Thursday, September 27, 2007

No nude mountaineering

Attention climbers: Please keep your clothes on while climbing Mount Everest.

Nepal's spoilsport mountaineering authorities are calling for a ban on nudity and attempts to set 'obscene records' on the world's highest mountain, officials said on Wednesday.

Last year, a Nepali climber claimed the world's highest display of nudity when he disrobed for several minutes while standing on the 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) summit in temperatures about minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit).

'There should be strict regulations to discourage such attempts by climbers,' said Ang Tshering, president of Nepal Mountaineering Association.

Other record-setting attempts that sparked controversy included a Dutch man who attempted to scale the peak wearing only shorts.

The people who live on the foot hill of Everest worship the mountain as a god and mountaineering authorities have asked the government to ban disrespectful stunts on Everest, Tshering said.

Mount Everest has always attracted record-setters, including the oldest climber (71 years old), the youngest climber (15 years old), the first climber with one foot and the first blind climber. In 2005, a Nepali couple exchanged vows on the summit as the first couple to get married on Everest.

Since Mount Everest was first scaled in 1953 by fully-clothed New Zealander Edmund Hillary and non-naked Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay, thousands of people have scaled the mountain. Most of them have not been nude.

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