Answer: b) Norgay considers them to be living and affectionate.
Norgay uses the following words to describe the mountains and his feelings at the summit:
"At that great moment for which I had waited all my life my mountain did not seem to me a lifeless thing of rock and ice, but warm and friendly and living. She was a mother hen, and the other mountains were chicks under her wings. I too, I felt, had only to spread my own wings to cover and shelter the brood that I loved."
Norgay talks about Everest and the surrounding mountains as living, affectionate things that protect the surrounding environment and his homeland.