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Everest high: Making a molehill out of a mountain
Cancellation of flights due to bad weather has left hundreds of trekkers to the Mount Everest region in Nepal, stranded for the past six days. But such things don’t worry Dr Elizabeth Hawker. Utpal Parashar reports.
Cancellation of flights due to bad weather has left hundreds of trekkers to the Mount Everest region in Nepal, stranded for the past six days. But such things don’t worry Dr Elizabeth Hawker.
On Friday, the British ultra runner more popular as Lizzy, completed a trail, running from the Everest Base Camp to Kathmandu, a distance of 320 km, in 2 days, 23 hours and 25 minutes—a new world record.
In September this year, Lizzy had set another world record by running 247 km over a period of 24 hours. She ran two miles more than the best male competitor at the event held in Llandundo in UK.
Lizzy, who’s also a scientist, started from EBC, located at an altitude of 5360 metres above sea level, on Tuesday morning and reached Dasrath Rangshala Stadium in Kathmandu at 7.40 am on Friday.
In doing so, the 35-year-old former world champion over 100 km distance, broke her own world record of covering the grueling distance in 3 days, 2 hours and 36 minutes, which she set in 2007.
This time around she had named the race as Lizzy’s Sky Dance and it was aimed at promoting trail running in Nepal.
“Nepal has huge potential for trail running, but it is not considered a sport here. My race will be an attempt to make people aware that Nepal is an incredible destination for this activity,” she had said in a press conference earlier this month.
The tourism sector is also hoping to benefit from Lizzy’s race as it could encourage more ultra runners from other countries to come to Nepal.
“Trail running could be a new sector for adventure activity in the country. It can attract many tourists if we market it well,” said Nilendra Shrestha, President of Nepal Amateur Athletic Association.
Every year thousands of tourists from all over the world come to the Everest region to trek or climb the world’s highest mountain.
This month over three thousand had been left stranded for days at Lukla, the nearest airport from where treks to Everest starts, due to cancellation of flights as a result of inclement weather.
