Sagarmatha (Mount Everest)

Mt. Everest. Soaring almost five and a half miles into the sky, piercing the jet stream with its iconic summit and blanketed in colossal glaciers, few mountains have the power to conjure up as many notions of history, legacy, excitement, and challenge as this mountain does. Embarking on an expedition to Mt. Everest is often the pinnacle of a climbers' career and is quite simply an experience beyond description.  Highlights include. In 1978 Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler were the first to climb Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen. Messner later described his summit experience: "In my state of spiritual abstraction, I no longer belong to myself and to my eyesight. I am nothing more than a single narrow gasping lung, floating over the mists and summits." In 1980 Messner made the first solo ascent, which was via a new route on the mountain's north side.Mount Everest is also called Chomolangma, meaning “Goddess Mother of Snows” in Tibetan and Sagarmatha, meaning "Mother of the Universe" in Nepalese. The mountain is sacred to the native people.