Mount Everest is not only a mountain, it is a symbol. The people in Europe use this word, Everest, if they want to say that something is an ultimate challenge. There are other names for the highest of the mountains. They are "Air Bird", "Goddess-Mother of the World", "Sagarmatha". Not only it is the highest mountain in the world but it also lies in the highest mountain range on this planet: Himalaji. The speed of the wind there exceeds 200 kilometres per second. It also shapes the climate in the Central Asia. The snow line is at 6400 metres and above it the snow is present during the whole year. The amount of snow that falls in tepid season is high. The avalanches are common sights and they are impressive as the huge amount of snowfall down making great noise. The creation of Mount Everest was a long process that started 60 million years ago. At that time the continentals plate on which India are nowadays started moving north. When it crashed with the Euro-Asian plate the result was that parts of the plates which collided were moved up and they formed Himalaji. It happened 25 million years ago. It is not a long time in the history of Earth and so, Himalaji are rather young mountains. They still grow. We learned the fact that Everest is the highest mountain in the world only 150 years ago. It was in 1852 when Sir George Everest discovered this fact. The mountain got its name from this person. In 1922 the first expedition was send to get on the top of Mount Everest. But they failed and Mount Everest remained unconquered until 1953. The expedition from this year, lead by Edmund Hillary from New Zealand and Tan zing Norgay from India climbed to the top.
Over six hundred people wanted to repeat the success of Hillary and Tan, 150 of them died in the process of trying. However, the deaths do not discourage other people from climbing.
