None of those big leaps were made with us knowing what was going to happen.—BRIAN COX, CERN PHYSICISTNEPALMAY 5, 2047The Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal is a landlocked country shaped like a five-hundred-mile-long east-west bacon strip situated between China and India. While Nepal’s southern lowland plains maintain a tropical climate, the two elevated regions to the north drop quickly into alpine temperatures as the geology rises into the Himalaya Mountains. Formed by the tectonic collision of the Indian subcontinent meeting Eurasia, the Himalayan arc makes up the northern part of Nepal and contains eight of the highest elevations in the world, including Sagarmatha, better known as Mount Everest.The climbing party numbered eight. The two Americans, Shawn Eastburn and her nephew, Scott Curtis, were both from Oklahoma and the weakest climbers. Their employer, Sean Cadden, was Canadian; it was his travel company that had sponsored the trip. Jurgen Neelen and Karim Jivani had joined them in Kathmandu, the two Europeans far more experienced mountaineers.
