Speaker 1: Happy weekend, everybody. This is Chuck here bringing you my
Speaker 1: selection for this Stuff you Should Know Select episode on
Speaker 1: this fine Saturday. This one is from April eleven, Sherpas
Speaker 1: colon Warm Friendly Living, and I know for a fact
Speaker 1: Josh came up with that title because I thought it
Speaker 1: was very fun and it really kind of embodied what
Speaker 1: sherpas are all about. Um. You know, sherpas will lead
Speaker 1: you up Everest or maybe some other mountain range in
Speaker 1: the area. And the more we dug into Sherpas, the
Speaker 1: more we realize just what um, warm, hospitable, amazing people
Speaker 1: they are. And uh, it's really easy to overlook the
Speaker 1: sherpa because you will often hear about the the wealthy
Speaker 1: climber of Everest, uh, and not much about the sherpa
Speaker 1: that really got them there. So this was our bid
Speaker 1: to shine little light on the Sherpa. So here we
Speaker 1: go with Sherpa's Warm Friendly Living. Welcome to Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and
Speaker 1: welcome to the Sherpa. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w
Speaker 1: Did I just say Sherpa? No, he said welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. What would you say, Welcome to the sharp
Speaker 1: because the Sherpa is a nation of people and also
Speaker 1: a last name and also an occupation. Yeah, that's pretty good. Well,
Speaker 1: that's the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always
Speaker 1: as Charles W. Chuck Bryant didn't ignore Gay Bryant. Yeah, yeah, Chuck,
Speaker 1: we're talking about sherp today. Yeah. Is it Sharpa or
Speaker 1: sharp I have no idea because I see both in
Speaker 1: this article. I do as well. All right, let's find out,
Speaker 1: shall we? If everyone will just hold on a second,
Speaker 1: are you actually looking this up? Chuck? Most people do
Speaker 1: this before there hit podcast. Have you have you ever
Speaker 1: seen Well, I'm sure this won't make it in. You
Speaker 1: never know, it'll never make it in. Have you ever
Speaker 1: seen in Um Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom?
Speaker 1: The first one? That was not the first one? Yes,
Speaker 1: it was that Raiders the Lost Ark was first, That's
Speaker 1: what I meant. I'm sorry, Temple of Doom was too.
Speaker 1: What was I thinking? I don't know. You've seen Raters
Speaker 1: of the Lost Ark? Yeah, okay, scores of times. So
Speaker 1: you know when he find he goes to meet Marian
Speaker 1: for the first time after like ten years after jilting her. Yes,
Speaker 1: the drinking scene. Yes, the guy, the huge guy that
Speaker 1: Marian is drinking with or I guess in a drinking
Speaker 1: contest with. It's like they kept hearing me say chuck
Speaker 1: over and over again. Right, Um, that my friend was Shirpa,
Speaker 1: was it? I'm pretty sure he looked Mongolian to me. No,
Speaker 1: they were definitely in like Nepal. Okay, yeah, it's it,
Speaker 1: even said Nepaul. Remember he flies in the plane a
Speaker 1: poop and it's like redline takes him to Nepal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, so let's call him a sharpa. So shir
Speaker 1: Buzz is plural of Serpa. That's what I thought. I
Speaker 1: thought so too. Um. The Sherpa people are actually pretty fascinating.
Speaker 1: They're pretty isolated, um. And they haven't been where they are,
Speaker 1: which is the base of Mount Everest in the um
Speaker 1: Solu Kumboo area region of Nepal, for more than actually
Speaker 1: about five years, and when they arrived in the Solo
Speaker 1: Cumboo region, they found it uninhabited. And the reason why
Speaker 1: is because the Sherpas are pretty much the only people
Speaker 1: on the planet besides maybe Ethiopian Highlanders or Peruvians in
Speaker 1: the Andes who could conceivably live in this area because
Speaker 1: again it's at the foot of Mount Everest. Yes, and
Speaker 1: we recorded a podcast on Tibetans and altitude sickness, so
Speaker 1: if you want to know all about that, refer to
Speaker 1: that podcast. But Josh, you're right. They migrated from Tibet
Speaker 1: from the province of Calm to the northeast corner of
Speaker 1: Nepal around the sixteenth century because of warfare. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: as I understand, they're very peaceful people. Oh very so
Speaker 1: they would have been fleeing warfare, I would say, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: not running toward it right headlong. So, um, they migrated there.
Speaker 1: There was a lot more like forest and wood and
Speaker 1: fuel for fuel at the time, which is good. And
Speaker 1: they could grow wheat and buckwheat at the time, and
Speaker 1: that's about all I could grow. But that was enough.
Speaker 1: Right later on, potatoes really changed the way they do
Speaker 1: farming because they grow a lot of potatoes now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the I think the potato was introduced in the mid
Speaker 1: nineteenth century and that kind of changed everything. Eighty I'm sorry, um,
Speaker 1: but if you think about it this, these people, well,
Speaker 1: when they first arrived in the area, they moved to
Speaker 1: um Uh the Kumbo Valley, which is higher up actually
Speaker 1: than Um the Solu area, and it's about um between
Speaker 1: eleven thousand and thirteen thousand feet and they're like, this
Speaker 1: is a little too high. Everybody's a little sick. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna move a little further down to the Soleu region.
Speaker 1: Between six it's still extremely high. Um, it's still extremely rocky.
Speaker 1: And they whip this part of the Himalayas into shape.
Speaker 1: They created um terraced farm fields. Guatemala. Baby, remember that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: down a slope you can create you can farm on
Speaker 1: the side of a mountain. People do, but um, think
Speaker 1: about this, I mean, like, how did they figure that out?
Speaker 1: I'm very curious. Well, I mean it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: not rocket science. You need flat land. And if you
Speaker 1: have a steep side of a mountain and you cut
Speaker 1: into that, you can create a series of steps, essentially,
Speaker 1: which is flat land. Cherris in their laughing, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would have been in trouble. Cherrys, like, I'd be in
Speaker 1: the Guadamala three times. I know all about step irrigation,
Speaker 1: and then I had to do all this. I would
Speaker 1: have been like, man, I wish you were flat around here.
Speaker 1: I guess I'll just sit here until I die. Um,
Speaker 1: so you'd oh, I'd be terrible at it. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons why I be terrible at it is because
Speaker 1: I will get in my car to drive fiet from say,
Speaker 1: store to store. Do you do that? Take over there
Speaker 1: at the Edgewood, like you'll got a target and then
Speaker 1: you'll drive to Kroger. I haven't been there in a while,
Speaker 1: but I have. I have. Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll walk. I walk more now than I ever had before.
Speaker 1: My entire defending like the weather or what's going on,
Speaker 1: definitely depends on whether it depends on my schedule. Very
Speaker 1: often I get that if I'm in a hurry, I
Speaker 1: might do that, right. I would make a terrible strip
Speaker 1: of though, because they don't have wheeled anything. They're a
Speaker 1: terrible strippers. I would make both terrible. Okay, yeah, well
Speaker 1: I know Aaron Cooper is going to make this exactly. Um, yes,
Speaker 1: as I just said, I think I think it bears reiterating, Um,
Speaker 1: Mr joke guy, there are no wheeled anything's there. There's
Speaker 1: no cars, there's no wheelbarrows. Yeah, they don't even use wheelbarrows,
Speaker 1: which now we've reached another reason I would be a
Speaker 1: terrible shirt but they have to carry everything. I can
Speaker 1: barely carry a thing a dog food out of the
Speaker 1: grocery store to my car. And that's like with a
Speaker 1: car involved, which has wheels, which they don't have in
Speaker 1: the Solukumboo region. That's right. They carry everything, Josh, and
Speaker 1: they use uh we actually saw this in Guatemala to
Speaker 1: the plumb line. Trumpline, trump line. Yeah, it's home line
Speaker 1: is a little different. What they'll do is they'll, let's say,
Speaker 1: get a big load of firewood and they'll they'll they'll
Speaker 1: wrap it up in in in a spank it on
Speaker 1: the bottom, spanking on the bottom. They'll wrap it up
Speaker 1: and so they can wear it on their back and
Speaker 1: a big bundle and then attached to the top of
Speaker 1: of you know, let's say they lay it in like
Speaker 1: a hammock and fold that over a hammock like thing,
Speaker 1: and then that is attached to a band that you know,
Speaker 1: it's like a headband, and so it goes around their
Speaker 1: head and it takes a lot of the weight off
Speaker 1: their back. And we saw these at them, all the
Speaker 1: dudes walking up the road, and I thought, man, look
Speaker 1: at that. That's like ancient engineering still in practice and
Speaker 1: you're like, man, I want to I gotta do more
Speaker 1: of that, And you got back here and you're like,
Speaker 1: we're cheeseburger and my Jan Sport backpack. Anybody who's ever
Speaker 1: seen the front cover of um led Zeppelin four is
Speaker 1: familiar with this concept as well. Was he wearing one
Speaker 1: of those? He should have been if he wasn't, because
Speaker 1: that's a big old bundle of sticks that guys carrying.
Speaker 1: There was a bustle in his head. Draw honeyway. So
Speaker 1: um Sherpas can whip a mountain into farmland. They can
Speaker 1: live on buck wheat and then several hundred years without
Speaker 1: the potato, and then the potato and yak yack milk
Speaker 1: and yack meat. Right. Yea. They walk everywhere, but they
Speaker 1: carry things everywhere. Um with the as they and they
Speaker 1: they are basically a mountain, their mountain folk. They have.
Speaker 1: They speak a Tibetan dialect that's virtually their own. They
Speaker 1: don't have a written language, no written language. Until the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, there is no formalized education. Um. They just lived.
Speaker 1: They carved a very meager existence out for themselves, and
Speaker 1: thanks to a dude named Sir Edmund Hillary, they now
Speaker 1: have the foundation that he set up. And we'll get
Speaker 1: to Edmund Hillary in a second, but everyone, come on,
Speaker 1: you know who he is. He's the first man to
Speaker 1: us and everest with Tin signor gay Serpa to summit
Speaker 1: to summit. What I say, I send? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: what's this? You gotta get to the top, right or else? What?
Speaker 1: He just blew sixty five grand that's about how much
Speaker 1: it cost. So through his foundation in later years, he
Speaker 1: he became to love the uh peaceful Buddhist of of
Speaker 1: the Sherpa people there, and so he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: and a set of foundation, we're gonna do things like
Speaker 1: bring some schools, bring some hospitals, give these kids access
Speaker 1: to healthcare, things like that. So he did that and
Speaker 1: that helped a lot, although nowadays, you know, the schools
Speaker 1: aren't in great shape evidently. Uh it's kind of hard
Speaker 1: to get there. So um, they're they're doing what they can. Right.
Speaker 1: You can take the folk out of the mountain, but
Speaker 1: you can't take the mountain out of the folk, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? That's right. Uh. They are very friendly,
Speaker 1: very peaceful, um, very compact, very strong, great attitudes apparently,
Speaker 1: and that's not just Chuck saying that, Um, chuck, you're
Speaker 1: basing that on the guy who basically took these very isolated, happy,
Speaker 1: UM self sustaining, self sufficient UM people, mountain people UM
Speaker 1: and introduced them to the world, or no, introduced them
Speaker 1: to the people who would introduce them to the world,
Speaker 1: right right, What is the Englishman who's credited with saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: if you want to get up Everest, do you need yourself?
Speaker 1: As that was Alexander Kellis not tens ignore gay, not
Speaker 1: Sir Edmund Hillary right, well, tends of noor gave was
Speaker 1: a SRP. He's far too modest. I'm under the impression
Speaker 1: to have been like, you want to get up Everest,
Speaker 1: you get yourself a Serpa Sherpas store. They're not big
Speaker 1: self promoters. The English have been the biggest promoters of
Speaker 1: um sherpas and UM. Alexander kellis what was his name?
Speaker 1: He tried to make it up Everest and failed. But um,
Speaker 1: there was a there was a point in time where well,
Speaker 1: if you look at a mountain, it's not like a cone.
Speaker 1: You know, those um styrofoam cones that you can get
Speaker 1: at like the craft store that have like actual volume.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a cone. The mountain is not like that.
Speaker 1: It has all sorts of craggy peaks and different faces.
Speaker 1: And if you go up one side and make it
Speaker 1: up easy, just that doesn't mean that you can go
Speaker 1: up any other side and make it up easy. Right.
Speaker 1: So the place where the um the Sherpa live is
Speaker 1: actually a pretty good way to get up Everest, but
Speaker 1: it was closed off. Nepaul as a country was closed
Speaker 1: off to the rest of the world until I think
Speaker 1: nineteen forty nine. Yeah, Everest was confirmed as a high
Speaker 1: speak in eighteen sixty five, but it wasn't like all
Speaker 1: of a sudden the floodgates were open and every brit
Speaker 1: in the world said, I must conquer that mountain that
Speaker 1: they said that, but they were like, but how to
Speaker 1: get to it? And they happened right, But in between
Speaker 1: they're like, well, let's just colonize that place and then
Speaker 1: figure out how to get up exactly true. And when
Speaker 1: India be in uh colonizing, I'm sorry when England began
Speaker 1: colonizing India, Darjeeling, across the eastern border of Nepal was
Speaker 1: a big popular tour spot for British military political officials.
Speaker 1: That's where the big wigs that's where they met, uh,
Speaker 1: the Sherpa, And that's sort of where the mountaineering profession
Speaker 1: for the Sherpa kicked off, because all of a sudden
Speaker 1: they were Englishmen saying, I can now get in here
Speaker 1: to ascend in summit this mountain, but I need some
Speaker 1: help because I'm not carrying all that junk. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's not like Sherpas are the only ethnic group around
Speaker 1: Mount Everest. But as people soon found, like you said,
Speaker 1: they were sturdy, they are a compact, they can carry
Speaker 1: tons of weight, and they have a cheerful attitude. So
Speaker 1: Alexander Kellis introduced the the climbing community, the Western climbing community,
Speaker 1: to the Sherpa, and in short order, Um Sherpas became
Speaker 1: extremely famous after like you said, Sir Edmund Hillary uh
Speaker 1: summited um Mount Everest. Yeah, and he was one of
Speaker 1: four people on that expedition. I never knew that. I
Speaker 1: just thought it was Sir Edmund Hillary got in his
Speaker 1: car in England and drove to Nepal and said, hey,
Speaker 1: ten Zig, take me to the top. But it was
Speaker 1: a big group of people and they were the only
Speaker 1: two that made it right. They were the last ones,
Speaker 1: and they just kept on going. But yes, it was
Speaker 1: ten signor gay Sherpa. That's his last name. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: as you said at the beginning of this, it's it's
Speaker 1: a it's a group of people, it's a profession, and
Speaker 1: it's a last name. That's right. Um, So at that
Speaker 1: from that moment on, everybody knew what Sherpas were, right.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they were no longer confused with al pacas. No.
Speaker 1: By in popular culture, people were like, oh, there are
Speaker 1: a group of people. Yeah, literally the people from the East,
Speaker 1: that's right. And they, like you said, don't they're not
Speaker 1: grand standards. They don't get a lot of attention. And
Speaker 1: I made a joke, Um, I believe it was either
Speaker 1: dead bodies on everest or the Tibetan altitude sickness about
Speaker 1: Sherpas being unsung at the time, about how you always
Speaker 1: hear about, you know, the Indian or the brit standing
Speaker 1: on top of the mountain and you don't see the
Speaker 1: Sherpa behind him carrying all their junk. And that's really
Speaker 1: true because when uh, well you know what I mean, Uh,
Speaker 1: when Hillary ascended and summited, he got a knighthood and
Speaker 1: Norgay got an honorary medal and you think, well, of course,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're going to give the British guy the
Speaker 1: knighthood and they're going to give the foreigner a medal. Untrue,
Speaker 1: because sirmon Hillary is from New Zealand's right, he wasn't British,
Speaker 1: so technically he wasn't a a citizen of Great Britain,
Speaker 1: and neither was ten signor gay and they still didn't
Speaker 1: get the same thing. Yeah, it was. It was called
Speaker 1: the British Everest Expedition was the four People. So that's
Speaker 1: why I think a lot of people probably thought Hillary
Speaker 1: was a brit but he was not. But again, um
Speaker 1: our Western culture is a little different from Sherpa culture.
Speaker 1: They like you said, they're not grand standards, they're not
Speaker 1: publicity hounds. They are um they do. The ones who
Speaker 1: are involved in climbing and trekking do make a pretty
Speaker 1: substantial amount of money, especially in comparison to what the
Speaker 1: average person makes in Nepal. They make about two grand
Speaker 1: for a trip, right, and that the gross domestic product
Speaker 1: per capita of Nepal in two dozen sevens like three dollars.
Speaker 1: That really puts into perspective. They're rich by other standards,
Speaker 1: I guess extremely rich, very wealthy. Um. But they they
Speaker 1: the I guess in addition to making money, they they
Speaker 1: help other people ascend Everest to attain their personal glory,
Speaker 1: right too, for the other people to attain their personal
Speaker 1: story um, which is kind of there's a lot of
Speaker 1: uh dichotomy between how the SRPA view Mount Everest and
Speaker 1: how they interact with it. That the Western influence kind
Speaker 1: of puts them in this weird position because they are
Speaker 1: they follow a form of Tibetan buddhism um which says
Speaker 1: that you should perform selfless acts and help others, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and being at the top of Everest to them
Speaker 1: means you're closer to enlightenment. Right. If the people are
Speaker 1: going to climb up anyway, you might as well go
Speaker 1: with them for too grand sure, but you might as
Speaker 1: well go with them to make sure that they don't
Speaker 1: kill themselves. Right, very selfless people, it is. But at
Speaker 1: the same time they're helping the West kind of exploit Everest.
Speaker 1: That some people worry that the Everest experience is being
Speaker 1: cheapened since since Hillary Um summited Everest, I think like
Speaker 1: more than twenty other people have, right kind of loses
Speaker 1: its um closeness to the Buddhas when you know all
Speaker 1: these other footprints are everywhere and there's a couple hundred
Speaker 1: dead bodies on the on the mountain. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: uh Nor Gay kind of summed up there how they
Speaker 1: feel about Everest when he called it. When they asked
Speaker 1: him how he felt about being up there, and he
Speaker 1: he likened it to a mother hint and said what else?
Speaker 1: He said that this was quote warm and friendly living.
Speaker 1: How about that? Yeah? And then Hillary shoved him back down.
Speaker 1: He's like, quiet to get out of my picture frame. Noah, Gay,
Speaker 1: here's your metal. Uh So, like you said, the um
Speaker 1: the region now, Josh, because of the massive amounts of tourism,
Speaker 1: and not massive like Grand Canyon massive obviously, but still
Speaker 1: for Mount Everests it's a lot of people going there
Speaker 1: trying to climb it. Um. We did talk about pollution
Speaker 1: there now, and so the very thing that brings the
Speaker 1: Tibetan Buddhist Serpa's enlightenment is also kind of denigrated the
Speaker 1: area somewhat. Yeah. Well, it's about twenty people passed through
Speaker 1: that area per year. And now you can go play pool,
Speaker 1: you have internet access, you have the trappings of modern living,
Speaker 1: do you also have the drawbacks of modern living deforestation, yeah, pollution, yeah, exploitation,
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, right, that's right. And this is
Speaker 1: what we should point out in uh Sagara Matha National
Speaker 1: Park where about thirty spas live and sagar Matha is
Speaker 1: the word for Everest, right. The the SRPA themselves call
Speaker 1: um Everest Chomo Lungma, Chomo Lungma Chumbawamba. It's close, no,
Speaker 1: but that's not it. Okay, Chomo Lugma, which means roughly
Speaker 1: goddess mother of the world or mother hen Uh. You
Speaker 1: want to talk about a couple of famous serpis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we can talk about Edmund Hillary all day long, but
Speaker 1: you never hear about Appa Sharpa. Yes, and all he's
Speaker 1: done is ascend in summit ever seventeen times more than
Speaker 1: anybody else in the world. Not bad. What about Babu
Speaker 1: uh cheery chehery Sharpa, Yeah, camped on the summit of
Speaker 1: Mount Everest fore hours without oxygen. Usually what happens when
Speaker 1: you climb Everest as you get your picture made and
Speaker 1: you say, wow, this is really unbelievable. This is amazing.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go back down right, and you have
Speaker 1: five million canisters of oxygen is disposing. I'm really high.
Speaker 1: Who else there's a lock Lockpa Galu Sherpa, who holds
Speaker 1: the world record for the fastest amount everest um a
Speaker 1: cent ten hours fifty six minutes in forty seconds. That's
Speaker 1: a lot that man. Wow, you have Ming keep a
Speaker 1: sharpa who Oh, what's the big deal with Ming? Ming
Speaker 1: just climbed everest at the age of fifteen years old,
Speaker 1: not on his xbox in real life. Yes. And then
Speaker 1: there's Pessang Lambu Sherpa, who was chuck the first woman
Speaker 1: which apparently, Um, when women started climbing everest or serving
Speaker 1: as sherpas to climbing expeditions, um in the seventies, there
Speaker 1: was uh, this is probably the biggest problem internally for
Speaker 1: the Sherpa's that um, you know, Western tourism was was
Speaker 1: having on their culture. You know, a woman's place traditionally
Speaker 1: is at the farm in Sherpa culture, on the side
Speaker 1: of the mountain. And I guess there was some static
Speaker 1: for a while, and then finally, you know, more and
Speaker 1: more women started doing it and we're doing it successfully,
Speaker 1: and um that was that. Yeah. And and evidently, um,
Speaker 1: when the husband, if the husband is the the sarpa worker,
Speaker 1: um goes on one of these trips. Then the female
Speaker 1: becomes ahead of the household at home if she's not
Speaker 1: a sharper herself, and we'll take care of things just
Speaker 1: like the husband would. It's nice, Yeah, Yet what else
Speaker 1: is here? I love these people. I think we would
Speaker 1: be you have a fun place in your heart. Means
Speaker 1: that that they remind me the people of Guatemala, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of short and friendly and warm, friendly living stocky. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes me kind of wonder there's so many similarities
Speaker 1: Chuck that huh huh uh yeah, because think about it.
Speaker 1: Everybody calls the people of Sharpa, right, there are people
Speaker 1: from the east, but that's in reference to where you
Speaker 1: are in Solu Kumba Kumbo. Right. What were they called
Speaker 1: before they moved west? The people Mayan? Maybe? Uh? Finally,
Speaker 1: Josh for my part of this podcast. If you think
Speaker 1: someone is all the rail, do you think the sharp
Speaker 1: I have a bad with not getting any recognition. There's
Speaker 1: also something called a porter. Yeah, and a lot of
Speaker 1: sharps grow up serving as porters. As porters, that's basically
Speaker 1: the job below the sherpa, who does even more of
Speaker 1: the heavy lifting and gets even less money and less
Speaker 1: oxygen less clothing, yeah, and other outerwear. Yeah. And there's
Speaker 1: an actual international porters group, right, yeah, protection group that
Speaker 1: are advocates for their safety and fair wages. Because obviously,
Speaker 1: if you've got a very poor person doing a lot
Speaker 1: of hard work, they're probably being taken advantage of in
Speaker 1: some way. So, Chuck, we would be remissed to do
Speaker 1: a podcast on the Shirpa and everest in Hillary Um
Speaker 1: and not mention the Yetti. I don't know much about
Speaker 1: the Eddie. I didn't look at that. So the Himalayas
Speaker 1: are the home of the yeti, the abominable Snowman. It's
Speaker 1: another way to put it, which is basically like the cold,
Speaker 1: extreme cold, high altitude version of Bigfoot. Is that right? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: I just always thought that's what we thought of it.
Speaker 1: I didn't look into it. No, it is pretty much okay, Um,
Speaker 1: It's a biped, very furry, heavy, large biped that's mysterious
Speaker 1: and and lives out and out by itself. It's big Foot,
Speaker 1: but in the him Alayas, it's like in the Empire,
Speaker 1: like cometh, and it's more like the Abominable Snowman in
Speaker 1: the Rudolph Christmas Specials. It looked kind of like the
Speaker 1: thing in Empire, kind of who looks like wow? Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Hillary himself was actually a believer in the Yeti. He
Speaker 1: went back after summiting Everest. He went back again in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty to look for the Yettie because he'd seen
Speaker 1: YETI footprints what he took to be YETI footprints. Oh really,
Speaker 1: huh interesting? He found nothing though he didn't and a
Speaker 1: lot of people think that these were just some other
Speaker 1: animals footprints that melted in the snow and expanded as
Speaker 1: the snow melted. Who knows YETI. Again, you have taught
Speaker 1: me something, my friend. Thank you for that, because I
Speaker 1: couldn't figre out how to wrap this one up. I
Speaker 1: feel like we should apologize for the light nature of this,
Speaker 1: but we just recorded right before this on the nuclear
Speaker 1: disaster in Japan, so I think we were rife for
Speaker 1: a little. Plus. Also, we should point out, in true
Speaker 1: Sherpa style, Chuck, they want it this way? Well, think
Speaker 1: about this. They there there there are all sorts of
Speaker 1: trappings of Western influence and degradation of culture. Um, there
Speaker 1: is a dwindling of population. I think at its peak.
Speaker 1: This area was home to thousand people. Now it's down
Speaker 1: to thirty fire like you said in them in the
Speaker 1: park right. Uh the the There was a National Geographic
Speaker 1: survey of Sherpas saying are you concerned about Western influences
Speaker 1: on your culture? And they were like, not overly. Can
Speaker 1: you hand me the tepot remote you're sitting on it
Speaker 1: if you have any mountain do or bolt. So that's it,
Speaker 1: a Serpas. If you want to read more, Um, there's
Speaker 1: actually some more in there, especially um, more on the
Speaker 1: Buddhist religion. I believe we didn't cover that fully. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's more goodness in there for sure. Yes, you can
Speaker 1: type in serpa's or sharpa if you want to be
Speaker 1: safe in the handy search bar at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com, written by Kristen Kagner of stuff Mom never
Speaker 1: told you. That's right, that's true. Excellent podcast. Yes, it
Speaker 1: is a great podcast. And they did a great job
Speaker 1: at south By Southwest they did. Um And since I
Speaker 1: said handy search bar and south By Southwest, that means
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. That's right, Josh. This is
Speaker 1: a little more Disney dirt, and most of the Disney
Speaker 1: dirt we got wasn't very good. We got a bunch
Speaker 1: of um. Yeah, there's really nothing going on there. There's
Speaker 1: underground tunnels, but that's no big deal, and it's really
Speaker 1: not like you guys think. We finally got a pretty
Speaker 1: good one. This is from m and m Um seems
Speaker 1: like she would have been one of the employees that
Speaker 1: I might have been hanging around with that know about
Speaker 1: the dirt. Some people apparently don't even know about this stuff.
Speaker 1: I hope we don't get in trouble for this hang out. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I just finished listening to the Tickling podcast, excited that
Speaker 1: you asked for Disney dirt. As a cast member at
Speaker 1: the Happiest place on Earth for almost four years, I
Speaker 1: gleaned some interesting tidbits of information for starters. In a
Speaker 1: work room behind Pirates of the Caribbean, there exists an
Speaker 1: infamous Milar table, which has a long standing reputation for
Speaker 1: being a favorite place for cast members to be amorous
Speaker 1: with one another after hours. I can't imagine how clean
Speaker 1: such a table might be, but many cast members have
Speaker 1: been known to participate in the tradition simply for the
Speaker 1: sake of being part of the legend. It's for like
Speaker 1: the Mile High Club. I guess on my attraction, the
Speaker 1: Jungle Cruise. Uh it said that one can't be a
Speaker 1: real skipper until they have urinated into the river. No, so,
Speaker 1: she says, I suspect it is much about you know,
Speaker 1: you can you can create the uh what what is
Speaker 1: it the most? What happens to play? Happiest place on Earth?
Speaker 1: But if you staff it with board and nihilistic twenty
Speaker 1: year old, it's going to end up like this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: someone's going to be in the river. Most of the time.
Speaker 1: This is done before after park operating hours, when a
Speaker 1: skipper can take out a boat alone and relieve him
Speaker 1: or herself, often into the hippo pool. So you can
Speaker 1: imagine it's harder for girls to participate in this rite
Speaker 1: of passage either. Sheer logistics, but I do know some
Speaker 1: women who have managed to become real skips. I think
Speaker 1: it'd be more physics than logistics, she says. The mechanics
Speaker 1: boggles my mind. Now for the gnarly stuff under Space Mountain,
Speaker 1: there are stored sixty tho body bags. Supposedly they're there
Speaker 1: in case of a natural disaster or some other emergency
Speaker 1: where people may be trapped inside the park for an
Speaker 1: extended period of time. I don't believe that. I don't
Speaker 1: believe it either. The food freezers in the storeroom down
Speaker 1: the hall are also over six ft tall for storage,
Speaker 1: if you know what I mean. It's quite morbid and
Speaker 1: a popular site for telling ghost stories. I've got plenty
Speaker 1: more if you want some off the record ghost stories.
Speaker 1: This was on the record geez or personal anecdotes from
Speaker 1: my time as a jungle Crui skipper. I'd be happy
Speaker 1: to share. Keep up the great work from m Well.
Speaker 1: I would love to hear the off the record once.
Speaker 1: What is her name? Am? I'd like to take her
Speaker 1: to lunch? Yeah? Well, please at least send us an email. Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't think we'd be allowed to go out to
Speaker 1: lunch with that girl. Our significant others are good. Um, Chuck, Josh,
Speaker 1: you got anything else? I'm done? All right? Um? What
Speaker 1: should we call for here? How about if you've a
Speaker 1: sended everest it's boring? Okay? Um? If you are interested
Speaker 1: in your state seceding from it's current geographical boundaries, we
Speaker 1: want to hear why that's right? Uh? Send it in
Speaker 1: an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics,
Speaker 1: visit how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com home page. M