Everest 2012: Photo Exhibit In Base Camp!

A couple of years back I wrote about a project that David Breashears was working on that chronicled the changes in the Himalaya over the past 90+ years. Breashears, who is well known for his famous 1996 IMAX film on Everest, called his project Rivers of Ice and he set out to recreate famous photos taken by George Mallory back in 1921 and compare the health of the Himalayan glaciers both then and now. Those photos are now on display in Everest Base Camp on the South Side of the mountain in what has to be the highest photo exhibit ever put together.

Glacierworks, an organization dedicated to studying the world's changing glaciers, has joined forces with Mountain Hardwear to put Breashear's photos on display in EBC, a place that is built on a glacier that is in full retreat due to the effects of climate change. The exhibit, which opened on Tuesday of this week runs through May 10, is entitled Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya. 


When comparing the photographs that were shot by Mallory to those that have been taken today, it is impossible to deny that the glaciers are shrinking at a rapid pace. The black and white images taken in 1921 often show thick glacial ice covering a valley and when Breashears returned to those same locations to take his follow-up images, those same glaciers have shrunk dramatically. The side-by-side comparisons of the photos is startling indeed.

Find out more about Glacierworks and this project by following the organization on Twitter and joining its Facebook page. And if you happen to be in Base Camp, be sure to drop by and checkout the exhibition.