In the Shadow of Everest

Three skydivers – two British and one Indian – have set the record for the highest parachute landing in the shadow of Mt. Everest.

The adventurers jumped from an altitude of 20,000 feet, landing at Gorak Shep, a sandy plateau at 16,940 feet. (Gorak Shep -- dubbed  "the steps to heaven" by the Dalai Lama -- is the final acclimatization stop for most common treks to Everest Base Camp.)

"It was not just Everest. I could see the whole panaorama of fantastic mountains and it was just amazing," 62-year-old Brit Leo Dickinson told the UK’s Daily Mail. Dickinson, a documentary filmmaker, was also the first person to fly over Everest in a balloon, in 1991.

"You have got the mountains rushing past you. I just didn't want it to end," Dickinson, who has made over 3,500 skydives, told the Mail after returning to Kathmandu.

Dickinson’s companions were fellow Brit Ralph Mitchell, a skydiving instructor, and Ramesh Chandra Tripathi, 45, a parajump instructor for the Indian Air Force. Mitchell has completed more than 4,000 skydives, and Tripathi – who in 2005 led an IAF team up Everest – has done 3,000.

The daredevil divers faced sub-zero temperatures and fast-changing weather when they jumped. They had a heart-pounding five seconds to open their parachutes between the jump and the landing.

"It was pretty hairy," Dickinson told the Mail. "If you missed that or even just overshot it you were either going to die or end up with something important broken."

The trio attempted the jump to help boost tourism in Nepal, which just this year allowed skydivers into the Everest zone.

"It will be for divers with some experience but we really want to open it up as one of the world’s choice drop-zones," Dickinson, who hopes to run organized trips for tourists, told the Mail.

Sounding as if his emotions were in freefall, Tripathi told the World Records Academy: "It was the fulfillment of a dream. Now if I die tomorrow, I die a happy man."

You said it.

Photo courtesy Paddl via Flickr.