot oven at Sherpa's Adventurers Restaurant & Bar in downtown Boulder, serving up Nepali and Tibetan fare.

In 1924, British mountaineers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine disappeared after being spotted just 900 feet below the summit of Mount Everest. For more than 60 years, climbers have argued about whether the two men reached the top before perishing.

The words Marshall McLuhan remain, 10 years after the Toronto theoretician's death, fighting words. His name seems to provoke but two reactions: aggressive contempt from leftish intellectuals and impish smiles from more practical communicators, such as artists, composers, and advertising and TV people. Still, when one presses past initial prejudice, virtually everybody admits to not having finished any of his books, only two of which ever sold in anything like influential quantities--the numbingly incomprehensible "Gutenberg Galaxy" and "The Medium Is the Message," a 160-page picture book that was "co-ordinated" by Jerome Agel in the same charmingly accessible style he used for "co-ordinating" "I Seem to Be a Verb," which popularized the theories of another thunder-thinker of the '60s, Buckminster Fuller.

A handkerchief of burgundy and blue, wrinkled and stained, monogrammed with the initials GLM. A pair of goggles, their green-tinted lenses scratched, the silver frame bent on one side. The rope that probably killed him when it broke, frayed horribly at one end. These are the things that came down from Mt. Everest when George Mallory did not. Spread out on a table at Washington's State Museum of History in their first U.S.

Alex Lowe sounds pretty good for a man who literally has been living on the edge for the past several weeks. The renowned climber, reached the other day by phone at his home in Bozeman, Mont., is relaxing after a grueling expedition in Pakistan, which he describes as being "sort of like a giant Utah" in that it's not easy to find a cold beer in a country run by Muslims. "You can get one," he says half-jokingly, "but you have to sign a waiver and basically prove that you're a sinful infidel.

THE all-seeing eyes of Buddha stare blankly over Katmandu's Palace Square from a massive, wooden portal. The door is shut tight. But standing here on the very day in November when Maoist rebels signed a peace accord ending 10 years of turmoil and isolation in Nepal, I could almost hear the giant door crack open, bidding visitors back. A Hindu adage says guests are like gods. But travelers have largely stayed away since 1996 when Maoist insurgents began a terror campaign.

A cancer awareness group claimed to have staged the world's highest musical concert -- on Mt. Everest. The U.S.-based Love Hope Strength Foundation says on its website that the "Everest Rocks" concert was held at 18,540 feet. Six musicians from the U.S. and Britain performed at the concert: Mike Peters of the Alarm, Slim Jim Phantom of the Stray Cats, Cy Curnin and Jamie West-Oram of the Fixx, Glen Tilbrook of the Squeeze and Nick Harper. The money raised will go to a Nepalese cancer hospital.

"I feel really incredible," Samantha Larson, 18, said Sunday night, describing her sense of accomplishment after having conquered Mt. Everest -- the tallest place on Earth. It was about 9:30 a.m. Monday, Nepal time, and the Long Beach teenager was waiting below a base camp on the side of Mt. Everest for a helicopter to take her trekking group, including her father, to Katmandu.

Samantha Larson of Long Beach, who at 18 became one of the youngest people to summit Mt. Everest, safely arrived Saturday with her father at a base camp on the Nepal mountain, her relieved mother reported. "The most dangerous part of climbing is the descent," said Larson's mother, Sarah Hanson of New York.

From Earth's tallest point, the message was understandably breathless. "We made it to the top!" Samantha Larson told her mother via satellite phone Thursday after reaching the summit of Mt. Everest. "Now all we have to do is make it back down." Larson, 18, of Long Beach, became one of the youngest people to scale the 29,035-foot peak, reaching the summit with a group that included her father, David Larson, 51, an anesthesiologist at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center.

THE all-seeing eyes of Buddha stare blankly over Katmandu's Palace Square from a massive, wooden portal. The door is shut tight. But standing here on the very day in November when Maoist rebels signed a peace accord ending 10 years of turmoil and isolation in Nepal, I could almost hear the giant door crack open, bidding visitors back. A Hindu adage says guests are like gods. But travelers have largely stayed away since 1996 when Maoist insurgents began a terror campaign.

Mark Inglis' journey to the top of Mt. Everest appeared to be one for the ages, courageous and inspirational, proof that with enough desire a person can overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. But the first double-amputee to scale the world's tallest mountain may be remembered more for what he didn't do.

Stacy Marie Allison, a building contractor from Portland, Ore., became the first American woman to scale Mt. Everest, Nepal's Ministry of Tourism said Friday. The ministry, which authorizes Himalayan expeditions, said Allison, 30, reached the 29,028-foot summit at 10:38 a.m. Thursday, having followed the southeast ridge, the standard route to the top. Allison, who began her climb Aug. 22, was accompanied by Sherpa guide Pasang Gyalzen, 26, the announcement said.

A New Zealand mountaineer criticized for failing to rescue a dying British climber on Mt. Everest said there was nothing he could have done to save the man. Mark Inglis, a double amputee, was answering criticism by Everest pioneer Sir Edmund Hillary. David Sharp, 34, died just below the summit, apparently from oxygen deprivation suffered during his solo descent. More than 40 climbers are thought to have seen Sharp as he lay dying.

Mt. Everest pioneer Sir Edmund Hillary said he was shocked to hear that climbers left a man to die while pressing on toward the peak of the world's tallest mountain, published reports said today. "Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain," Hillary was quoted as saying in an interview with the New Zealand Press Assn. David Sharp, 34, from Guisborough, England, died last week, apparently of oxygen deficiency, while descending after reaching Everest's summit.