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Barry Bishop, who summitted Everest in 1963, wrote in a November 1988 National Geographic article: "We had been lucky that season: Everest had been uncommonly tranquil. In short, the weather had been only miserable, not impossible."
A Sherpa village in Nepal rests at the base of Mount Everest. Predominantly Buddhist, Sherpa continue to lead simple lives even as tourism brings more and more visitors to their land each year.
Before being named Mount Everest by the British in 1865, the mountain had gone by many names in many languages over the centuries. Tibetans call it Chomolungma, often translated as "mother of the universe."
In 1921, famed Everest explorer George Leigh Mallory wrote to his wife saying, "I can't tell you how it possesses me, and what a prospect it is." In 1924 he perished trying to reach the top. His body was not discovered until 1999.