Everest: 50 years at the top

Should the number of visitors to Everest be curbed?

In a HARDtalk interview on 30 May, David Jessel talks to two men who between them have climbed to the summit of Mount Everest three times: Nawang Gombu was the first man to ascend Everest twice. Bear Grylls became the youngest Briton to scale the peak.

Click here to watch the full interview

It is 50 years since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to ascend the world's highest mountain.

Since then, more than 1,000 people have reached the peak and more than 170 have lost their lives trying.

Statistically so many of the fatalities happen on the descent

Bear Grylls

Nawang Gombu, Tenzing Norgay's nephew, was a member of the 1953 expedition.

He left a monastery to join the expedition, which was his first. He was the youngest Sherpa on the team.

He says his uncle, Tenzing Norgay, never told him who reached the mountain first: "He (Tenzing) never told me that. He said we did it together, because we were roped up together."

Adrenaline and fatigue

In 1963, Gombu reached the peak for the first time. He went on to become the first man to scale Everest twice.

He says he has lost many Sherpa friends to the mountain.

Tenzing Norgay never revealed who reached the top first.

Bear Grylls climbed to the summit in 1998, becoming the youngest Briton to do so.

"You are at your most vulnerable when you're up there. You're at 29,000 feet and statistically so many of the fatalities happen on the descent and I think the reason for this is the adrenaline of going up just then gets replaced by that exhaustion and mistakes become very easy up there," Mr Grylls said.

There has been criticism that the boom in tourism and expeditions over the last few decades have damaged the environment.

Sir Edmund Hillary has criticised commercial climbers who pay large amounts of money to be helped to the top.

Nawang Gombu says agrees the number of people climbing the mountain should be restricted:

"They cannot close down the (the mountain) completely but they can reduce the number of expeditions."

HARDtalk can be seen on BBC World at 0330gmt, 0830gmt, 1530gmt, 1830gmt and 2330gmt.

It can also be seen on BBC News 24 at 0430 and 2330