JOIN USWhen an avalanche thundered down Mount Everest last weekend, guides tweeted calls for help and dramatic video footage quickly went viral as trekkers accessed Wi-Fi.
When Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of the world’s highest mountain 62 years ago, news didn’t reach the outside world until four days afterwards and no photographs of Hillary were taken at the top.
Within minutes reports and photos of the disaster were circulating widely across social media sparking relief operations into action and helping save lives.
The contrast to the news emerging of Hillary and sherpa Tenzing’s monumental feat in becoming the first climbers to reach the top of the 8,848-metre (29,029-foot) high mountain in 1953, could not be more stark.
They arrived at the summit on the 29 May but word did not reach London until June 2, just in time for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation.
No pictures were taken of Hillary at the top, apparently because Tenzing did not know how to work a camera. But in his autobiography the New Zealander claimed it had never occurred to him to ask for a picture. Today, the hundreds of tech-savvy climbers who attempt Everest every year are armed with smartphones, iPads and laptops that they use to live-tweet their ascents to a global audience.
Mountaineer Adrian Ballinger's company, Alpenglow Expeditions, provides clients with 18 hours of Wi-Fi a day at altitudes where atmospheric oxygen drops to dangerously low levels.
“Climbing used to be this solitary experience, but people are very interested in sharing their journey now, whether it's through Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp,” Ballinger told AFP.
“The big difficulty is managing the power supply - we use solar power but we also need to carry these bulky batteries and systems as we go up mountains,” he said.
In October 2010, US adventurer Eric Larsen became the first person to tweet from the roof of the world when he sent out the message, “Everest summit!”