Trek Nepal’s Everest Region Without Ever Leaving Home · Global Voices
Sanjib Chaudhary

A glimpse of the Himalayan range featuring Ama Dablam. Image from Flickr by Franck Zecchin. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world in the Himalayan range, is a must-climb summit for mountaineers across the globe, and the wider Everest region a destination revered by many adventure and nature lovers. With its tough terrain and high altitude, the trek to the region remains inaccessible if you are not a fit and fine adrenaline junkie.
But no more.
Google's launch of a virtual tour of the Khumbu region, as it is also known, lets you walk the treacherous trail and takes you close to the stunning landscape surrounded by the world’s highest peaks.
Everest Region Trekking is awesome with varied landscape,deep gorge,valley,Mt.Everest,etc pic.twitter.com/Qbrid4poDu” #DiscoverNepal
— ◀♀Food-Fashion-Fun♂▶ (@EarneyHarisson) February 22, 2015
#Google launches virtual tour of #Nepal‘s Everest region http://t.co/i3fzf6Axi1 pic.twitter.com/oDVO2aUocF
— ST Foreign Desk (@STForeignDesk) March 12, 2015
Two of the people behind the project are Apa Sherpa, aka the 21-time Everest summiteer Super Sherpa, and Saurav Dhakal, a former journalist and social entrepreneur. The pair met during their 99-day trek to the Great Himalaya Trail, a 1,700 km hike along the foothills of the Himalayas spreading from Kanchenjunga in east to Hilsa in west.
Apa, who dreamt of being a doctor, scaled Everest as a porter for the first time and then climbed the peak 20 more times — not because he loved climbing. On his blog Growing up in the shadow of Everest, he says that did this to provide a better future for his children.
Though he could not become a doctor, he is hopeful that children of his hometown will become doctors in future. The Apa Sherpa Foundation funds a lower secondary school at his place. In March 2014, the foundation and Story Cycle, founded by Dhakal, partnered with Google Earth Outreach to support the locals in the Khumbu region to digitally represent their communities on Google Maps.
During a 10-day trek led by Apa, the team captured indoor and outdoor snapshots to create the Street View images.
Google Maps have shared an engaging video of the region in YouTube.
Ammu Kannampilly, bureau chief for Agence France-Presse in Nepal, tweeted:
You can check out #Google‘s tour of the stunning #Everest region here https://t.co/ew2epfGb3t #Nepal pic.twitter.com/LdoPFVpj2I
— Ammu Kannampilly (@akannampilly) March 12, 2015
Interested? Take the tour. The Everest region, feared for its tough terrain and harshness, is within reach now.