VOA慢速英语 2007 0620b

VOICE ONE:

I'm Barbara Klein.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.  Today, we tell 
Mount¹ Everest
about efforts to climb Mount Everest.  Last month, an eighteen-year-old American became one of the youngest people to climb the tallest mountain on Earth.  And, a seventy-one-year old Japanese man became the oldest.

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VOICE ONE:

Mount Everest is at the border of Nepal and Tibet.  It was named for Sir George Everest, who recorded the mountain’s position in eighteen forty-one.  Since nineteen fifty-three, more than ten thousand people have attempted to climb to the top of the world's highest mountain.  The summit² of Mount Everest is eight thousand eight hundred forty-eight meters high.

Climbers have reached the summit more than three thousand times.  However, more than two hundred people died while attempting to get there.  

They all battled low temperatures.  Wind speeds of up to one hundred sixty kilometers an hour.  Dangerous mountain paths.  And they all risked developing a serious health disorder³ caused by lack of oxygen.  All for the chance to reach the top of the world.

VOICE TWO:

The first and most famous of the climbers to disappear on Mount Everest was George 
George Mallory
Mallory.  The British schoolteacher was a member of the first three trips by foreigners to the mountain.  In nineteen twenty-one, Mallory was part of the team sent by the British Royal Geographical⁴ Society and the British Alpine⁵ Club.  The team was to create the first map of the area and find a possible path to the top of the great mountain.

Mallory also was a member of the first Everest climbing attempt in nineteen twenty-two.  But the attempt was canceled after a storm caused a giant mass of snow to slide down the mountain, killing⁶ seven ethnic⁷ Sherpa guides.

VOICE ONE:

Mallory was invited back to Everest as lead climber of another expedition team in nineteen twenty-four.  On June fourth, Mallory and team member Andrew Irvine left their base camp for the team's final attempt to reach the summit.  The climbing team had great hopes of success for the two men.  A few days earlier, expedition leader Edward Norton had reached a record height of eight thousand five hundred seventy-three meters before he turned back.

VOICE TWO:

Mallory and Irvine were using bottles of oxygen.  Mallory believed that was the only way they would have the energy and speed to climb the last three hundred meters to the top and return safely.  Team member Noel Odell saw Mallory and Irvine climbing high on the mountain the following day.

Odell said they had just climbed one of the most difficult rocks on the northeast path.  He said they were moving toward⁸ the top when clouds hid them.  He never saw them again.  The disappearance⁹ of Mallory and Irvine on Mount Everest remains¹⁰ among the greatest exploration mysteries of the last century.

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VOICE ONE:

During the next twenty-nine years, teams from Britain made seven more attempts to climb Everest.  Until the early nineteen fifties, British teams were the only foreigners given permission to climb Mount Everest.

On May twenty-ninth, nineteen fifty-three, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers known to reach the summit of Everest.  The two were part of a British team lead by Jon Hunt.  They had made a difficult climb from the southeast, through recently opened Nepalese territory.

Edmund Hillary was a beekeeper from New Zealand.  It was his second trip to Everest.  He had been on the first exploratory trip to the mountain that had mapped the way up from the southern side.  Tenzing Norgay was a native Sherpa from Nepal.  He was the first Sherpa to become interested in mountain climbing.  His climb with Hillary was his seventh attempt to reach the top.

VOICE TWO:

Hillary said his first reaction on reaching the summit was a happy feeling that he had “no more steps to cut."  The two men placed the flags of Britain, Nepal, India and the United Nations.  Hillary took a picture of Norgay.

They looked out over the north side into Tibet for any signs that Mallory or Irvine had been there before them.  Then they began the long and difficult trip back down.  The success of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay led to many new attempts on the mountain.  Today, Everest has been climbed from all of its sides and from most of its possible paths.

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VOICE ONE:

Reinhold Messner of Italy and Peter Habeler of Austria made another historic¹¹ Everest climb in nineteen seventy-eight.  The two men were the first to reach the summit without using bottled oxygen.  Messner said when he reached the top he felt like a single giant lung. 

At the time, scientists believed that a person at the top of the mountain would only have enough oxygen to sleep. Scientists believed that Messner and Habeler would die without oxygen.  Scientists now know that two conditions make climbing at heights over eight thousand meters extremely difficult.  The first is the lack of oxygen in the extremely thin air.  The second is the low barometric¹² air pressure.

VOICE TWO:

Today, scientists say a person dropped on the top of the mountain would live no more than ten minutes.  Climbers can survive above eight thousand meters because they spend months climbing on the mountain to get used to the conditions.  Several things have made climbing Everest easier now than it was for the first climbers.  These include modern equipment and clothing.  They also include information gained from earlier climbs and scientific studies.

Nineteen ninety-three was the fortieth anniversary¹³ of the first successful climb of Mount Everest.  One hundred twenty-nine people climbed to the summit that year.  That was a record number.  Hundreds of people have reached the summit each year during the past few years.  Some expert climbers have begun leading guided trips up the mountain. 

Some people have paid as much as sixty-five thousand dollars for the chance to climb Everest.  However, many of these people have little climbing experience.  This can lead to serious problems.

VOICE ONE:

In nineteen ninety-six, Everest had its greatest tragedy.  Fifteen people died attempting to reach the top.  This was the deadliest single year in Everest history.  A record ten people died on the mountain in one day.  Two of the world's best climbers were among those killed. 

 
 
Several books by climbers have described the incident and the dangerous conditions.  The best known is “Into Thin Air‿by Jon Krakauer.  The book sold many copies around the world and increased the interest in climbing Mount Everest.

VOICE TWO:

Last year, another tragedy on Mount Everest was in the news.  Several climbers told news reporters that they had passed a British climber in trouble without stopping to rescue him.  David Sharp had been climbing alone, without a guide or teammates.  He was lying on a rock four hundred fifty meters below the summit.  Reports say as many as forty climbers passed Sharp as he lay dying¹⁴.  The climbers who left him there said that rescue efforts would have been useless.  He later froze to death. 

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VOICE ONE:

This year has been reportedly the most successful ever for Mount Everest climbers.  More than five hundred people have reached the top of the world's highest mountain.  
Samantha Larson

Last month, eighteen-year old Samantha Larson of Long Beach, California became one of the youngest people to reach the top.  She made the climb with a group that included her father.  Larson is believed to be the youngest person in the world to have climbed all of the "seven summits," the highest mountains on each of the continents. 

VOICE TWO:

Also last month, a retired¹⁵ teacher from Japan became the oldest person to reach the top of Mount Everest.  Katsusuke Yanagisawa is seventy-one years old.  He said climbing the mountain was more difficult than he expected.  He said he was not attempting to set a record.  Instead, he said he was just trying his hardest not to die.

 
Nepali guide Apa has reached the summit of Everest a record 17 times
Another record was set last month.  Nepali mountain guide Apa reached the summit for the seventeenth time.  That broke his old world record.

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VOICE ONE:

This program was written by Shelley Gollust.  Mario Ritter was our producer.  I'm Barbara Klein.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember. You can see pictures of Special English listeners on our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.  Join us again next week for EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.

 

1 mount   

n.山峰，乘用马，框，衬纸；vi.增长，骑上（马）；vt.提升，爬上，装备

参考例句：

• Their debts continued to mount up.他们的债务不断增加。
• She is the first woman who steps on the top of Mount Jolmo Lungma.她是第一个登上珠穆朗玛峰的女人。

2 summit   

n.最高点，峰顶；最高级会议；极点

参考例句：

• They climbed up the mountain and reached the summit.他们爬山，最终达到了山顶。
• The summit of the mountain is lost in the cloud and mist.山顶隐没在云雾之中。

3 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

4 geographical   

adj.地理的；地区(性)的

参考例句：

• The current survey will have a wider geographical spread.当前的调查将在更广泛的地域范围內进行。
• These birds have a wide geographical distribution.这些鸟的地理分布很广。

5 alpine   

adj.高山的；n.高山植物

参考例句：

• Alpine flowers are abundant there.那里有很多高山地带的花。
• Its main attractions are alpine lakes and waterfalls .它以高山湖泊和瀑布群为主要特色。

6 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

7 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

8 toward   

prep.对于，关于，接近，将近，向，朝

参考例句：

• Suddenly I saw a tall figure approaching toward the policeman.突然间我看到一个高大的身影朝警察靠近。
• Upon seeing her,I smiled and ran toward her. 看到她我笑了，并跑了过去。

9 disappearance   

n.消失，消散，失踪

参考例句：

• He was hard put to it to explain her disappearance.他难以说明她为什么不见了。
• Her disappearance gave rise to the wildest rumours.她失踪一事引起了各种流言蜚语。

10 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

11 historic   

adj.历史上著名的，具有历史意义的

参考例句：

• This is a historic occasion.这是具有重大历史意义的时刻。
• We are living in a great historic era.我们正处在一个伟大的历史时代。

12 barometric   

大气压力

参考例句：

• Electricity compensates for barometric pressure as well as system pressure variations. 用电补偿大气压和系统压力的变化。
• A barometric altimeter indicates height above sea level or some other selected elevation. 气压高度表用以指示海平面或另外某个被选定高度以上的高度。

13 anniversary   

n.周年(纪念日)

参考例句：

• They celebrate their wedding anniversary annually.他们每年庆祝一番结婚纪念日。
• Today is my parents'30th wedding anniversary.今天是我父母结婚30周年纪念日。

14 dying   

adj.垂死的，临终的

参考例句：

• He was put in charge of the group by the dying leader.他被临终的领导人任命为集团负责人。
• She was shown into a small room,where there was a dying man.她被领进了一间小屋子，那里有一个垂死的人。

15 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。