sea level
Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardise ...
, located in the
Mahalangur Himal
Mahālangūr Himāl ( ne, महालङ्गूर हिमाल, ''Mahālaṅgūra himāla'') is a section of the Himalayas in northeast Nepal and south-central Tibet of China extending east from the pass Nangpa La between Rolwaling Himal and ...
sub-range of the
Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 10 ...
. The
China–Nepal border
The China–Nepal border is the international boundary between the Tibet Autonomous Region of China and Nepal. It is in length and runs in a northwest–southeast direction along the Himalayan mountain range, including Mount Everest, the worl ...
runs across its summit point. Its elevation (snow height) of was most recently established in 2020 by the Chinese and Nepali authorities.
Mount Everest attracts many climbers, including highly experienced mountaineers. There are two main climbing routes, one approaching the summit from the southeast in Nepal (known as the "standard route") and the other from the north in Tibet. While not posing substantial technical climbing challenges on the standard route, Everest presents dangers such as
altitude sickness
Altitude sickness, the mildest form being acute mountain sickness (AMS), is the harmful effect of high altitude, caused by rapid exposure to low amounts of oxygen at high elevation. People can respond to high altitude in different ways. Sympt ...
, weather, and wind, as well as hazards from
avalanche
An avalanche is a rapid flow of snow down a slope, such as a hill or mountain.
Avalanches can be set off spontaneously, by such factors as increased precipitation or snowpack weakening, or by external means such as humans, animals, and eart ...
s and the
Khumbu Icefall
The Khumbu Icefall is located at the head of the Khumbu Glacier and the foot of the Western Cwm, which lies at an elevation of on the Nepali slopes of Mount Everest, not far above Base Camp and southwest of the summit. The icefall is considere ...
. , over 300 people have died on Everest, many of whose bodies remain on the mountain.
The first recorded efforts to reach Everest's summit were made by British
mountaineers
Mountaineering or alpinism, is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending tall mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas. Indoor climbing, sport climbin ...
. As Nepal did not allow foreigners to enter the country at the time, the British made several attempts on the north ridge route from the Tibetan side. After the first reconnaissance expedition by the British in 1921 reached on the
North Col __NOTOC__
The North Col (; ) refers to the sharp-edged pass carved by glaciers in the ridge connecting Mount Everest and Changtse in Tibet. It forms the head of the East Rongbuk Glacier.
When climbers attempt to climb Everest via the North ridge ...
, the 1922 expedition pushed the north ridge route up to , marking the first time a human had climbed above . The 1924 expedition resulted in one of the greatest mysteries on Everest to this day: George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made a final summit attempt on 8 June but never returned, sparking debate as to whether they were the first to reach the top.
Tenzing Norgay
Tenzing Norgay (; ''tendzin norgyé''; perhaps 29 May 1914 – 9 May 1986), born Namgyal Wangdi, and also referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepali-Indian Sherpa mountaineer. He was one of the first two people known to reach the su ...
and
Edmund Hillary
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reache ...
The Tibetan name for Everest is ''Qomolangma'' (, lit. "Holy Mother"). The name was first recorded with a Chinese transcription on the 1721 Kangxi Atlas during the reign of Emperor Kangxi of Qing China, and then appeared as ''Tchoumour Lancma'' on a 1733 map published in Paris by the French geographer D'Anville based on the former map. It is also popularly romanised as ''Chomolungma'' and (in Wylie) as ''Jo-mo-glang-ma''. The official Chinese transcription is whose
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally writte ...
form is ''Zhūmùlǎngmǎ Fēng''. While other Chinese names exist, including ''Shèngmǔ Fēng'' lit. "Holy Mother Peak"), these names largely phased out from May 1952 as the
Ministry of Internal Affairs
An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs.
Lists of current ministries of internal affairs
Named "ministry"
* Ministry ...
of China issued a decree to adopt as the sole name (romanised: Mount Qomolangma). Documented local names include "Deodungha" ("Holy Mountain"), but it is unclear whether it is commonly used.
In 1849, the British survey wanted to preserve local names if possible (e.g.,
Kangchenjunga
Kangchenjunga, also spelled Kanchenjunga, Kanchanjanghā (), and Khangchendzonga, is the third highest mountain in the world. Its summit lies at in a section of the Himalayas, the ''Kangchenjunga Himal'', which is bounded in the west by the ...
and
Dhaulagiri
Dhaulagiri is the seventh highest mountain in the world at above sea level, and the highest mountain within the borders of a single country (Nepal). It was first climbed on 13 May 1960 by a Swiss-Austrian-Nepali expedition.
Annapurna I () is ...
Surveyor General of India
The Surveyor General of India is the Head of Department of Survey of India, A department under the Ministry of Science and Technology of Government of India. The Surveyor General is also the most senior member of the Survey of India Service, an o ...
argued that he could not find any commonly used local name, as his search for a local name was hampered by Nepal and Tibet's exclusion of foreigners. Waugh argued that because there were many local names, it would be difficult to favour one name over all others; he decided that Peak XV should be named after British surveyor
Sir George Everest
Colonel Sir George Everest CB FRS FRAS FRGS (; 4 July 1790 – 1 December 1866) was a British surveyor and geographer who served as Surveyor General of India from 1830 to 1843.
After receiving a military education in Marlow, Everest joined t ...
, his predecessor as Surveyor General of India. Everest himself opposed the name suggested by Waugh and told the Royal Geographical Society in 1857 that "Everest" could not be written in
Hindi
Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
nor pronounced by " the native of India". Waugh's proposed name prevailed despite the objections, and in 1865, the Royal Geographical Society officially adopted Mount Everest as the name for the highest mountain in the world. The modern pronunciation of Everest () is different from Sir George's pronunciation of his surname ( ). In the late 19th century, many European
cartographers
Cartography (; from grc, χάρτης , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an i ...
incorrectly believed that a native name for the mountain was
Gaurishankar
Gaurishankar (also Gauri Sankar or Gauri Shankar; Nepali : ; Sherpa: Jomo Tseringma;) is a mountain in the Nepal Himalayas, the second highest peak of the Rolwaling Himal, behind Melungtse (7,181m). The name comes from the Hindu goddess Gauri, ...
and Everest.
In the early 1960s, the Nepali government coined the Nepali name ''Sagarmāthā'' ( IAST transcription) or ''Sagar-Matha'' (सगर-माथा, , lit. "goddess of the sky"), which means "the Head in the Great Blue Sky", being derived from सगर (sagar), meaning "sky", and माथा (māthā), meaning "head".
Other names
* Peak XV (British Empire's Survey)
* Old Darjeeling name: "Deodungha"
* "Gauri Shankar" or "Gaurisankar"; in modern times the name is used for a different peak about away, but it was used occasionally until about 1900.
Surveys
19th-century surveys
In 1802, the British began the
Great Trigonometrical Survey
The Great Trigonometrical Survey was a project that aimed to survey the entire Indian subcontinent with scientific precision. It was begun in 1802 by the British infantry officer William Lambton, under the auspices of the East India Company.Gi ...
of India to fix the locations, heights, and names of the world's highest mountains. Starting in southern India, the survey teams moved northward using giant
theodolite
A theodolite () is a precision optical instrument for measuring angles between designated visible points in the horizontal and vertical planes. The traditional use has been for land surveying, but it is also used extensively for building an ...
s, each weighing and requiring 12 men to carry, to measure heights as accurately as possible. They reached the Himalayan foothills by the 1830s, but
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...
was unwilling to allow the British to enter the country due to suspicions of their intentions. Several requests by the surveyors to enter Nepal were denied.
The British were forced to continue their observations from
, a region south of Nepal which is parallel to the Himalayas. Conditions in Terai were difficult because of torrential rains and
malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...
. Three survey officers died from malaria while two others had to retire because of failing health.
Nonetheless, in 1847, the British continued the survey and began detailed observations of the Himalayan peaks from observation stations up to distant. Weather restricted work to the last three months of the year. In November 1847, Andrew Waugh, the British Surveyor General of India, made several observations from the Sawajpore station at the east end of the Himalayas.
Kangchenjunga
Kangchenjunga, also spelled Kanchenjunga, Kanchanjanghā (), and Khangchendzonga, is the third highest mountain in the world. Its summit lies at in a section of the Himalayas, the ''Kangchenjunga Himal'', which is bounded in the west by the ...
was then considered the highest peak in the world, and with interest, he noted a peak beyond it, about away. John Armstrong, one of Waugh's subordinates, also saw the peak from a site farther west and called it peak "b". Waugh would later write that the observations indicated that peak "b" was higher than Kangchenjunga, but given the great distance of the observations, closer observations were required for verification. The following year, Waugh sent a survey official back to Terai to make closer observations of peak "b", but clouds thwarted his attempts.
In 1849, Waugh dispatched James Nicolson to the area, who made two observations from Jirol, away. Nicolson then took the largest
theodolite
A theodolite () is a precision optical instrument for measuring angles between designated visible points in the horizontal and vertical planes. The traditional use has been for land surveying, but it is also used extensively for building an ...
and headed east, obtaining over 30 observations from five different locations, with the closest being from the peak.
Nicolson retreated to
Patna
Patna (
), historically known as Pataliputra, is the capital and largest city of the state of Bihar in India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Patna had a population of 2.35 million, making it the 19th largest city in India. ...
on the
Ganges
The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...
to perform the necessary calculations based on his observations. His raw data gave an average height of for peak "b", but this did not consider
light refraction
In physics, refraction is the redirection of a wave as it passes from one medium to another. The redirection can be caused by the wave's change in speed or by a change in the medium. Refraction of light is the most commonly observed phenomeno ...
, which distorts heights. However, the number clearly indicated that peak "b" was higher than Kangchenjunga. Nicolson contracted malaria and was forced to return home without finishing his calculations. Michael Hennessy, one of Waugh's assistants, had begun designating peaks based on
Roman numerals
Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, eac ...
, with Kangchenjunga named Peak IX. Peak "b" now became known as Peak XV.
In 1852, stationed at the survey headquarters in
Dehradun
Dehradun () is the capital and the most populous city of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and is governed by the Dehradun Municipal Corporation, with the Uttarakhand Legislative As ...
,
Radhanath Sikdar
Radhanath Sikdar (Bengali: রাধানাথ শিকদার; 5 October 1813 – 17 May 1870) was an Indian mathematician who is best known for calculating the height of Mount Everest. He was the first person to calculate the height of M ...
, an Indian mathematician and surveyor from
Bengal
Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
was the first to identify Everest as the world's highest peak, using
trigonometric
Trigonometry () is a branch of mathematics that studies relationships between side lengths and angles of triangles. The field emerged in the Hellenistic world during the 3rd century BC from applications of geometry to astronomical studies. ...
calculations based on Nicolson's measurements. An official announcement that Peak XV was the highest was delayed for several years as the calculations were repeatedly verified. Waugh began work on Nicolson's data in 1854, and along with his staff spent almost two years working on the numbers, having to deal with the problems of light refraction, barometric pressure, and temperature over the vast distances of the observations. Finally, in March 1856 he announced his findings in a letter to his deputy in
Calcutta
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...
. Kangchenjunga was declared to be , while Peak XV was given the height of . Waugh concluded that Peak XV was "most probably the highest in the world". Peak XV (measured in feet) was calculated to be exactly high, but was publicly declared to be in order to avoid the impression that an exact height of was nothing more than a rounded estimate. Waugh is sometimes playfully credited with being "the first person to put two feet on top of Mount Everest".
20th-century surveys
In 1856, Andrew Waugh announced Everest (then known as Peak XV) as high, after several years of calculations based on observations made by the
Great Trigonometrical Survey
The Great Trigonometrical Survey was a project that aimed to survey the entire Indian subcontinent with scientific precision. It was begun in 1802 by the British infantry officer William Lambton, under the auspices of the East India Company.Gi ...
.
In 1955, the elevation of was first determined by an Indian survey, made closer to the mountain, also using
theodolite
A theodolite () is a precision optical instrument for measuring angles between designated visible points in the horizontal and vertical planes. The traditional use has been for land surveying, but it is also used extensively for building an ...
s. In 1975 it was subsequently reaffirmed by a Chinese measurement of . In both cases the snow cap, not the rock head, was measured.
The height given was officially recognised by Nepal and China. Nepal planned a new survey in 2019 to determine if the
April 2015 Nepal earthquake
The April 2015 Nepal earthquake (also known as the Gorkha earthquake) killed 8,964 people and injured 21,952 more. It occurred at on Saturday, 25 April 2015, with a magnitude of 7.8 Mw or 8.1 Ms and a maximum Mercalli Intensity of X (''Extreme ...
affected the height of the mountain.
In May 1999, an American Everest expedition directed by
Bradford Washburn
Henry Bradford Washburn Jr. (June 7, 1910 – January 10, 2007) was an American explorer, mountaineer, photographer, and cartographer. He established the Boston Museum of Science, served as its director from 1939–1980, and from 1985 until his ...
anchored a
GPS
The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...
unit into the highest bedrock. A rock head elevation of , and a snow/ice elevation higher, were obtained via this device. Although as of 2001, it has not been officially recognised by Nepal, this figure is widely quoted.
Geoid
The geoid () is the shape that the ocean surface would take under the influence of the gravity of Earth, including gravitational attraction and Earth's rotation, if other influences such as winds and tides were absent. This surface is extended ...
uncertainty casts doubt upon the accuracy claimed by both the 1999 and 2005 (see § 21st-century surveys) surveys.
In 1955, a detailed
photogrammetric
Photogrammetry is the science and technology of obtaining reliable information about physical objects and the environment through the process of recording, measuring and interpreting photographic images and patterns of electromagnetic radiant ima ...
map (at a scale of 1:50,000) of the
Khumbu
Khumbu (also known as the Everest Region) is a region of northeastern Nepal on the Nepalese side of Mount Everest. It is part of the Solukhumbu District, which in turn is part of Province No. 1.Bradley, Mayhew; "Trekking in the Nepal Himalaya"; ( ...
region, including the south side of Mount Everest, was made by Erwin Schneider as part of the 1955 International Himalayan Expedition, which also attempted
Lhotse
Lhotse ( ne, ल्होत्से ; , ''lho tse'', ) is the fourth highest mountain in the world at , after Mount Everest, K2, and Kangchenjunga. The main summit is on the border between Tibet Autonomous Region of China and the Khumbu ...
.
In the late 1980s, an even more detailed
topographic
Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps.
Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary scie ...
map of the Everest area was made under the direction of Bradford Washburn, using extensive
aerial photography
Aerial photography (or airborne imagery) is the taking of photographs from an aircraft or other airborne platforms. When taking motion pictures, it is also known as aerial videography.
Platforms for aerial photography include fixed-wing aircra ...
.
21st-century surveys
On 9 October 2005, after several months of measurement and calculation, the
Chinese Academy of Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republ ...
and State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping announced the height of Everest as with accuracy of ±, claiming it was the most accurate and precise measurement to date. This height is based on the highest point of rock and not the snow and ice covering it. The Chinese team measured a snow-ice depth of , which is in agreement with a net elevation of . An argument arose between China and Nepal as to whether the official height should be the rock height (8,844 m, China) or the snow height (8,848 m, Nepal). In 2010, both sides agreed that the height of Everest is 8,848 m, and Nepal recognises China's claim that the rock height of Everest is 8,844 m. On 8 December 2020, it was jointly announced by the two countries that the new official height is .
It is thought that the
plate tectonics
Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large ...
of the area are adding to the height and moving the summit northeastwards. Two accounts suggest the rates of change are per year vertically and per year horizontally, but another account mentions more lateral movement (), and even shrinkage has been suggested.
Comparisons
The summit of Everest is the point at which Earth's surface reaches the greatest distance
above sea level
Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''.
The comb ...
. Several other mountains are sometimes claimed to be the "tallest mountains on Earth".
Mauna Kea
Mauna Kea ( or ; ; abbreviation for ''Mauna a Wākea''); is a dormant volcano on the island of Hawaii. Its peak is above sea level, making it the highest point in the state of Hawaii and second-highest peak of an island on Earth. The peak is ...
in Hawaii is tallest when measured from its base; it rises over when measured from its base on the mid-ocean floor, but only attains above sea level.
By the same measure of base to summit,
Denali
Denali (; also known as Mount McKinley, its former official name) is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of above sea level. With a topographic prominence of and a topographic isolation of , Denali is the thir ...
, in
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
, also known as Mount McKinley, is taller than Everest as well. Despite its height above sea level of only , Denali sits atop a sloping plain with elevations from , yielding a height above base in the range of ; a commonly quoted figure is . By comparison, reasonable base elevations for Everest range from on the south side to on the
Tibetan Plateau
The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the Ti ...
, yielding a height above base in the range of .''Mount Everest'' (1:50,000 scale map), prepared under the direction of
Bradford Washburn
Henry Bradford Washburn Jr. (June 7, 1910 – January 10, 2007) was an American explorer, mountaineer, photographer, and cartographer. He established the Boston Museum of Science, served as its director from 1939–1980, and from 1985 until his ...
for the Boston Museum of Science, the Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research, and the
National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world.
Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, and ...
, 1991, .
The summit of
Chimborazo
Chimborazo () is a currently inactive stratovolcano in the Cordillera Occidental range of the Andes. Its last known eruption is believed to have occurred around 550 A.D.
Chimborazo's summit is the farthest point on the Earth's surface from t ...
in
Ecuador
Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...
is farther from Earth's centre () than that of Everest (), because the Earth bulges at the equator. This is despite Chimborazo having a peak above sea level versus Mount Everest's .
Geology
Geologists have subdivided the rocks comprising Mount Everest into three units called formations.Yin, C.-H., and S.-T. Kuo. 1978. "Stratigraphy of the Mount Jolmo Langma and its north slope." Scientia Sinica. v. 5, pp. 630–644Sakai, H., M. Sawada, Y. Takigami, Y. Orihashi, T. Danhara, H. Iwano, Y. Kuwahara, Q. Dong, H. Cai, and J. Li. 2005. "Geology of the summit limestone of Mount Qomolangma (Everest) and cooling history of the Yellow Band under the Qomolangma detachment."
Island Arc
Island arcs are long chains of active volcanoes with intense seismic activity found along convergent tectonic plate boundaries. Most island arcs originate on oceanic crust and have resulted from the descent of the lithosphere into the mantle alon ...
. v. 14 no. 4 pp. 297–310. Each formation is separated from the other by low-angle faults, called detachments, along which they have been thrust southward over each other. From the summit of Mount Everest to its base these rock units are the Qomolangma Formation, the
North Col __NOTOC__
The North Col (; ) refers to the sharp-edged pass carved by glaciers in the ridge connecting Mount Everest and Changtse in Tibet. It forms the head of the East Rongbuk Glacier.
When climbers attempt to climb Everest via the North ridge ...
Formation, and the Rongbuk Formation.
The Qomolangma Formation, also known as the Jolmo Lungama Formation, runs from the summit to the top of the Yellow Band, about above sea level. It consists of greyish to dark grey or white, parallel laminated and bedded,
Ordovician
The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period million years ago (Mya) to the start ...
limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
interlayered with subordinate beds of recrystallised
dolomite Dolomite may refer to:
*Dolomite (mineral), a carbonate mineral
*Dolomite (rock), also known as dolostone, a sedimentary carbonate rock
*Dolomite, Alabama, United States, an unincorporated community
*Dolomite, California, United States, an unincor ...
with
argillaceous
Clay minerals are hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates (e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4), sometimes with variable amounts of iron, magnesium, alkali metals, alkaline earths, and other cations found on or near some planetary surfaces.
Clay minerals ...
siltstone
Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility.Blatt ''et al.'' 1980, p ...
. Gansser first reported finding microscopic fragments of
crinoid
Crinoids are marine animals that make up the class Crinoidea. Crinoids that are attached to the sea bottom by a stalk in their adult form are commonly called sea lilies, while the unstalked forms are called feather stars or comatulids, which are ...
s in this limestone. Later
petrograph
In archaeology, rock art is human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type also ...
ic analysis of samples of the limestone from near the summit revealed them to be composed of carbonate pellets and finely fragmented remains of
trilobite
Trilobites (; meaning "three lobes") are extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. Trilobites form one of the earliest-known groups of arthropods. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the At ...
s, crinoids, and
ostracods
Ostracods, or ostracodes, are a class of the Crustacea (class Ostracoda), sometimes known as seed shrimp. Some 70,000 species (only 13,000 of which are extant) have been identified, grouped into several orders. They are small crustaceans, typical ...
. Other samples were so badly sheared and recrystallised that their original constituents could not be determined. A thick, white-weathering
thrombolite
Thrombolites (from Ancient Greek θρόμβος ''thrómbos'' meaning " clot" and λῐ́θος ''líthos'' meaning "stone") are clotted accretionary structures formed in shallow water by the trapping, binding, and cementation of sedimentary g ...
bed that is thick comprises the foot of the " Third Step", and base of the summit pyramid of Everest. This bed, which crops out starting about below the summit of Mount Everest, consists of sediments trapped, bound, and cemented by the biofilms of micro-organisms, especially
cyanobacteria
Cyanobacteria (), also known as Cyanophyta, are a phylum of gram-negative bacteria that obtain energy via photosynthesis. The name ''cyanobacteria'' refers to their color (), which similarly forms the basis of cyanobacteria's common name, blu ...
, in shallow marine waters. The Qomolangma Formation is broken up by several high-angle faults that terminate at the low angle
normal fault
In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...
, the Qomolangma Detachment. This detachment separates it from the underlying Yellow Band. The lower five metres of the Qomolangma Formation overlying this detachment are very highly deformed.Myrow, P.M., N.C. Hughes, M.P. Searle, C.M. Fanning, S.-C. Peng, and S.K. Parcha, 2009, "Stratigraphic correlation of Cambrian Ordovician deposits along the Himalaya: Implications for the age and nature of rocks in the Mount Everest region". ''Geological Society of America Bulletin''. v. 121, no. 3–4, pp. 323–332.
The bulk of Mount Everest, between , consists of the
North Col __NOTOC__
The North Col (; ) refers to the sharp-edged pass carved by glaciers in the ridge connecting Mount Everest and Changtse in Tibet. It forms the head of the East Rongbuk Glacier.
When climbers attempt to climb Everest via the North ridge ...
Formation, of which the Yellow Band forms the upper part between . The Yellow Band consists of intercalated beds of Middle
Cambrian
The Cambrian Period ( ; sometimes symbolized C with bar, Ꞓ) was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million ...
diopside
Diopside is a monoclinic pyroxene mineral with composition . It forms complete solid solution series with hedenbergite () and augite, and partial solid solutions with orthopyroxene and pigeonite. It forms variably colored, but typically dull ...
-
epidote
Epidote is a calcium aluminium iron sorosilicate mineral.
Description
Well developed crystals of epidote, Ca2Al2(Fe3+;Al)(SiO4)(Si2O7)O(OH), crystallizing in the monoclinic system, are of frequent occurrence: they are commonly prismatic in habi ...
-bearing
marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...
, which weathers a distinctive yellowish brown, and
muscovite
Muscovite (also known as common mica, isinglass, or potash mica) is a hydrated phyllosilicate mineral of aluminium and potassium with formula K Al2(Al Si3 O10)( F,O H)2, or ( KF)2( Al2O3)3( SiO2)6( H2O). It has a highly perfect basal cleavag ...
-
biotite
Biotite is a common group of phyllosilicate minerals within the mica group, with the approximate chemical formula . It is primarily a solid-solution series between the iron-endmember annite, and the magnesium-endmember phlogopite; more alumino ...
phyllite
Phyllite ( ) is a type of foliated metamorphic rock created from slate that is further metamorphosed so that very fine grained white mica achieves a preferred orientation.Stephen Marshak ''Essentials of Geology'', 3rd ed. It is primarily compo ...
and semischist. Petrographic analysis of marble collected from about found it to consist as much as five per cent of the ghosts of recrystallised crinoid ossicles. The upper five metres of the Yellow Band lying adjacent to the Qomolangma Detachment is badly deformed. A thick fault
breccia
Breccia () is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or rocks cemented together by a fine-grained matrix.
The word has its origins in the Italian language, in which it means "rubble". A breccia may have a variety of di ...
separates it from the overlying Qomolangma Formation.
The remainder of the North Col Formation, exposed between on Mount Everest, consists of interlayered and deformed schist, phyllite, and minor marble. Between , the North Col Formation consists chiefly of biotite-quartz phyllite and chlorite-biotite phyllite intercalated with minor amounts of biotite-
sericite
Sericite is the name given to very fine, ragged grains and aggregates of white (colourless) micas, typically made of muscovite, illite, or paragonite. Sericite is produced by the alteration of orthoclase or plagioclase feldspars in areas that hav ...
-quartz schist. Between , the lower part of the North Col Formation consists of biotite-quartz schist intercalated with epidote-quartz schist, biotite-calcite-quartz schist, and thin layers of
quartz
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...
ose
marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...
. These metamorphic rocks appear to be the result of the metamorphism of Middle to Early Cambrian deep sea
flysch
Flysch () is a sequence of sedimentary rock layers that progress from deep-water and turbidity flow deposits to shallow-water shales and sandstones. It is deposited when a deep basin forms rapidly on the continental side of a mountain building ep ...
composed of interbedded,
mudstone
Mudstone, a type of mudrock, is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Mudstone is distinguished from '' shale'' by its lack of fissility (parallel layering).Blatt, H., and R.J. Tracy, 1996, ''Petrology. ...
,
shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especial ...
, clayey
sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
, calcareous sandstone,
graywacke
Greywacke or graywacke (German ''grauwacke'', signifying a grey, earthy rock) is a variety of sandstone generally characterized by its hardness, dark color, and poorly sorted angular grains of quartz, feldspar, and small rock fragments or lit ...
, and sandy limestone. The base of the North Col Formation is a regional low-angle normal fault called the "Lhotse detachment".
Below 7,000 m (23,000 ft), the Rongbuk Formation underlies the North Col Formation and forms the base of Mount Everest. It consists of
sillimanite
Sillimanite is an aluminosilicate mineral with the chemical formula Al2SiO5. Sillimanite is named after the American chemist Benjamin Silliman (1779–1864). It was first described in 1824 for an occurrence in Chester, Connecticut.
Occurrence
S ...
-
K-feldspar
Orthoclase, or orthoclase feldspar (endmember formula K Al Si3 O8), is an important tectosilicate mineral which forms igneous rock. The name is from the Ancient Greek for "straight fracture," because its two cleavage planes are at right angles t ...
grade schist and
gneiss
Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures an ...
dikes
Dyke (UK) or dike (US) may refer to:
General uses
* Dyke (slang), a slang word meaning "lesbian"
* Dike (geology), a subvertical sheet-like intrusion of magma or sediment
* Dike (mythology), ''Dikē'', the Greek goddess of moral justice
* Dikes ...
of
leucogranite
Leucogranite is a light-colored, granitic, igneous rock containing almost no dark minerals. Alaskite is a synonym.Searle, M.P. (1999) ''Emplacement of Himalayan leucogranites by magma injection along giant sill complexes: examples from the Cho Oyu, Gyachung Kang and Everest leucogranites (Nepal Himalaya)''. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences. v. 17, no. 5–6, pp. 773–783. These leucogranites are part of a belt of Late
Oligocene
The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the ...
–
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...
intrusive rocks known as the Higher Himalayan leucogranite. They formed as the result of partial melting of
Paleoproterozoic
The Paleoproterozoic Era (;, also spelled Palaeoproterozoic), spanning the time period from (2.5–1.6 Ga), is the first of the three sub-divisions (eras) of the Proterozoic Eon. The Paleoproterozoic is also the longest era of the Earth's ...
to Ordovician high-grade metasedimentary rocks of the Higher Himalayan Sequence about 20 to 24 million years ago during the subduction of the Indian Plate.Guo, Z., and M. Wilson (2012) ''The Himalayan leucogranites: Constraints on the nature of their crustal source region and geodynamic setting.'' Gondwana Research. v. 22, no. 2, pp. 360–376.
Mount Everest consists of sedimentary and metamorphic rocks that have been faulted southward over continental crust composed of Archean granulites of the Indian Plate during the Cenozoic collision of India with Asia. Current interpretations argue that the Qomolangma and North Col formations consist of marine sediments that accumulated within the continental shelf of the northern passive continental margin of India before it collided with Asia. The Cenozoic collision of India with Asia subsequently deformed and metamorphosed these strata as it thrust them southward and upward.Myrow, P.M., N.C. Hughes, T.S. Paulsen, I.S. Williams, S.K. Parcha, K.R. Thompson, S.A. Bowring, S.-C. Peng, and A.D. Ahluwalia. 2003. ''Integrated tectonostratigraphic reconstruction of the Himalaya and implications for its tectonic reconstruction.'' Earth and Planetary Science Letters. vol. 212, pp. 433–441.Myrow, P.M., N.C. Hughes, J.W. Goodge, C.M. Fanning, I.S. Williams, S.-C. Peng, O.N. Bhargava, S.K. Tangri, S.K. Parcha, and K.R. Pogue. 2010. ''Extraordinary transport and mixing of sediment across Himalayan central Gondwanaland during the Cambrian-Ordovician.'' Geological Society of America Bulletin. vol. 122, pp. 1660–1670. The Rongbuk Formation consists of a sequence of high-grade metamorphic and granitic rocks that were derived from the alteration of high-grade metasedimentary rocks. During the collision of India with Asia, these rocks were thrust downward and to the north as they were overridden by other strata; heated, metamorphosed, and partially melted at depths of over below sea level; and then forced upward to surface by thrusting towards the south between two major detachments.Searle, M. 2012. ''Colliding Continents: A geological exploration of the Himalaya, Karakoram, & Tibet.'' Oxford University Press, Oxford. 464 pp. The Himalayas are rising by about 5 mm per year.
IUGS geological heritage site
In respect of the recognition of the 'highest rocks on the planet' as fossiliferous, marine limestone, the 'Ordovician Rocks of Mount Everest' were included by the
International Union of Geological Sciences
The International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) is an international non-governmental organization devoted to international cooperation in the field of geology.
About
The IUGS was founded in 1961 and is a Scientific Union member of the Inte ...
(IUGS) in its assemblage of 100 'geological heritage sites' around the world in a listing published in October 2022. The organisation defines an 'IUGS Geological Heritage Site' as 'a key place with geological elements and/or processes of international scientific relevance, used as a reference, and/or with a substantial contribution to the development of geological sciences through history.'
Flora and fauna
There is very little native flora or fauna on Everest. A
moss
Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) '' sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and hor ...
grows at on Mount Everest. It may be the highest altitude plant species. An alpine cushion plant called '' Arenaria'' is known to grow below in the region. According to the study based on satellite data from 1993 to 2018, vegetation is expanding in the Everest region. Researchers have found plants in areas that were previously deemed bare.
''
Euophrys omnisuperstes
''Euophrys omnisuperstes'' (the species name means ''standing above everything''), the Himalayan jumping spider, is a small and toxic jumping spider that lives at elevations of up to in the Himalayas, including Mount Everest, making it a candida ...
'', a minute black
jumping spider
Jumping spiders are a group of spiders that constitute the family (biology), family Salticidae. As of 2019, this family contained over 600 described genera and over 6,000 described species, making it the largest family of spiders at 13% of all sp ...
, has been found at elevations as high as , possibly making it the highest confirmed non-microscopic permanent resident on Earth. In the base camp of Everest the jumping spider '' Euophrys everestensis'' occurs. It lurks in crevices and may feed on frozen insects that have been blown there by the wind. There is a high likelihood of microscopic life at even higher altitudes.
Birds, such as the
bar-headed goose
The bar-headed goose (''Anser indicus'') is a goose that breeds in Central Asia in colonies of thousands near mountain lakes and winters in South Asia, as far south as peninsular India. It lays three to eight eggs at a time in a ground nest. It ...
, have been seen flying at the higher altitudes of the mountain, while others, such as the
chough
There are two species of passerine birds commonly called chough ( ) that constitute the genus ''Pyrrhocorax'' of the Corvidae (crow) family of birds. These are the red-billed chough (''Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax''), and the Alpine chough (or yellow- ...
, have been spotted as high as the
South Col
The South Col is a sharp-edged col between Mount Everest and Lhotse, the highest and fourth-highest mountains in the world, respectively. The South Col is typically swept by high winds, leaving it free of significant snow accumulation. Since 195 ...
at .''The Ascent of Everest'' by John Hunt (Hodder & Stoughton, 1953) In chapter 14, Hunt describes seeing a chough on the South Col; meanwhile Charles Evans saw some unidentified birds fly over the col
Yellow-billed chough
The Alpine chough (), or yellow-billed chough (''Pyrrhocorax graculus'') is a bird in the crow family, one of only two species in the genus '' Pyrrhocorax''. Its two subspecies breed in high mountains from Spain eastwards through southern Europ ...
s have been seen as high as and bar-headed geese migrate over the Himalayas. In 1953, George Lowe (part of the expedition of Tenzing and Hillary) said that he saw bar-headed geese flying over Everest's summit.
Yak
The domestic yak (''Bos grunniens''), also known as the Tartary ox, grunting ox or hairy cattle, is a species of long-haired domesticated cattle found throughout the Himalayan region of the Indian subcontinent, the Tibetan Plateau, Kachin Sta ...
s are often used to haul gear for Mount Everest climbs. They can haul 100 kg (220 pounds), have thick fur and large lungs. Other animals in the region include the
Himalayan tahr
The Himalayan tahr (''Hemitragus jemlahicus'') is a large even-toed ungulate native to the Himalayas in southern Tibet, northern India, western Bhutan and Nepal. It is listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List, as the population is declini ...
which is sometimes eaten by the
snow leopard
The snow leopard (''Panthera uncia''), also known as the ounce, is a Felidae, felid in the genus ''Panthera'' native to the mountain ranges of Central Asia, Central and South Asia. It is listed as Vulnerable species, Vulnerable on the IUCN Red ...
. The
Himalayan black bear
The Himalayan black bear (''Ursus thibetanus laniger'') is a subspecies of the Asian black bear found in the Himalayas of India, Bhutan, Nepal, China, and Pakistan.
Description
It is distinguished from '' U. t. thibetanus'' by its longer, thicke ...
can be found up to about and the
red panda
The red panda (''Ailurus fulgens''), also known as the lesser panda, is a small mammal native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China. It has dense reddish-brown fur with a black belly and legs, white-lined ears, a mostly white muzzle ...
is also present in the region. One expedition found a surprising range of species in the region including a
pika
A pika ( or ; archaically spelled pica) is a small, mountain-dwelling mammal found in Asia and North America. With short limbs, very round body, an even coat of fur, and no external tail, they resemble their close relative, the rabbit, but wi ...
and ten new species of ants.
Climate
Mount Everest has an
ice cap climate
An ice cap climate is a polar climate where no mean monthly temperature exceeds . The climate covers areas in or near the high latitudes (65° latitude) to polar regions (70–90° north and south latitude), such as Antarctica, some of the northe ...
(Köppen ''EF'') with all months averaging well below freezing.
Climate change
The base camp for Everest expeditions based out of Nepal is located by Khumbu Glacier, which is rapidly thinning and destabilizing due to
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
, making it unsafe for climbers. As recommended by the committee formed by Nepal's government to facilitate and monitor mountaineering in the Everest region, Taranath Adhikari—the director general of Nepal's tourism department—said they have plans to move the base camp to a lower altitude. This would mean a longer distance for climbers between the base camp and Camp 1. However, the present base camp is still useful and could still serve its purpose for three to four years. The move may happen by 2024, per officials.
Meteorology
In 2008, a new weather station at about elevation went online. The station's first data in May 2008 were air temperature , relative humidity 41.3 per cent, atmospheric pressure 382.1 hPa (38.21 kPa), wind direction 262.8°, wind speed 12.8 m/s (28.6 mph, 46.1 km/h), global
solar radiation
Solar irradiance is the power per unit area (surface power density) received from the Sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range of the measuring instrument.
Solar irradiance is measured in watts per square metre (W/m ...
711.9 watts/m2, solar UVA radiation 30.4 W/m2. The project was orchestrated by Stations at High Altitude for Research on the Environment (SHARE), which also placed the
Mount Everest webcam
The Mount Everest Webcam (EWC) was activated by the EVK2Minoprio Organization at the same time as the COP 27- 2022
It is a webcam located on Kala Patthar, a mountain in Nepal located in front of Everest, in the Himalayas Himalaya, at an elevati ...
in 2011. The solar-powered weather station is on the
South Col
The South Col is a sharp-edged col between Mount Everest and Lhotse, the highest and fourth-highest mountains in the world, respectively. The South Col is typically swept by high winds, leaving it free of significant snow accumulation. Since 195 ...
.
Mount Everest extends into the upper
troposphere
The troposphere is the first and lowest layer of the atmosphere of the Earth, and contains 75% of the total mass of the planetary atmosphere, 99% of the total mass of water vapour and aerosols, and is where most weather phenomena occur. From ...
and penetrates the
stratosphere
The stratosphere () is the second layer of the atmosphere of the Earth, located above the troposphere and below the mesosphere. The stratosphere is an atmospheric layer composed of stratified temperature layers, with the warm layers of air ...
. The air pressure at the summit is generally about one-third what it is at sea level. The altitude can expose the summit to the fast and freezing winds of the
jet stream
Jet streams are fast flowing, narrow, meandering thermal wind, air currents in the Atmosphere of Earth, atmospheres of some planets, including Earth. On Earth, the main jet streams are located near the altitude of the tropopause and are west ...
. Winds commonly attain ; in February 2004, a wind speed of was recorded at the summit.
These winds can hamper or endanger climbers, by blowing them into chasms or (by
Bernoulli's principle
In fluid dynamics, Bernoulli's principle states that an increase in the speed of a fluid occurs simultaneously with a decrease in static pressure or a decrease in the fluid's potential energy. The principle is named after the Swiss mathematici ...
) by lowering the air pressure further, reducing available oxygen by up to 14 per cent. To avoid the harshest winds, climbers typically aim for a 7- to 10-day window in the spring and fall when the Asian
monsoon
A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscil ...
season is starting up or ending.
Expeditions
Because Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world, it has attracted considerable attention and climbing attempts. Whether the mountain was climbed in ancient times is unknown. It may have been climbed in 1924, although this has never been confirmed, as neither of the men making the attempt returned. Several climbing routes have been established over several decades of climbing expeditions to the mountain.
Overview
Everest's first known summiting occurred by 1953, and interest by climbers increased. Despite the effort and attention poured into expeditions, only about 200 people had summitted by 1987. Everest remained a difficult climb for decades, even for serious attempts by professional climbers and large national expeditions, which were the norm until the commercial era began in the 1990s.
By March 2012, Everest had been climbed 5,656 times with 223 deaths. Although lower mountains have longer or steeper climbs, Everest is so high the
jet stream
Jet streams are fast flowing, narrow, meandering thermal wind, air currents in the Atmosphere of Earth, atmospheres of some planets, including Earth. On Earth, the main jet streams are located near the altitude of the tropopause and are west ...
can hit it. Climbers can be faced with winds beyond when the weather shifts. At certain times of the year the jet stream shifts north, providing periods of relative calm at the mountain. Other dangers include blizzards and avalanches.
By 2013,
The Himalayan Database
''The Himalayan Database: The Expedition Archives of Elizabeth Hawley'' is a large digital and published record of mountaineering in the ''Nepalese Himalayas'' since 1903 (i.e. it does not include the ''Pakistan Himalaya'' peaks such as K2 and ...
recorded 6,871 summits by 4,042 different people.
Early attempts
In 1885,
Clinton Thomas Dent
Clinton Thomas Dent FRCS (7 December 1850 – 26 August 1912) was an English surgeon, author and mountaineer.
Early life
The fourth surviving son of Thomas Dent, he was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge.
Alpinism
Alongsi ...
, president of the
Alpine Club
The first alpine club, the Alpine Club, based in the United Kingdom, was founded in London in 1857 as a gentlemen's club. It was once described as:
:"a club of English gentlemen devoted to mountaineering, first of all in the Alps, members of which ...
, suggested that climbing Mount Everest was possible in his book ''Above the Snow Line''.
The northern approach to the mountain was discovered by George Mallory and
Guy Bullock
Guy Henry Bullock (23 July 1887 – 12 April 1956) was a British diplomat who is best known for his participation in the 1921 British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition. As expedition mountaineers, he and George Mallory found a northern acc ...
on the initial 1921 British Reconnaissance Expedition. It was an exploratory expedition not equipped for a serious attempt to climb the mountain. With Mallory leading (and thus becoming the first European to set foot on Everest's flanks) they climbed the North Col to an altitude of . From there, Mallory espied a route to the top, but the party was unprepared for the great task of climbing any further and descended.
The British returned for a 1922 expedition. George Finch climbed using oxygen for the first time. He ascended at a remarkable speed— per hour, and reached an altitude of , the first time a human reported to climb higher than 8,000 m. Mallory and Col. Felix Norton made a second unsuccessful attempt.
The next expedition was in 1924. The initial attempt by Mallory and Geoffrey Bruce was aborted when weather conditions prevented the establishment of Camp VI. The next attempt was that of Norton and Somervell, who climbed without oxygen and in perfect weather, traversing the North Face into the Great Couloir. Norton managed to reach , though he ascended only or so in the last hour. Mallory rustled up oxygen equipment for a last-ditch effort. He chose young Andrew Irvine as his partner
On 8 June 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made an attempt on the summit via the North Col-North Ridge-Northeast Ridge route from which they never returned. On 1 May 1999, the
Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition
The goal of the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition of 1999 was to discover evidence of whether George Mallory and Andrew Irvine had been the first to summit Mount Everest in their attempt of 8–9 June 1924. The expedition was organised by r ...
found Mallory's body on the North Face in a snow basin below and to the west of the traditional site of Camp VI. Controversy has raged in the mountaineering community whether one or both of them reached the summit 29 years before the confirmed ascent and safe descent of Everest by Sir
Edmund Hillary
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reache ...
and
Tenzing Norgay
Tenzing Norgay (; ''tendzin norgyé''; perhaps 29 May 1914 – 9 May 1986), born Namgyal Wangdi, and also referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepali-Indian Sherpa mountaineer. He was one of the first two people known to reach the su ...
millionaire
A millionaire is an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency. Depending on the currency, a certain level of prestige is associated with being a millionaire. In countries that use the short scal ...
aeroplanes
An airplane or aeroplane (informally plane) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and wing configurations. The broad spectr ...
summit
A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topography, topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous.
The term (mountain top) is generally used ...
.
Early expeditions—such as Charles Bruce's in the 1920s and
Hugh Ruttledge
Hugh Ruttledge (24 October 1884 – 7 November 1961) was an English civil servant and mountaineer who was the leader of two expeditions to Mount Everest in 1933 and 1936.
Early life
The son of Lt.-Colonel Edward Butler Ruttledge, of the Indian ...
1936
Events
January–February
* January 20 – George V of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India, dies at his Sandringham Estate. The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King E ...
—tried to ascend the mountain from
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...
Edouard Wyss-Dunant
Edouard Wyss-Dunant (17 April 1897 – 30 April 1983) was a Swiss physician and alpinist. He had a distinguished career in medicine, both in his own country and abroad. He published a number of treatises in his professional capacity and was the ...
, was granted permission to attempt a climb from Nepal. It established a route through the Khumbu icefall and ascended to the South Col at an elevation of .
Raymond Lambert
Raymond Lambert (18 October 1914 – 24 February 1997) was a Swiss mountaineer who together with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached an altitude of 8611 metres (just 237 metres from the summit) of Mount Everest, as part of a Swiss Expedition in May ...
and
Sherpa Sherpa may refer to:
Ethnography
* Sherpa people, an ethnic group in north eastern Nepal
* Sherpa language
Organizations and companies
* Sherpa (association), a French network of jurists dedicated to promoting corporate social responsibility
* ...
Tenzing Norgay
Tenzing Norgay (; ''tendzin norgyé''; perhaps 29 May 1914 – 9 May 1986), born Namgyal Wangdi, and also referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepali-Indian Sherpa mountaineer. He was one of the first two people known to reach the su ...
were able to reach an elevation of about on the southeast ridge, setting a new climbing altitude record. Tenzing's experience was useful when he was hired to be part of the British expedition in 1953. One reference says that no attempt at an ascent of Everest was ever under consideration in this case,
although John Hunt (who met the team in Zurich on their return) wrote that when the Swiss Expedition "just failed" in the spring they decided to make another post-monsoon (summit ascent) attempt in the autumn; although as it was only decided in June the second party arrived too late, when winter winds were buffeting the mountain.
First successful ascent by Tenzing and Hillary, 1953
In 1953, a ninth British expedition, led by John Hunt, returned to Nepal. Hunt selected two climbing pairs to attempt to reach the summit. The first pair,
Tom Bourdillon
Thomas Duncan Bourdillon ( ; 16 March 1924 – 29 July 1956) was an English mountaineer and member of the 1953 British Mount Everest Expedition which made the first ascent of Mount Everest. He died in the Valais, Switzerland, on 29 July 1956 age ...
and Charles Evans, came within of the summit on 26 May 1953, but turned back after running into oxygen problems. As planned, their work in route finding and breaking trail and their oxygen caches were of great aid to the following pair. Two days later, the expedition made its second assault on the summit with the second climbing pair: the New Zealander
Edmund Hillary
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reache ...
and
Tenzing Norgay
Tenzing Norgay (; ''tendzin norgyé''; perhaps 29 May 1914 – 9 May 1986), born Namgyal Wangdi, and also referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepali-Indian Sherpa mountaineer. He was one of the first two people known to reach the su ...
, a Nepali
Sherpa Sherpa may refer to:
Ethnography
* Sherpa people, an ethnic group in north eastern Nepal
* Sherpa language
Organizations and companies
* Sherpa (association), a French network of jurists dedicated to promoting corporate social responsibility
* ...
climber. They reached the summit at 11:30 local time on 29 May 1953 via the South Col route. At the time, both acknowledged it as a team effort by the whole expedition, but Tenzing revealed a few years later that Hillary had put his foot on the summit first. They paused at the summit to take photographs and buried a few sweets and a small cross in the snow before descending.
News of the expedition's success reached London on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's
coronation
A coronation is the act of placement or bestowal of a coronation crown, crown upon a monarch's head. The term also generally refers not only to the physical crowning but to the whole ceremony wherein the act of crowning occurs, along with the ...
, 2 June. A few days later, the Queen gave orders that Hunt (a Briton) and Hillary (a New Zealander) were to be
knighted
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...
in the
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...
for the ascent. Tenzing, a Nepali Sherpa who was a citizen of India, was granted the
George Medal
The George Medal (GM), instituted on 24 September 1940 by King George VI,''British Gallantry Medals'' (Abbott and Tamplin), p. 138 is a decoration of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, awarded for gallantry, typically by civilians, or in circ ...
by the UK. Hunt was ultimately made a
life peer
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...
in Britain, while Hillary became a founding member of the Order of New Zealand. Hillary and Tenzing have also been recognised in Nepal. In 2009, statues were raised in their honour, and in 2014, Hillary Peak and Tenzing Peak were named for them.
1950s–1960s
On 23 May 1956,
Ernst Schmied
Ernst Schmied (1924 in Bern, Switzerland - 22 March 2002) was a Swiss Mountaineer. He is best known for achieving the second successful summit of Mount Everest, on 23 May 1956, as part of the 1956 Swiss Expedition to Everest and Lhotse.
Prior to ...
Dölf Reist
Dölf Reist (1921-2000) was a Swiss mountaineer, best known for the third successful summit of Mount Everest on 23 May 1956, as part of the 1956 Swiss Expedition to Everest and Lhotse.
Reist and Ernst Reiss are said to have formed "one of the be ...
Jim Whittaker
James W. Whittaker (born February 10, 1929), also known as Jim Whittaker, is an American mountaineer and mountain guide. Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, on May 1, 1963 he became the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest as a ...
, joined by
Nawang Gombu
Nawang Gombu (1 May 1936 – 24 April 2011) was a Sherpa mountaineer who was the first man in the world to have climbed Mount Everest twice.
Gombu was born in Minzu, Tibet and later became an Indian citizen, as did many of his relatives inclu ...
, reached the summit on 1 May 1963.
1970s
In 1970, Japanese mountaineers conducted a major expedition. The centrepiece was a large "siege"-style expedition led by Saburo Matsukata, working on finding a new route up the southwest face. Another element of the expedition was an attempt to ski Mount Everest. Despite a staff of over one hundred people and a decade of planning work, the expedition suffered eight deaths and failed to summit via the planned routes. However, Japanese expeditions did enjoy some successes. For example, Yuichiro Miura became the first man to ski down Everest from the South Col – he descended nearly from the South Col before falling with extreme injuries. Another success was an expedition that put four on the summit via the South Col route. Miura's exploits became the subject of film, and he went on to become the oldest person to summit Mount Everest in 2003 at age 70 and again in 2013 at the age of 80.
In 1975,
Junko Tabei
was a Japanese mountaineer, author and a teacher. She was the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest and the first woman to ascend the Seven Summits, climbing the highest peak on every continent.
Tabei wrote seven books, organized e ...
Chris Bonington
Sir Christian John Storey Bonington, CVO, CBE, DL (born 6 August 1934) is a British mountaineer.
His career has included nineteen expeditions to the Himalayas, including four to Mount Everest.
Early life and expeditions
Bonington's father, w ...
Tony Streather
Lieutenant-Colonel Harry Reginald Antony Streather (24 March 1926 – 31 October 2018) was a British Army officer who served in the Gloucestershire Regiment, and mountaineer who first-ascended the third-highest mountain in the world, on the ...
put Bronco Lane and Brummy Stokes on the summit by the normal route.
In 1978,
Reinhold Messner
Reinhold Andreas Messner (; born 17 September 1944) is an Italian mountaineer, explorer, and author from South Tyrol. He made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest and, along with Peter Habeler, the first ascent of Everest without supplemental ...
and
Peter Habeler
Peter Habeler (born 22 July 1942) is an Austrian mountaineer. He was born in Mayrhofen, Austria. He developed an interest in mountain climbing at age six.http://www.everesthistory.com/climbers/habeler
Among his accomplishments as a mountaineer a ...
made the first ascent of Everest without supplemental oxygen.
1979/1980: Winter Himalaism
The Polish climber
Andrzej Zawada
Andrzej Zawada (born Maria Andrzej Zawada; 16 July 1928 – 21 August 2000) was a Polish mountaineer, pioneer of winter Himalayism. Zawada was an organiser and leader in numerous high-mountains expeditions. Author of movies and photographs ...
headed the first winter ascent of Mount Everest, the first winter ascent of an eight-thousander. The team of 20 Polish climbers and 4 Sherpas established a base camp on
Khumbu Glacier
The Khumbu Glacier ( ne, खुम्बु हिमनदी) is located in the Khumbu region of northeastern Nepal between Mount Everest and the Lhotse-Nuptse ridge. With elevations of at its terminus to at its source, it is the world's high ...
in early January 1980. On 15 January, the team managed to set up Camp III at 7150 metres above sea level, but further action was stopped by hurricane-force winds. The weather improved after 11 February, when
Leszek Cichy
Leszek () is a Slavic Polish male given name, originally ''Lestko'', ''Leszko'' or ''Lestek'', related to ''Lech'', ''Lechosław'' and Czech ''Lstimir''.
Individuals named Leszek celebrate their name day on June 3.
Notable people
* Lestko
* ...
, Walenty Fiut and
Krzysztof Wielicki
Krzysztof Jerzy Wielicki (born 5 January 1950) is a Polish alpine and high-altitude climber, regarded as one of the greatest Polish climbers in history. He is the fifth man to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders and the first ever to climb Mount ...
set up camp IV on
South Col
The South Col is a sharp-edged col between Mount Everest and Lhotse, the highest and fourth-highest mountains in the world, respectively. The South Col is typically swept by high winds, leaving it free of significant snow accumulation. Since 195 ...
(7906 m). Cichy and Wielicki started the final ascent at 6:50 am on 17 February. At 2:40 pm
Andrzej Zawada
Andrzej Zawada (born Maria Andrzej Zawada; 16 July 1928 – 21 August 2000) was a Polish mountaineer, pioneer of winter Himalayism. Zawada was an organiser and leader in numerous high-mountains expeditions. Author of movies and photographs ...
at base camp heard the climbers' voices over the radio – "We are on the summit! The strong wind blows all the time. It is unimaginably cold." The successful winter ascent of Mount Everest started a new decade of Winter Himalaism, which became a Polish specialisation. After 1980 Poles did ten first winter ascents on 8000 metre peaks, which earned Polish climbers a reputation of "Ice Warriors".
Lho La tragedy, 1989
In May 1989, Polish climbers under the leadership of Eugeniusz Chrobak organised an international expedition to Mount Everest on a difficult western ridge. Ten Poles and nine foreigners participated, but ultimately only the Poles remained in the attempt for the summit. On 24 May, Chrobak and Andrzej Marciniak, starting from camp V at 8,200 m, overcame the ridge and reached the summit. But on 27 May, during an avalanche from the side of
Khumbutse
Khumbutse () is the first mountain west (6 km) of Mount Everest. It lies at the border between Nepal and China.
Overview
Khumbutse's name indicates its location at the head of the Khumbu valley, down which the Khumbu Glacier flows. It is one ...
near the
Lho La
The Lho La() is a col on the border between Nepal and Tibet north of the Western Cwm, near Mount Everest. It is at the lowest point of the West Ridge of the mountain at a height of .
History and name
Historically, the col was used as a pass o ...
pass, four Polish climbers were killed: Mirosław Dąsal, Mirosław Gardzielewski,
Zygmunt Andrzej Heinrich
Zygmunt Andrzej Heinrich (21 July 1937 in Łbowo, central Poland – 27 May 1989 on Mount Everest) was a Polish mountaineer who made several ascents of eight-thousanders. He died in an avalanche on the northwest slopes of Mount Everest in ...
and Wacław Otręba. The following day, due to his injuries, Chrobak also died. Marciniak, who was also injured, was saved by a rescue expedition in which
Artur Hajzer
Artur Henryk Hajzer (28 June 1962 – 7 July 2013) was a Polish mountaineer. Hajzer climbed seven eight-thousanders, several via new routes (Manaslu’s NE face in 1986, Shishapangma’s east ridge in 1987) and made the first winter climb of Ann ...
Rob Hall
Robert Edwin Hall (14 January 1961 – 11 May 1996) was a New Zealand mountaineer. He was the head guide of a 1996 Mount Everest expedition during which he, a fellow guide, and two clients died. A best-selling account of the expedition was g ...
took part. In the organisation of the rescue expedition they took part, inter alia
Reinhold Messner
Reinhold Andreas Messner (; born 17 September 1944) is an Italian mountaineer, explorer, and author from South Tyrol. He made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest and, along with Peter Habeler, the first ascent of Everest without supplemental ...
,
Elizabeth Hawley
Elizabeth Hawley (9 November 1923 – 26 January 2018) was an American journalist, author, and chronicler of Himalayan mountaineering expeditions. Hawley's ''The Himalayan Database'' became the unofficial record for climbs in the Nepalese Himal ...
,
Carlos Carsolio
Carlos Carsolio Larrea (born 4 October 1962 in Mexico City) is a Mexican mountain climber. Carsolio is known for being the fourth man (first non-European) and the second youngest to climb the world's 14 eight-thousander mountain peaks, all of ...
and the US consul.
1996 disaster
On 10 and 11 May 1996, eight climbers died after several guided expeditions were caught in a blizzard high up on the mountain during a summit attempt on 10 May. During the 1996 season, 15 people died while climbing on Mount Everest. These were the highest death tolls for a single weather event, and for a single season, until the sixteen deaths in the 2014 Mount Everest avalanche. The guiding disaster gained wide publicity and raised questions about the commercialisation of climbing and the safety of guiding clients on Mount Everest.
Journalist
Jon Krakauer
Jon Krakauer (born April 12, 1954) is an American writer and mountaineer. He is the author of bestselling non-fiction books—'' Into the Wild''; ''Into Thin Air''; ''Under the Banner of Heaven''; and '' Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat ...
, on assignment from '' Outside'' magazine, was in one of the affected guided parties, and afterward published the bestseller ''
Into Thin Air
''Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster'' is a 1997 bestselling nonfiction book written by Jon Krakauer. It details Krakauer's experience in the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, in which eight climbers were killed and several ...
'', which related his experience. Krakauer was critical of guide
Anatoli Boukreev
Anatoli Nikolaevich Boukreev (russian: Анато́лий Никола́евич Букре́ев; January 16, 1958 – December 25, 1997) was a Soviet and Kazakhstani mountaineer who made ascents of 10 of the 14 eight-thousander peaks—those a ...
in his recollection of the expedition. A year later, Boukreev co-authored '' The Climb,'' in part as a rebuttal of Krakauer's portrayal. The dispute sparked a debate within the climbing community. Boukreev was later awarded The American Alpine Club's David Sowles Award for his rescue efforts on the expedition.
In May 2004, physicist Kent Moore and surgeon John L. Semple, both researchers from the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...
, told ''
New Scientist
''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishe ...
'' magazine that an analysis of weather conditions on 11 May suggested that weather caused oxygen levels to plunge about 14 per cent.
One of the survivors was
Beck Weathers
Seaborn Beck Weathers (born December 16, 1946) is an American pathologist from Texas. He survived the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, which was covered in Jon Krakauer's book ''Into Thin Air'' (1997), its film adaptation '' Into Thin Air: Death on Ev ...
, an American client of New Zealand–based guide service Adventure Consultants. Weathers was left for dead about 275 metres (900 feet) from Camp 4 at 7,950 metres (26,085 feet). After spending a night on the mountain, Weathers managed to make it back to Camp 4 with massive frostbite and vision impaired due to snow blindness. When he arrived at Camp 4, fellow climbers considered his condition terminal and left him in a tent to die overnight.
Weathers' condition had not improved and an immediate descent to a lower elevation was deemed essential. A helicopter rescue was out of the question: Camp 4 was higher than the rated ceiling of any available helicopter. Weathers was lowered to Camp 2. Eventually, a helicopter rescue was organised thanks to the Nepali Army.
The storm's impact on climbers on the North Ridge of Everest, where several climbers also died, was detailed in a first-hand account by British filmmaker and writer
Matt Dickinson
Matt Dickinson is a film-maker and writer who is best known for his award-winning novels and his documentary work for National Geographic Television, Discovery Channel and the BBC. Dickinson was one of the climbers caught in the 1996 Mount Ever ...
in his book ''The Other Side of Everest''. Sixteen-year-old Mark Pfetzer was on the climb and wrote about it in his account, ''Within Reach: My Everest Story''.
The 2015 feature film ''
Everest
Mount Everest (; Tibetan: ''Chomolungma'' ; ) is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation (snow heigh ...
'', directed by
Baltasar Kormákur
Baltasar Kormákur Baltasarsson (born 27 February 1966) is an Icelandic actor, theater and film director, and film producer. He is best known for directing the films ''101 Reykjavík'', '' The Sea'', ''A Little Trip to Heaven'', '' Contraband'' ...
, is based on the events of this guiding disaster.
2006 mountaineering season
In 2006, 12 people died. One death in particular (see below) triggered an international debate and years of discussion about climbing ethics. The season was also remembered for the rescue of Lincoln Hall who had been left by his climbing team and declared dead, but was later discovered alive and survived being helped off the mountain.
David Sharp ethics controversy, 2006
There was an international controversy about the death of a solo British climber David Sharp, who attempted to climb Mount Everest in 2006 but died in his attempt. The story broke out of the mountaineering community into popular media, with a series of interviews, allegations, and critiques. The question was whether climbers that season had left a man to die and whether he could have been saved. He was said to have attempted to summit Mount Everest by himself with no Sherpa or guide and fewer oxygen bottles than considered normal. He went with a low-budget Nepali guide firm that only provides support up to Base Camp, after which climbers go as a "loose group", offering a high degree of independence. The manager at Sharp's guide support said Sharp did not take enough oxygen for his summit attempt and did not have a Sherpa guide. It is less clear who knew Sharp was in trouble, and if they did know, whether they were qualified or capable of helping him.
Double-amputee climber
Mark Inglis
Mark Joseph Inglis (born 27 September 1959) is a New Zealand mountaineer, researcher, winemaker and motivational speaker. He holds a degree in Human Biochemistry from Lincoln University, New Zealand, and has conducted research on leukaemia. H ...
said in an interview with the press on 23 May 2006, that his climbing party, and many others, had passed Sharp, on 15 May, sheltering under a rock overhang below the summit, without attempting a rescue. Inglis said 40 people had passed by Sharp, but he might have been overlooked as climbers assumed Sharp was the corpse nicknamed "
Green Boots
Green Boots is the name given to the unidentified body of a climber that became a landmark on the main Northeast ridge route of Mount Everest. The body has not been officially identified, but he is believed to be Tsewang Paljor, an Indian climber ...
", but Inglis was not aware that Turkish climbers had tried to help Sharp despite being in the process of helping an injured woman down (a Turkish woman, Burçak Poçan). There has also been some discussion about
Himex
Himex is a Mount Everest guiding company. It was founded in 1996 by New Zealander Russell Brice. The name is a truncated version of the full name "Himalayan Experience". ''National Geographic'' said Himex was the "largest and most sophisticated ...
in the commentary on Inglis and Sharp. In regards to Inglis's initial comments, he later revised certain details because he had been interviewed while he was "...physically and mentally exhausted, and in a lot of pain. He had suffered severe frostbite – he later had five fingertips amputated." When they went through Sharp's possessions they found a receipt for US$7,490, believed to be the whole financial cost. Comparatively, most expeditions are between $35,000 to US$100,000 plus an additional $20,000 in other expenses that range from gear to bonuses. It was estimated on 14 May that Sharp summitted Mount Everest and began his descent down, but 15 May he was in trouble but being passed by climbers on their way up and down. On 15 May 2006 it is believed he was suffering from hypoxia and was about from the summit on the North Side route.
Beck Weathers
Seaborn Beck Weathers (born December 16, 1946) is an American pathologist from Texas. He survived the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, which was covered in Jon Krakauer's book ''Into Thin Air'' (1997), its film adaptation '' Into Thin Air: Death on Ev ...
of the
1996 Mount Everest disaster
The 1996 Mount Everest disaster occurred on 10–11 May 1996 when eight climbers caught in a blizzard died on Mount Everest while attempting to descend from the summit. Over the entire season, 12 people died trying to reach the summit, making it ...
said that those who are dying are often left behind and that he himself had been left for dead twice but was able to keep walking. ''The Tribune'' of Chandigarh, India quoted someone who described what happened to Sharp as "the most shameful act in the history of mountaineering". In addition to Sharp's death, at least nine other climbers perished that year, including multiple Sherpas working for various guiding companies.
Much of this controversy was captured by the ''
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...
'' while filming the television program '' Everest: Beyond the Limit''. A crucial decision affecting the fate of Sharp is shown in the program, where an early returning climber Lebanese adventurer Maxim Chaya is descending from the summit and radios to his base camp manager (
Russell Brice Russell Reginald Brice (born 3 July 1952) is a New Zealand mountaineer. He was the owner/manager of Himex (Himalayan Experience Ltd.), a climbing expedition company. He has summited Cho Oyu seven times, Himal Chuli and Mount Everest twice, as well ...
) that he has found a frostbitten and unconscious climber in distress. Chaya is unable to identify Sharp, who had chosen to climb solo without any support and so did not identify himself to other climbers. The base camp manager assumes that Sharp is part of a group that has already calculated that they must abandon him, and informs his lone climber that there is no chance of him being able to help Sharp by himself. As Sharp's condition deteriorates through the day and other descending climbers pass him, his opportunities for rescue diminish: his legs and feet curl from
frostbite
Frostbite is a skin injury that occurs when exposed to extreme low temperatures, causing the freezing of the skin or other tissues, commonly affecting the fingers, toes, nose, ears, cheeks and chin areas. Most often, frostbite occurs in the han ...
, preventing him from walking; the later descending climbers are lower on oxygen and lack the strength to offer aid; time runs out for any Sherpas to return and rescue him.
David Sharp's body remained just below the summit on the Chinese side next to "Green Boots"; they shared a space in a small rock cave that was an ad hoc tomb for them. Sharp's body was removed from the cave in 2007, according to the BBC, and since 2014, Green Boots has been missing, presumably removed or buried.
Lincoln Hall rescue, 2006
As the Sharp debate kicked off on 26 May 2006, Australian climber Lincoln Hall was found alive after being left for dead the day before. He was found by a party of four climbers ( Dan Mazur, Andrew Brash, Myles Osborne and Jangbu Sherpa) who, giving up their own summit attempt, stayed with Hall and descended with him and a party of 11 Sherpas sent up to carry him down. Hall later fully recovered. His team assumed he had died from cerebral edema, and they were instructed to cover him with rocks. There were no rocks around to do this and he was abandoned. The erroneous information of his death was passed on to his family. The next day he was discovered alive by another party.
Lincoln greeted his fellow mountaineers with this:
Lincoln Hall went on to live for several more years, often giving talks about his near-death experience and rescue, before dying from unrelated medical issues in 2012 at the age of 56 (born in 1955).
2007
On 21 May 2007, Canadian climber Meagan McGrath initiated the successful high-altitude rescue of
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
i Usha Bista. Recognising this rescue, Major McGrath was selected as a 2011 recipient of the
Sir Edmund Hillary
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineering, mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropy, philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa people, Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became th ...
Foundation of Canada Humanitarian Award, which recognises a Canadian who has personally or administratively contributed a significant service or act in the Himalayan Region of Nepal.
Ascent statistics up to 2010 season
By the end of the 2010 climbing season, there had been 5,104 ascents to the summit by about 3,142 individuals, with 77 per cent of these ascents being accomplished since 2000. The summit was achieved in 7 of the 22 years from 1953 to 1974 and was not missed between 1975 and 2014. In 2007, the record number of 633 ascents was recorded, by 350 climbers and 253 sherpas.
An illustration of the explosion of popularity of Everest is provided by the numbers of daily ascents. Analysis of the
1996 Mount Everest disaster
The 1996 Mount Everest disaster occurred on 10–11 May 1996 when eight climbers caught in a blizzard died on Mount Everest while attempting to descend from the summit. Over the entire season, 12 people died trying to reach the summit, making it ...
shows that part of the blame was on the bottleneck caused by a large number of climbers (33 to 36) attempting to summit on the same day; this was considered unusually high at the time. By comparison, on 23 May 2010, the summit of Mount Everest was reached by 169 climbers – more summits in a single day than in the cumulative 31 years from the first successful summit in 1953 through 1983.
There have been 219 fatalities recorded on Mount Everest from the 1922 British Mount Everest Expedition through the end of 2010, a rate of 4.3 fatalities for every 100 summits (this is a general rate, and includes fatalities amongst support climbers, those who turned back before the peak, those who died en route to the peak and those who died while descending from the peak). Of the 219 fatalities, 58 (26.5 per cent) were climbers who had summited but did not complete their descent. Though the rate of fatalities has decreased since the year 2000 (1.4 fatalities for every 100 summits, with 3938 summits since 2000), the significant increase in the total number of climbers still means 54 fatalities since 2000: 33 on the northeast ridge, 17 on the southeast ridge, 2 on the southwest face, and 2 on the north face.
Nearly all attempts at the summit are done using one of the two main routes. The traffic seen by each route varies from year to year. In 2005–07, more than half of all climbers elected to use the more challenging, but cheaper northeast route. In 2008, the northeast route was closed by the Chinese government for the entire climbing season, and the only people able to reach the summit from the north that year were athletes responsible for carrying the Olympic torch for the
2008 Summer Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Na ...
. The route was closed to foreigners once again in 2009 in the run-up to the 50th anniversary of the Dalai Lama's exile. These closures led to declining interest in the north route, and, in 2010, two-thirds of the climbers reached the summit from the south.
2010s
The 2010s were a time of new highs and lows for the mountain, with back-to-back disasters in 2013 and 2014 causing record deaths. In 2015 there were no summits for the first time in decades. However, other years set records for numbers of summits – 2013's record number of summiters, around 667, was surpassed in 2018 with around 800 summiting the peak, and a subsequent record was set in 2019 with over 890 summiters.
2014 avalanche and season
On 18 April 2014, an avalanche hit the area just below the Base Camp 2 at around 01:00 UTC (06:30 local time) and at an elevation of about . Sixteen people were killed in the avalanche (all Nepali guides) and nine more were injured.
During the season, a 13-year-old girl, Malavath Purna, reached the summit, becoming the youngest female climber to do so. Additionally, one team used a helicopter to fly from South base camp to Camp 2 to avoid the Khumbu Icefall, then reached the Everest summit. This team had to use the south side because the Chinese had denied them a permit to climb. A team member ( Jing Wang) donated US$30,000 to a local hospital. She was named the Nepali "International Mountaineer of the Year".
Over 100 people summited Everest from China (Tibet region), and six from Nepal in the 2014 season. This included 72-year-old Bill Burke, the Indian teenage girl, and a Chinese woman Jing Wang. Another teen girl summiter was
Ming Kipa
Ming Kipa ( ne, मिङ किपा शेर्पा) (born 1988) is a Nepalese Sherpa woman who held the record as the youngest person to climb Mount Everest from 2003 to 2010. She reached the summit on May 22, 2003 when she was 15 years old, ...
Sherpa who summited with her elder sister
Lhakpa Sherpa
Lhakpa Sherpa (also Lakpa) ( ne, Lakhpa Sherpa; born 1973) is a Nepalese Sherpa mountain climber. She has climbed Mount Everest ten times, the most of any woman in the world. Her record-breaking tenth climb was on May 12, 2022, which she financ ...
in 2003, and who had achieved the most times for woman to the summit of Mount Everest at that time. (see also
Santosh Yadav
Santosh Yadav (born 10 October 1967) is an Indian mountaineer. She is the first woman in the world to climb Mount Everest twice and the first woman to successfully climb Mount Everest from Kangshung Face. She climbed the peak first in May 199 ...
)
2015 avalanche, earthquake, season
2015 was set to be a record-breaking season of climbs, with hundreds of permits issued in Nepal and many additional permits in Tibet (China). However, on 25 April 2015, an earthquake measuring 7.8Mw triggered an avalanche that hit
Everest Base Camp
There are two base camps on Mount Everest, on opposite sides of the mountains: South Base Camp is in Nepal at an altitude of (), while North Base Camp is in Tibet, China at ().
The base camps are rudimentary campsites at the base of Mount Eve ...
, effectively shutting down the Everest climbing season. 18 bodies were recovered from Mount Everest by the Indian Army mountaineering team. The avalanche began on
Pumori
Pumori ( ne, पुमोरी, ) (or Pumo Ri) is a mountain on the Nepal-China border in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. Pumori lies just eight kilometres west of Mount Everest. Pumori, meaning "the Mountain Daughter" in Sherpa langua ...
, moved through the
Khumbu Icefall
The Khumbu Icefall is located at the head of the Khumbu Glacier and the foot of the Western Cwm, which lies at an elevation of on the Nepali slopes of Mount Everest, not far above Base Camp and southwest of the summit. The icefall is considere ...
on the southwest side of Mount Everest, and slammed into the South Base Camp. 2015 was the first time since 1974 with no spring summits, as all climbing teams pulled out after the quakes and avalanche. One of the reasons for this was the high probability of aftershocks (over 50 per cent according to the
United States Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...
). Just weeks after the first quake, the region was rattled again by a 7.3 magnitude quake and there were also many considerable aftershocks.
The quakes trapped hundreds of climbers above the Khumbu icefall, and they had to be evacuated by helicopter as they ran low on supplies. The quake shifted the route through the ice fall, making it essentially impassable to climbers. Bad weather also made helicopter evacuation difficult. The Everest tragedy was small compared to the impact overall on Nepal, with almost nine thousand dead and about 22,000 injured. In Tibet, by 28 April at least 25 had died, and 117 were injured. By 29 April 2015, the Tibet Mountaineering Association (North/Chinese side) closed Everest and other peaks to climbing, stranding 25 teams and about 300 people on the north side of Everest. On the south side, helicopters evacuated 180 people trapped at Camps 1 and 2.
Mountain re-opens in August 2015
On 24 August 2015, Nepal re-opened Everest to tourism including mountain climbers. The only climber permit for the autumn season was awarded to Japanese climber Nobukazu Kuriki, who had tried four times previously to summit Everest without success. He made his fifth attempt in October, but had to give up just from the summit due to "strong winds and deep snow". Kuriki noted the dangers of climbing Everest, having himself survived being stuck in a freezing snow hole for two days near the top, which came at the cost of all his fingertips and his thumb, lost to frostbite, which added further difficulty to his climb.
Some sections of the trail from Lukla to Everest Base Camp (Nepal) were damaged in the earthquakes earlier in the year and needed repairs to handle trekkers.
2016 season
Hawley's database records 641 made it to the summit in early 2016.
2017 season
2017 was the biggest season yet, permit-wise, yielding hundreds of summiters and a handful of deaths. On 27 May 2017, Kami Rita Sherpa made his 21st climb to the summit with the Alpine Ascents Everest Expedition, one of three people in the World along with
Apa Sherpa
Apa (born Lhakpa Tenzing Sherpa; 20 January 1960), nicknamed "Super Sherpa", is a Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer who, until 2017, jointly with Phurba Tashi held the record for reaching the summit of Mount Everest more times than any other person. As ...
and Phurba Tashi Sherpa to make it to the summit of Mount Everest 21 times. The season had a tragic start with the death of
Ueli Steck
Ueli Steck (; 4 October 1976 – 30 April 2017) was a Swiss rock climber and mountaineer. He was the first to climb Annapurna solo via its South Face (though this is disputed by some), and set speed records on the North Face trilogy in the Alps ...
of Switzerland, who died from a fall during a warm-up climb. There was a continued discussion about the nature of possible changes to the
Hillary Step
The Hillary Step was a nearly vertical rock face with a height of around located near the summit of Mount Everest, about above sea level. Located on the southeast ridge, halfway between the " South Summit" and the true summit, the Hillary Ste ...
. Total summiters for 2017 was tallied up to be 648. 449 summited via Nepal (from the South) and 120 from Chinese Tibet (North side).
2018
807 climbers summited Mount Everest in 2018, including 563 on the Nepal side and 240 from the Chinese Tibet side. This broke the previous record for total summits in year from which was 667 in 2013, and one factor that aided in this was an especially long and clear weather window of 11 days during the critical spring climbing season. Various records were broken, including a summit by double-amputee
Hari Budha Magar
Hari Budha Magar is a Nepalese double above-knee amputee and record-breaking mountaineer. In 2017, he became the first double above-knee amputee (DAK) to summit a mountain taller than 6,000m (Mera Peak, 6,476m).
Early life
Magar was born in ...
, who undertook his climb after winning a court case in the Nepali Supreme Court. There were no major disasters, but seven climbers died in various situations including several sherpas as well as international climbers. Although record numbers of climbers reached the summit, old-time summiters that made expeditions in the 1980s lamented the crowding, feces, and cost.
Himalayan record keeper
Elizabeth Hawley
Elizabeth Hawley (9 November 1923 – 26 January 2018) was an American journalist, author, and chronicler of Himalayan mountaineering expeditions. Hawley's ''The Himalayan Database'' became the unofficial record for climbs in the Nepalese Himal ...
died in late January 2018.
Figures for the number of permits issued by Nepal range from 347 to 375.
2019
The spring or pre-monsoon window for 2019 witnessed the deaths of a number of climbers and worldwide publication of images of hundreds of mountaineers queuing to reach the summit and sensational media reports of climbers stepping over dead bodies dismayed people around the world.
There were reports of various winter expeditions in the Himalayas, including K2, Nanga Parbat, and Meru with the buzz for the Everest 2019 beginning just 14 weeks to the weather window. Noted climber Cory Richards announced on Twitter that he was hoping to establish a new climbing route to the summit in 2019. Also announced was an expedition to re-measure the height of Everest, particularly in light of the 2015 earthquakes. China closed the base-camp to those without climbing permits in February 2019 on the northern side of Mount Everest. By early April, climbing teams from around the world were arriving for the 2019 spring climbing season. Among the teams was a scientific expedition with a planned study of pollution, and how things like snow and vegetation influence the availability of food and water in the region. In the 2019 spring mountaineering season, there were roughly 40 teams with almost 400 climbers and several hundred guides attempting to summit on the Nepali side. Nepal issued 381 climbing permits for 2019. For the northern routes in Chinese Tibet, several hundred more permits were issued for climbing by authorities there.
In May 2019, Nepali mountaineering guide Kami Rita summited Mount Everest twice within a week, his 23rd and 24th ascents, making international news headlines. He first summited Everest in 1994, and has summited several other extremely high mountains, such as K2 and Lhotse.
By 23 May 2019, about seven people had died, possibly due to crowding leading to delays high on the mountain, and shorter weather windows. One 19-year-old who summited previously noted that when the weather window opens (the high winds calm down), long lines form as everyone rushes to get the top and back down. In Chinese Tibet, one Austrian climber died from a fall, and by 26 May 2019 the overall number of deaths for the spring climbing season rose to 10. By 28 May, the death toll increased to 11 when a climber died at about during the descent, and a 12th climber missing and presumed dead. Despite the number of deaths, reports indicated that a record 891 climbers summited in the spring 2019 climbing season.
Although China has had various permit restrictions, and Nepal requires a doctor to sign off on climbing permits, the natural dangers of climbing such as falls and avalanches combined with medical issues aggravated by Everest's extreme altitude led to 2019 being a year with a comparatively high death toll.
2020s
Both Nepal and China prohibited foreign climbing groups during the 2020 season, due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
. 2020 was the third year in this decade after 2014 and 2015 which saw no summits from the Nepal (South) Side.
A team of Chinese surveyors climbed Mt. Everest from the North side during April–May 2020, becoming the only climbers to summit the world's highest peak during the pandemic, at least through May. The team was there to re-measure the height of Mount Everest.
On 12 May 2022, the first all-Black team summited Mt. Everest. Seven men and two women climbers from the U.S. and Kenya, guided by eight sherpas, comprised the expedition.
Climbing
Permits
In 2014, Nepal issued 334 climbing permits, which were extended until 2019 due to the closure. In 2015, Nepal issued 357 permits, but the mountain was closed again because of the avalanche and earthquake, and these permits were given a two-year extension to 2017.
In 2017, a person who tried to climb Everest without the $11,000 permit was caught after he made it past the Khumbu icefall. He faced, among other penalties, a $22,000 fine and a possible four years in jail. In the end, he was allowed to return home but banned from mountaineering in Nepal for 10 years.
The number of permits issued each year by Nepal is:
* 2008: 160
* 2009: 220
* 2010: 209
* 2011: 225
* 2012: 208
* 2013: 316
* 2014: 326 (extended for use through 2019)
* 2015: 356 (extended for use through 2017)
* 2016: 289
* 2017: 366 to 373
* 2018: 346
* 2019: 381
*2020: 0 (no permits issued during the pandemic)
*2021: 408 (current record)
The Chinese side in Tibet is also managed with permits for summiting Everest. They did not issue permits in 2008, due to the Olympic torch relay being taken to the summit of Mount Everest.
In March 2020, the governments of China and Nepal cancelled all climbing permits for Mount Everest due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
. In April 2020, a group of Chinese mountaineers began an expedition from the Chinese side. The mountain remained closed on the Chinese side to all foreign climbers. On 10 May 2021, a separation line was announced by Chinese authorities to prevent the spread of coronavirus from climbers ascending Nepal's side of the mountain.
Routes
Mount Everest has two main climbing routes, the southeast ridge from
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
and the north ridge from
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...
, as well as many other less frequently climbed routes. Of the two main routes, the southeast ridge is technically easier and more frequently used. It was the route used by
Edmund Hillary
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reache ...
and
Tenzing Norgay
Tenzing Norgay (; ''tendzin norgyé''; perhaps 29 May 1914 – 9 May 1986), born Namgyal Wangdi, and also referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepali-Indian Sherpa mountaineer. He was one of the first two people known to reach the su ...
in 1953 and the first recognised of 15 routes to the top by 1996. This was, however, a route decision dictated more by politics than by design, as the Chinese border was closed to the western world in the 1950s, after the People's Republic of China invaded Tibet.
Most attempts are made during May, before the summer
monsoon
A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscil ...
season. As the monsoon season approaches, the
jet stream
Jet streams are fast flowing, narrow, meandering thermal wind, air currents in the Atmosphere of Earth, atmospheres of some planets, including Earth. On Earth, the main jet streams are located near the altitude of the tropopause and are west ...
shifts northward, thereby reducing the average wind speeds high on the mountain. While attempts are sometimes made in September and October, after the monsoons, when the jet stream is again temporarily pushed northward, the additional snow deposited by the monsoons and the less stable weather patterns at the monsoons' tail end makes climbing extremely difficult.
Southeast ridge
The ascent via the southeast ridge begins with a trek to Everest Base Camp, Base Camp at on the south side of Everest, in Nepal. Expeditions usually fly into Lukla (2,860 m) from
and pass through Namche Bazaar. Climbers then hike to Base Camp, which usually takes six to eight days, allowing for proper altitude acclimatisation in order to prevent
altitude sickness
Altitude sickness, the mildest form being acute mountain sickness (AMS), is the harmful effect of high altitude, caused by rapid exposure to low amounts of oxygen at high elevation. People can respond to high altitude in different ways. Sympt ...
. Climbing equipment and supplies are carried by yaks, dzopkyos (yak-cow hybrids), and human porter (carrier), porters to Base Camp on the
Khumbu Glacier
The Khumbu Glacier ( ne, खुम्बु हिमनदी) is located in the Khumbu region of northeastern Nepal between Mount Everest and the Lhotse-Nuptse ridge. With elevations of at its terminus to at its source, it is the world's high ...
. When Hillary and Tenzing climbed Everest in 1953, the British expedition they were part of (comprising over 400 climbers, porters, and Sherpas at that point) started from the Kathmandu Valley, as there were no roads further east at that time.
Climbers spend a couple of weeks in Base Camp, acclimatising to the altitude. During that time, Sherpa (people), Sherpas and some expedition climbers set up ropes and ladders in the treacherous
Khumbu Icefall
The Khumbu Icefall is located at the head of the Khumbu Glacier and the foot of the Western Cwm, which lies at an elevation of on the Nepali slopes of Mount Everest, not far above Base Camp and southwest of the summit. The icefall is considere ...
.
Seracs, crevasses, and shifting blocks of ice make the icefall one of the most dangerous sections of the route. Many climbers and Sherpas have been killed in this section. To reduce the hazard, climbers usually begin their ascent well before dawn, when the freezing temperatures glue ice blocks in place.
Above the icefall is Camp I at .
From Camp I, climbers make their way up the Western Cwm to the base of the
Lhotse
Lhotse ( ne, ल्होत्से ; , ''lho tse'', ) is the fourth highest mountain in the world at , after Mount Everest, K2, and Kangchenjunga. The main summit is on the border between Tibet Autonomous Region of China and the Khumbu ...
face, where Camp II or Advanced Base Camp (ABC) is established at . The Western Cwm is a flat, gently rising glacial valley, marked by huge lateral crevasses in the centre, which prevent direct access to the upper reaches of the Cwm. Climbers are forced to cross on the far right, near the base of Nuptse, to a small passageway known as the "Nuptse corner". The Western Cwm is also called the "Valley of Silence" as the topography of the area generally cuts off wind from the climbing route. The high altitude and a clear, windless day can make the Western Cwm unbearably hot for climbers.
From Advanced Base Camp, climbers ascend the Lhotse face on fixed ropes, up to Camp III, located on a small ledge at . From there, it is another 500 metres to Camp IV on the
South Col
The South Col is a sharp-edged col between Mount Everest and Lhotse, the highest and fourth-highest mountains in the world, respectively. The South Col is typically swept by high winds, leaving it free of significant snow accumulation. Since 195 ...
at .
From Camp III to Camp IV, climbers are faced with two additional challenges: the Geneva Spur and the Yellow Band. The Geneva Spur is an anvil-shaped rib of black rock named by the 1952 Swiss Mount Everest Expedition, 1952 Swiss expedition. Fixed ropes assist climbers in scrambling over this snow-covered rock band. The Yellow Band is a section of interlayered
marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...
,
phyllite
Phyllite ( ) is a type of foliated metamorphic rock created from slate that is further metamorphosed so that very fine grained white mica achieves a preferred orientation.Stephen Marshak ''Essentials of Geology'', 3rd ed. It is primarily compo ...
, and semischist, which also requires about 100 metres of rope for traversing it.
On the
South Col
The South Col is a sharp-edged col between Mount Everest and Lhotse, the highest and fourth-highest mountains in the world, respectively. The South Col is typically swept by high winds, leaving it free of significant snow accumulation. Since 195 ...
, climbers enter the death zone. Climbers making summit bids typically can endure no more than two or three days at this altitude. If the weather is not clear with low winds during these short few days, climbers are forced to descend, many all the way back down to Base Camp.
From Camp IV, climbers begin their summit push around midnight, with hopes of reaching the summit (still another 1,000 metres above) within 10 to 12 hours. Climbers first reach "The Balcony" at , a small platform where they can rest and gaze at peaks to the south and east in the early light of dawn. Continuing up the ridge, climbers are then faced with a series of imposing rock steps which usually forces them to the east into the waist-deep snow, a serious
avalanche
An avalanche is a rapid flow of snow down a slope, such as a hill or mountain.
Avalanches can be set off spontaneously, by such factors as increased precipitation or snowpack weakening, or by external means such as humans, animals, and eart ...
hazard. At , a small table-sized dome of ice and snow marks the South Summit (Everest), South Summit.
From the South Summit, climbers follow the knife-edge southeast ridge along what is known as the "Cornice traverse", where snow clings to intermittent rock. This is the most exposed section of the climb, and a misstep to the left would send one down the southwest face, while to the immediate right is the Kangshung Face. At the end of this traverse is an imposing rock wall, the
Hillary Step
The Hillary Step was a nearly vertical rock face with a height of around located near the summit of Mount Everest, about above sea level. Located on the southeast ridge, halfway between the " South Summit" and the true summit, the Hillary Ste ...
, at .
Hillary and Tenzing were the first climbers to ascend this step, and they did so using primitive ice climbing equipment and ropes. Nowadays, climbers ascend this step using fixed ropes previously set up by Sherpas. Once above the step, it is a comparatively easy climb to the top on moderately angled snow slopes—though the exposure (heights), exposure on the ridge is extreme, especially while traversing large cornices of snow. With increasing numbers of people climbing the mountain in recent years, the Step has frequently become a bottleneck, with climbers forced to wait significant amounts of time for their turn on the ropes, leading to problems in getting climbers efficiently up and down the mountain.
After the Hillary Step, climbers also must traverse a loose and rocky section that has a large entanglement of fixed ropes that can be troublesome in bad weather. Climbers typically spend less than half an hour at the summit to allow time to descend to Camp IV before darkness sets in, to avoid serious problems with afternoon weather, or because supplemental oxygen tanks run out.
North ridge route
The north ridge route begins from the north side of Everest, in
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...
. Expeditions trek to the Rongbuk Glacier, setting up base camp at on a gravel plain just below the glacier. To reach Camp II, climbers ascend the medial moraine of the east Rongbuk Glacier up to the base of Changtse, at around . Camp III (ABC—Advanced Base Camp) is situated below the
North Col __NOTOC__
The North Col (; ) refers to the sharp-edged pass carved by glaciers in the ridge connecting Mount Everest and Changtse in Tibet. It forms the head of the East Rongbuk Glacier.
When climbers attempt to climb Everest via the North ridge ...
at . To reach Camp IV on the North Col, climbers ascend the glacier to the foot of the col where fixed ropes are used to reach the North Col at . From the North Col, climbers ascend the rocky north ridge to set up Camp V at around . The route crosses the North Face in a diagonal climb to the base of the Yellow Band, reaching the site of Camp VI at . From Camp VI, climbers make their final summit push.
Climbers face a treacherous traverse from the base of the First Step: ascending from , to the crux of the climb, the Second Step, ascending from . (The Second Step includes a climbing aid called the "Chinese ladder", a metal ladder placed semi-permanently in 1975 by a party of Chinese climbers. It has been almost continuously in place since, and ladders have been used by virtually all climbers on the route.) Once above the Second Step the inconsequential Third Step is clambered over, ascending from . Once above these steps, the summit pyramid is climbed by a snow slope of 50 degrees, to the final summit ridge along which the top is reached.
Summit
The summit of Everest has been described as "the size of a dining room table". The summit is capped with snow over ice over rock, and the layer of snow varies from year to year. The rock summit is made of Ordovician
limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
and is a low-grade metamorphic rock. (see the '#Surveys, Surveys' section for more on its height and about the Everest rock summit)
Below the summit, there is an area known as "rainbow valley", filled with dead bodies still wearing brightly coloured winter gear. Down to about is an area commonly called the "death zone", due to the high danger and low oxygen because of the low pressure.
Below the summit the mountain slopes downward to the three main sides, or faces, of Mount Everest: the North Face (Everest), North Face, the South-West Face, and the East/Kangshung Face.
Death zone
At the higher regions of Mount Everest, climbers seeking the summit typically spend substantial time within the death zone (altitudes higher than ), and face significant challenges to survival. Temperatures can dip to very low levels, resulting in
frostbite
Frostbite is a skin injury that occurs when exposed to extreme low temperatures, causing the freezing of the skin or other tissues, commonly affecting the fingers, toes, nose, ears, cheeks and chin areas. Most often, frostbite occurs in the han ...
of any body part exposed to the air. Since temperatures are so low, snow is well-frozen in certain areas and death or injury by slipping and falling can occur. High winds at these altitudes on Everest are also a potential threat to climbers.
Another significant Breathing#Air pressure, threat to climbers is low atmospheric pressure. The atmospheric pressure at the top of Everest is about a third of sea level pressure or , resulting in the availability of only about a third as much oxygen to breathe.
Debilitating effects of the death zone are so great that it takes most climbers up to 12 hours to walk the distance of from South Col to the summit. Achieving even this level of performance requires prolonged altitude acclimatisation, which takes 40–60 days for a typical expedition. A sea-level dweller exposed to the atmospheric conditions at the altitude above without acclimatisation would likely lose consciousness within 2 to 3 minutes.
In May 2007, the Caudwell Xtreme Everest undertook a medical study of oxygen levels in human blood at extreme altitude. Over 200 volunteers climbed to Everest Base Camp where various medical tests were performed to examine blood oxygen levels. A small team also performed tests on the way to the summit. Even at base camp, the low partial pressure of oxygen had direct effect on blood oxygen saturation levels. At sea level, Oxygen saturation (medicine)#Oxygen saturation, blood oxygen saturation is generally 98 to 99 per cent. At base camp, blood saturation fell to between 85 and 87 per cent. Blood samples taken at the summit indicated very low oxygen levels in the blood. A side effect of low blood oxygen is a greatly increased breathing rate, often 80–90 breaths per minute as opposed to a more typical 20–30. Exhaustion can occur merely by attempting to breathe.
Lack of oxygen, exhaustion, extreme cold, and climbing hazards all contribute to the death toll. An injured person who cannot walk is in serious trouble, since rescue by helicopter is generally impractical and carrying the person off the mountain is very risky. People who die during the climb are typically left behind. As of 2006, about 150 bodies had never been recovered. It is not uncommon to find corpses near the standard climbing routes.
A 2008 study noted that the "death zone" is indeed where most Everest deaths occur, but also noted that most deaths occur during descent from the summit. A 2014 article in ''The Atlantic'' about deaths on Everest noted that while falling is one of the greatest dangers the death zone presents for all 8000ers, avalanches are a more common cause of death at lower altitudes. However, Everest climbing is more deadly than BASE jumping, although some have combined extreme sports and Everest including a Russian who base-jumped off Everest in a Wingsuit flying, wingsuit (he did survive, though).
Despite this, Everest is safer for climbers than a number of peaks by some measurements, but it depends on the period. Some examples are
Kangchenjunga
Kangchenjunga, also spelled Kanchenjunga, Kanchanjanghā (), and Khangchendzonga, is the third highest mountain in the world. Its summit lies at in a section of the Himalayas, the ''Kangchenjunga Himal'', which is bounded in the west by the ...
, K2, Annapurna Massif, Annapurna, Nanga Parbat, and the Eiger (especially the ''nordwand''). Some factors that affect total mountain lethality include the level of popularity of the mountain, the skill of those climbing, and the difficulty of the climb.
Another health hazard is retinal haemorrhages, which can damage eyesight and cause blindness. Up to a quarter of Everest climbers can experience retinal haemorrhages, and although they usually heal within weeks of returning to lower altitudes, in 2010 a climber went blind and ended up dying in the death zone.
The team made a huge effort for the next 12 hours to try to get him down the mountain, but to no avail, as they were unsuccessful in getting him through the difficult sections. Even for the able, the Everest North-East ridge is recognised as a challenge. It is hard to rescue someone who has become incapacitated and it can be beyond the ability of rescuers to save ''anyone'' in such a difficult spot. One way around this situation was pioneered by two Nepali men in 2011, who had intended to paraglide off the summit. They had no choice and were forced to go through with their plan anyway, because they had run out of bottled oxygen and supplies. They successfully launched off the summit and para-glided down to Namche Bazaar in just 42 minutes, without having to climb down the mountain.
Supplemental oxygen
Most expeditions use oxygen masks and bottled oxygen, tanks above . Everest can be climbed without supplementary oxygen, but only by the most accomplished mountaineers and at increased risk. Humans' ability to think clearly is hindered with low oxygen, and the combination of extreme weather, low temperatures, and steep slopes often requires quick, accurate decisions. While about 95 per cent of climbers who reach the summit use bottled oxygen in order to reach the top, about five per cent of climbers have summited Everest without supplemental oxygen. The death rate is double for those who attempt to reach the summit without supplemental oxygen. Travelling above altitude is a factor in cerebral hypoxia. This decrease of oxygen to the brain can cause dementia and brain damage, as well as other symptoms. One study found that Mount Everest may be the highest an acclimatised human could go, but also found that climbers may suffer permanent neurological damage despite returning to lower altitudes.
The use of bottled oxygen to ascend Mount Everest has been controversial. It was first used on the 1922 British Mount Everest Expedition by George Finch and Geoffrey Bruce who climbed up to at a spectacular speed of per hour. Pinned down by a fierce storm, they escaped death by breathing oxygen from a jury-rigged set-up during the night. The next day they climbed to at – nearly three times as fast as non-oxygen users. Yet the use of oxygen was considered so unsportsmanlike that none of the rest of the Alpine world recognised this high ascent rate.
George Mallory described the use of such oxygen as unsportsmanlike, but he later concluded that it would be impossible for him to summit without it and consequently used it on his final attempt in 1924. When Tenzing Norgay, Tenzing and Hillary made the first successful summit in 1953, they also used Bottled oxygen (climbing), open-circuit bottled oxygen sets, with the expedition's physiologist Griffith Pugh referring to the oxygen debate as a "futile controversy", noting that oxygen "greatly increases subjective appreciation of the surroundings, which after all is one of the chief reasons for climbing." For the next twenty-five years, bottled oxygen was considered standard for any successful summit.
Reinhold Messner
Reinhold Andreas Messner (; born 17 September 1944) is an Italian mountaineer, explorer, and author from South Tyrol. He made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest and, along with Peter Habeler, the first ascent of Everest without supplemental ...
was the first climber to break the bottled oxygen tradition and in 1978, with
Peter Habeler
Peter Habeler (born 22 July 1942) is an Austrian mountaineer. He was born in Mayrhofen, Austria. He developed an interest in mountain climbing at age six.http://www.everesthistory.com/climbers/habeler
Among his accomplishments as a mountaineer a ...
, made the first successful climb without it. In 1980, Messner summited the mountain solo, without supplemental oxygen or any porters or climbing partners, on the more difficult northwest route. Once the climbing community was satisfied that the mountain could be climbed without supplemental oxygen, many purists then took the next logical step of insisting that is how it ''should'' be climbed.
The aftermath of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, 1996 disaster further intensified the debate.
Jon Krakauer
Jon Krakauer (born April 12, 1954) is an American writer and mountaineer. He is the author of bestselling non-fiction books—'' Into the Wild''; ''Into Thin Air''; ''Under the Banner of Heaven''; and '' Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat ...
's ''
Into Thin Air
''Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster'' is a 1997 bestselling nonfiction book written by Jon Krakauer. It details Krakauer's experience in the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, in which eight climbers were killed and several ...
'' (1997) expressed the author's personal criticisms of the use of bottled oxygen. Krakauer wrote that the use of bottled oxygen allowed otherwise unqualified climbers to attempt to summit, leading to dangerous situations and more deaths. The disaster was partially caused by the sheer number of climbers (34 on that day) attempting to ascend, causing bottlenecks at the Hillary Step and delaying many climbers, most of whom summitted after the usual 14:00 turnaround time. He proposed banning bottled oxygen except for emergency cases, arguing that this would both decrease the growing pollution on Everest—many bottles have accumulated on its slopes—and keep marginally qualified climbers off the mountain.
The 1996 disaster also introduced the issue of the guide's role in using bottled oxygen.
Guide
Anatoli Boukreev
Anatoli Nikolaevich Boukreev (russian: Анато́лий Никола́евич Букре́ев; January 16, 1958 – December 25, 1997) was a Soviet and Kazakhstani mountaineer who made ascents of 10 of the 14 eight-thousander peaks—those a ...
's decision not to use bottled oxygen was sharply criticised by Jon Krakauer. Boukreev's supporters (who include G. Weston DeWalt, who co-wrote '' The Climb'') state that using bottled oxygen gives a false sense of security. Krakauer and his supporters point out that, without bottled oxygen, Boukreev could not directly help his clients descend. They state that Boukreev said that he was going down with client Martin Adams, but just below the south summit, Boukreev determined that Adams was doing fine on the descent and so descended at a faster pace, leaving Adams behind. Adams states in ''The Climb'', "For me, it was business as usual, Anatoli's going by, and I had no problems with that."
The low oxygen can cause a mental fog-like impairment of cognitive abilities described as "delayed and lethargic thought process, clinically defined as bradypsychia" even after returning to lower altitudes. In severe cases, climbers can experience hallucinations. Some studies have found that high-altitude climbers, including Everest climbers, experience altered brain structure. The effects of high altitude on the brain, particularly if it can cause permanent brain damage, continue to be studied.
Autumn climbing
Although generally less popular than spring, Mount Everest has also been climbed in the autumn (also called the "post-monsoon season"). For example, in 2010 Eric Larsen and five Nepali guides summited Everest in the autumn for the first time in ten years. The autumn season, when the monsoon ends, is regarded as more dangerous because there is typically a lot of new snow which can be unstable. However, this increased snow can make it more popular with certain winter sports like skiing and snowboarding. Two Japanese climbers also summited in October 1973.
Chris Chandler and Bob Cormack summited Everest in October 1976 as part of the American Bicentennial Everest Expedition that year, the first Americans to make an autumn ascent of Mount Everest according to the ''Los Angeles Times''. By the 21st century, summer and autumn can be more popular with skiing and snowboard attempts on Mount Everest. During the 1980s, climbing in autumn was actually more popular than in spring. U.S. astronaut Karl Gordon Henize died in October 1993 on an autumn expedition, conducting an experiment on radiation. The amount of background radiation increases with higher altitudes.
The mountain has also been climbed in the winter, but that is not popular because of the combination of cold high winds and shorter days. By January the peak is typically battered by winds and the ''average'' temperature of the summit is around −33 °F (−36 °C).
Selected climbing records
By the end of the 2010 climbing season, there had been 5,104 ascents to the summit by about 3,142 individuals. Some notable "firsts" by climbers include:
* 1922: First climb to , by George Finch and Captain Geoffrey Bruce
* 1952: First climb to
South Col
The South Col is a sharp-edged col between Mount Everest and Lhotse, the highest and fourth-highest mountains in the world, respectively. The South Col is typically swept by high winds, leaving it free of significant snow accumulation. Since 195 ...
by 1952 Swiss Mount Everest expedition
* 1953: First ascent, by
Tenzing Norgay
Tenzing Norgay (; ''tendzin norgyé''; perhaps 29 May 1914 – 9 May 1986), born Namgyal Wangdi, and also referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepali-Indian Sherpa mountaineer. He was one of the first two people known to reach the su ...
and
Edmund Hillary
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reache ...
on 1953 British Mount Everest expedition
* 1960: First reported ascent from the North Ridge by Wang Fuzhou, Gonpo and Qu Yinhua of China.
* 1975: First female ascent, by
Junko Tabei
was a Japanese mountaineer, author and a teacher. She was the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest and the first woman to ascend the Seven Summits, climbing the highest peak on every continent.
Tabei wrote seven books, organized e ...
(16 May).
* 1975: First female ascent from the North Ridge, by Phanthog, deputy head of the second Chinese Everest expedition that sent nine climbers to the summit (27 May).
* 1978: First ascent without supplemental oxygen by
Reinhold Messner
Reinhold Andreas Messner (; born 17 September 1944) is an Italian mountaineer, explorer, and author from South Tyrol. He made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest and, along with Peter Habeler, the first ascent of Everest without supplemental ...
and
Peter Habeler
Peter Habeler (born 22 July 1942) is an Austrian mountaineer. He was born in Mayrhofen, Austria. He developed an interest in mountain climbing at age six.http://www.everesthistory.com/climbers/habeler
Among his accomplishments as a mountaineer a ...
* 1978: First solo ascent, by Franz Oppurg
* 1980: First winter ascent, by Polish National Expedition Winter 1979/1980 (
Leszek Cichy
Leszek () is a Slavic Polish male given name, originally ''Lestko'', ''Leszko'' or ''Lestek'', related to ''Lech'', ''Lechosław'' and Czech ''Lstimir''.
Individuals named Leszek celebrate their name day on June 3.
Notable people
* Lestko
* ...
and
Krzysztof Wielicki
Krzysztof Jerzy Wielicki (born 5 January 1950) is a Polish alpine and high-altitude climber, regarded as one of the greatest Polish climbers in history. He is the fifth man to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders and the first ever to climb Mount ...
)
* 1980: Second solo ascent, and the first without supplemental oxygen, by Reinhold Messner
*1981: Third solo ascent, by Peter Hackett (mountaineer), Peter Hackett
* 1988: First "cross-over" climb by Chinese, Japanese and Nepali teams which ascended the peak simultaneously from both the North and South sides of the mountain and descended down the other side. The cross-over climb was also the first to be recorded on live broadcast television.
* 1988: First descent by paraglider, by Jean-Marc Boivin
* 1988: First female ascent without supplemental oxygen by Lydia Bradey
* 1998: Fastest to reach the summit via the southeast ridge (South Col), without supplemental oxygen, by Kazi Sherpa, in 20 hours and 24 minutes.
* 2000: First descent by ski by Davo Karničar
* 2001: First ascent by a blind climber, Erik Weihenmayer
* 2001:
Lhakpa Sherpa
Lhakpa Sherpa (also Lakpa) ( ne, Lakhpa Sherpa; born 1973) is a Nepalese Sherpa mountain climber. She has climbed Mount Everest ten times, the most of any woman in the world. Her record-breaking tenth climb was on May 12, 2022, which she financ ...
becomes first Nepali woman to summit Everest and survive.
* 2004: Fastest to reach the summit via the southeast ridge (South Col), with supplemental oxygen, by Pemba Dorje, in 8 hours and 10 minutes.
* 2006: Lhakpa Sherpa summits for the 6th time, breaking her own record for most successful female Everest climber.
* 2007: Fastest to reach the summit via the northeast ridge, without supplemental oxygen, by Christian Stangl, in 16 hours, 42 minutes.
* 2010: Youngest male to reach the summit, by Jordan Romero (13 years and 10 months old)
* 2011: Most times to reach the summit,
Apa Sherpa
Apa (born Lhakpa Tenzing Sherpa; 20 January 1960), nicknamed "Super Sherpa", is a Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer who, until 2017, jointly with Phurba Tashi held the record for reaching the summit of Mount Everest more times than any other person. As ...
(21 times; 10 May 1990 – 11 May 2011)
* 2013: Apa Sherpa tied for most times to reach the summit by Phurba Tashi (21 times; 1999–2013)
* 2013: Melissa Arnot, American, summits for the fifth time, breaking her own record for most successful summits by any non-Sherpa woman.
* 2014: Youngest female to reach the summit, by Malavath Purna (13 years and 11 months old)
* 2017: Kami Rita Sherpa of Alpine Ascents reaches 21 ascents to the summit.
* 2019: Kami Rita Sherpa reaches 24 ascents to the summit.
* 2021: Kami Rita Sherpa reaches 25 ascents to the summit.
* 2022: Kami Rita Sherpa reaches 26 ascents to the summit, and Pasang Dawa Sherpa reaches 25 ascents to the summit.
Summiting with disabilities
Summiting Everest with disabilities such as amputations and diseases has become popular in the 21st century, with stories like that of Sudarshan Gautam, a man with no arms who made it to the top in 2013. A teenager with Down's syndrome made it to Base camp, which has become a substitute for more extreme record-breaking because it carries many of the same thrills including the trip to the Himalayas and rustic scenery. Danger lurks even at base camp though, which was the site where dozens were killed in the 2015 Mount Everest avalanches. Others that have climbed Everest with amputations include
Mark Inglis
Mark Joseph Inglis (born 27 September 1959) is a New Zealand mountaineer, researcher, winemaker and motivational speaker. He holds a degree in Human Biochemistry from Lincoln University, New Zealand, and has conducted research on leukaemia. H ...
(no legs), Paul Hockey (one arm only), and Arunima Sinha (one leg only).
In 2001, Erik Weihenmayer became the first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest while blind.
Fake ascents
In 2021, Nepal banned three Indians for faking an ascent of Mount Everest in 2016. In 2017, two Indian police officers, supposedly the first couple to ascend Mount Everest, were sacked once it was found they had faked their ascent.
Aviation
1933: Flight over Everest
Lucy, Lady Houston, a British
millionaire
A millionaire is an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency. Depending on the currency, a certain level of prestige is associated with being a millionaire. In countries that use the short scal ...
former showgirl, funded the Houston Everest Flight of 1933. A formation of airplanes led by the Marquess of Clydesdale flew over the summit in an effort to photograph the unknown terrain.
1988: First climb and glide
On 26 September 1988, having climbed the mountain via the south-east ridge, Jean-Marc Boivin made the first paraglider descent of Everest, in the process creating the record for the fastest descent of the mountain and the highest paraglider flight. Boivin said: "I was tired when I reached the top because I had broken much of the trail, and to run at this altitude was quite hard." Boivin ran from below the summit on 40-degree slopes to launch his paraglider, reaching Camp II at in 12 minutes (some sources say 11 minutes). Boivin would not repeat this feat, as he was killed two years later in 1990, BASE-jumping off Venezuela's Angel Falls.
1991: Hot air balloon flyover
In 1991 four men in two balloons achieved the first hot-air balloon flight over Mount Everest. In one balloon was Andy Elson and Eric Jones (climber), Eric Jones (cameraman), and in the other balloon Chris Dewhirst and Leo Dickinson (cameraman). Dickinson went on to write a book about the adventure called ''Ballooning Over Everest''. The hot-air balloons were modified to function at up to altitude. Reinhold Messner called one of Dickinson's panoramic views of Everest, captured on the now discontinued Kodak Kodachrome film, the "best snap on Earth", according to UK newspaper ''The Daily Telegraph, The Telegraph''. Dewhirst has offered to take passengers on a repeat of this feat for US$2.6 million per passenger.
2005: Pilot summits with helicopter
In May 2005, pilot Didier Delsalle of France landed a Eurocopter AS350 B3 helicopter on the summit of Mount Everest. He needed to land for two minutes to set the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) official record, but he stayed for about four minutes, twice. In this type of landing the rotors stay engaged, which avoids relying on the snow to fully support the aircraft. The flight set rotorcraft world List of Mount Everest records, records, for highest of both landing and take-off.
Some press reports suggested that the report of the summit landing was a misunderstanding of a South Col landing, but he had also landed on South Col two days earlier, with this landing and the Everest records confirmed by the FAI. Delsalle also rescued two Japanese climbers at while he was there. One climber noted that the new record meant a better chance of rescue.
2011: Paraglide off summit
On 21 May 2011, Nepalis Lakpa Tsheri Sherpa and Sano Bapu Sunuwar paraglided from Everest's summit to Namche Bazaar in 42 minutes. After the flight they hiked, biked, and Kayaking, kayaked to the Indian Ocean, reaching the Bay of Bengal by 27 June 2011, thereby becoming the first persons to complete a continuous summit-to-sea descent from Everest. They accomplished the ground-breaking feat despite Bapu having never previously climbed, and Lakpa having never kayaked and not even knowing how to swim. The duo subsequently won National Geographic Adventurers of the Year for 2012 for their exploits. In 2013 footage of the flight was shown on the television news program ''Nightline''.
2014: Helicopter-assisted ascent
In 2014, a team financed and led by mountaineer Wang Jing (mountaineer), Wang Jing used a helicopter to fly from South base camp to Camp 2 to avoid the Khumbu Icefall, and thence climbed to the Everest summit. This climb immediately sparked outrage and controversy in much of the mountaineering world over the legitimacy and propriety of her climb. Nepal ended up investigating #Jing Wang, Wang, who initially denied the claim that she had flown to Camp 2, admitting only that some support crew were flown to that higher camp, over the Khumbu Icefall. In August 2014, however, she stated that she had flown to Camp 2 because the icefall was impassable. "If you don't fly to Camp II, you just go home," she said in an interview. In that same interview, she also insisted that she had never tried to hide this fact.
Her team had had to use the south side because the Chinese had denied them a permit to climb. Ultimately, the Chinese refusal may have been beneficial to Nepal's interests, allowing the government to showcase improved local hospitals and provided the opportunity for a new hybrid aviation/mountaineering style, triggering discussions about helicopter use in the mountaineering world. National Geographic noted that a village festooned Wang with honours after she donated US$30,000 to the town's hospital. Wang won the International Mountaineer of the Year Award from the Nepal government in June 2014.
2016: Helicopter business increases
In 2016 the increased use of helicopters was noted for increased efficiency and for hauling material over the deadly Khumbu icefall. In particular it was noted that flights saved icefall porters 80 trips but still increased commercial activity at Everest. After many Nepalis died in the icefall in 2014, the government had wanted helicopters to handle more transportation to Camp 1 but this was not possible because of the 2015 deaths and earthquake closing the mountain, so this was then implemented in 2016 (helicopters did prove instrumental in rescuing many people in 2015 though). That summer Bell tested the Bell 412#Variants, 412EPI, which conducted a series of tests including hovering at and flying as high as altitude near Mount Everest.
Commercial climbing
According to
Jon Krakauer
Jon Krakauer (born April 12, 1954) is an American writer and mountaineer. He is the author of bestselling non-fiction books—'' Into the Wild''; ''Into Thin Air''; ''Under the Banner of Heaven''; and '' Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat ...
, the era of commercialization, commercialisation of Everest started in 1985, when the summit was reached by a guided expedition led by David Breashears that included Richard Bass, a wealthy 55-year-old businessman and an amateur mountain climber with only four years of climbing experience. By the early-1990s, several companies were offering guided tours to the mountain.
Rob Hall
Robert Edwin Hall (14 January 1961 – 11 May 1996) was a New Zealand mountaineer. He was the head guide of a 1996 Mount Everest expedition during which he, a fellow guide, and two clients died. A best-selling account of the expedition was g ...
, one of the mountaineers who died in the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, 1996 disaster, had successfully guided 39 clients to the summit before that incident.
By 2016, most guiding services cost between US$35,000 and US$200,000. Going with a "celebrity guide", usually a well-known mountaineer typically with decades of climbing experience and perhaps several Everest summits, can cost over £100,000 as of 2015. However, the services offered vary widely and it is "buyer beware" when doing deals in Nepal, one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. Tourism contributed 7.9 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019 in a country with high unemployment, but Everest is special in that an Everest porter can make nearly double the nation's average wage in a region in which other sources of income are lacking.
Costs beyond the guiding service can vary widely. It is technically possible to reach the summit with minimal additional expenses, and there are "budget" travel agencies that offer logistical support for such trips. A limited support service, offering only some meals at base camp and bureaucratic overhead like a permit, can cost as little as US$7,000 as of 2007. However, this is considered difficult and dangerous (as illustrated by the case of David Sharp).
Climbing gear required to reach the summit may cost in excess of US$8,000, and most climbers also use Bottled oxygen (climbing), bottled oxygen, which adds around US$3,000. The permit to enter the Everest area from the south via Nepal costs US$10,000 to US$30,000 per person, depending on the size of the team. The ascent typically starts at one of the Everest base camps, two base camps near the mountain, both of which are approximately from
and from Lhasa (the two nearest cities with major airports). Transferring one's equipment from the airport to the base camp may add as much as US$2,000.
Many climbers hire "full service" guide companies, which provide a wide spectrum of services, including the acquisition of permits, transportation to/from base camp, food, tents, fixed ropes, medical assistance while on the mountain, an experienced mountaineer guide, and even personal porters to carry one's backpack and cook one's meals. The cost of such a guide service may range from US$40,000 to $80,000 per person. Since most equipment is moved by Sherpa people, Sherpas, clients of full-service guide companies can often keep their backpack weights under , or hire a Sherpa to carry their backpack for them. By contrast, climbers attempting less commercialised peaks, like
Denali
Denali (; also known as Mount McKinley, its former official name) is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of above sea level. With a topographic prominence of and a topographic isolation of , Denali is the thir ...
, are often expected to carry backpacks over and, occasionally, to tow a sled with of gear and food.
The degree of commercialisation of Mount Everest is a frequent subject of criticism. Jamling Tenzing Norgay, the son of
Tenzing Norgay
Tenzing Norgay (; ''tendzin norgyé''; perhaps 29 May 1914 – 9 May 1986), born Namgyal Wangdi, and also referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepali-Indian Sherpa mountaineer. He was one of the first two people known to reach the su ...
, said in a 2003 interview that his late father would have been shocked to discover that rich thrill-seekers with no climbing experience were now routinely reaching the summit, "You still have to climb this mountain yourself with your feet. But the spirit of adventure is not there any more. It is lost. There are people going up there who have no idea how to put on crampons. They are climbing because they have paid someone $65,000. It is very selfish. It endangers the lives of others."
One example of this is Shriya Shah-Klorfine, who had to be taught how to put on crampons during her summit attempt in 2012. She paid at least US$40,000 to a new guiding company for the trip, and died when she ran out of oxygen during the descent after climbing for 27 hours straight.
Reinhold Messner
Reinhold Andreas Messner (; born 17 September 1944) is an Italian mountaineer, explorer, and author from South Tyrol. He made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest and, along with Peter Habeler, the first ascent of Everest without supplemental ...
concurred in 2004, "You could die in each climb and that meant you were responsible for yourself. We were real mountaineers: careful, aware and even afraid. By climbing mountains we were not learning how big we were. We were finding out how breakable, how weak and how full of fear we are. You can only get this if you expose yourself to high danger. I have always said that a mountain without danger is not a mountain....High altitude alpinism has become tourism and show. These commercial trips to Everest, they are still dangerous. But the guides and organisers tell clients, 'Don't worry, it's all organised.' The route is prepared by hundreds of Sherpas. Extra oxygen is available in all camps, right up to the summit. People will cook for you and lay out your beds. Clients feel safe and don't care about the risks."
By 2015, Nepal was considering to require that climbers have some experience and wanted to make the mountain safer, and especially increase revenue. One barrier to this is that low-budget firms make money ''not'' taking inexperienced climbers to the summit. Those turned away by Western firms can often find another firm willing to take them for a price — that they return home soon after arriving after base camp, or part way up the mountain. Whereas a Western firm will convince those they deem incapable to turn back, other firms simply give people the freedom to choose.
However, not all opinions on the subject among prominent mountaineers have been strictly negative. For example,
Edmund Hillary
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reache ...
stated in 2003 that while "Having people pay $65,000 and then be led up the mountain by a couple of experienced guides...isn't really mountaineering at all", he was pleased by the changes brought to Everest area by Westerners, "I don't have any regrets because I worked very hard indeed to improve the condition for the local people. When we first went in there they didn't have any schools, they didn't have any medical facilities, all over the years we have established 27 schools, we have two hospitals and a dozen medical clinics and then we've built bridges over wild mountain rivers and put in fresh water pipelines so in cooperation with the Sherpas we've done a lot to benefit them."
One of the early guided summiters, Richard Bass (of Seven Summits fame) stated in 2003 that "Climbers should have high altitude experience before they attempt the really big mountains. People don't realise the difference between a mountain and . It's not just arithmetic. The reduction of oxygen in the air is proportionate to the altitude alright, but the effect on the human body is disproportionate—an exponential curve. People climb Denali [] or Aconcagua [] and think, 'Heck, I feel great up here, I'm going to try Everest.' But it's not like that."
Thefts and crime
Some climbers have reported life-threatening thefts from supply caches. In May 2006, Vitor Negrete, the first Brazilian to climb Everest without oxygen and part of David Sharp's party, died during his descent, and theft of gear and food from his high-altitude camp may have contributed.
"Several members were bullied, gear was stolen, and threats were made against me and my climbing partner, Michael Kodas, making an already stressful situation even more dire", said one climber.
In addition to theft, Michael Kodas describes in his book, ''High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed'' (2008): unethical guides and Sherpas, Prostitution in Tibet, prostitution and gambling at the Tibet Base Camp, fraud related to the sale of oxygen bottles, and climbers collecting donations under the pretense of removing trash from the mountain.
The Chinese side of Everest in Tibet was described as "out of control" in 2007 after one Canadian had all his gear stolen and was abandoned by his Sherpa. Another Sherpa helped the victim get off the mountain safely and gave him some spare gear. Other climbers have also reported missing oxygen bottles, which can be worth hundreds of dollars each. Hundreds of climbers pass by people's tents, making it hard to safeguard against theft. In the late 2010s, the reports of theft of oxygen bottles from camps became more common.
2014 Sherpa strike
On 18 April 2014, in one of the worst disasters to ever hit the Everest climbing community up to that time, 16 Sherpas died in Nepal due to the 2014 Mount Everest ice avalanche, avalanche that swept them off Mount Everest. In response to the tragedy, numerous Sherpa climbing guides walked off the job and most climbing companies pulled out in respect for the Sherpa people mourning the loss. Some still wanted to climb but there was too much controversy to continue that year. One of the issues that triggered the work action by Sherpas was unreasonable client demands during climbs.
Extreme sports at Mount Everest
Mount Everest has been host to other winter sports and adventuring besides mountaineering, including snowboarding, skiing, paragliding, and BASE jumping.
Yuichiro Miura became the first man to ski down Everest in the 1970s. He descended nearly from the South Col before falling with extreme injuries. Stefan Gatt and Marco Siffredi snowboarded Mount Everest in 2001. Other Everest skiers include Davo Karničar of Slovenia, who completed a top to south base camp descent in 2000, Hans Kammerlander of Italy in 1996 on the north side, and Kit DesLauriers of the United States in 2006. In 2006 Swede Tomas Olsson and Norwegian Tormod Granheim skied together down the north face. Olsson's anchor broke while they were rappelling down a cliff in the Norton couloir at about 8,500 metres, resulting in his death from a two and a half-kilometre fall. Granheim skied down to camp III. Also, Marco Siffredi died in 2002 on his second snow-boarding expedition.
Various types of gliding descents have slowly become more popular, and are noted for their rapid descents to lower camps. In 1986 Steve McKinney (skier), Steve McKinney led an expedition to Mount Everest, during which he became the first person to fly a hang-gliding, hang-glider off the mountain. Frenchman Jean-Marc Boivin made the first paraglider descent of Everest in September 1988, descending in minutes from the south-east ridge to a lower camp. In 2011, two Nepalis made a gliding descent from the Everest summit down in 45 minutes. On 5 May 2013, the beverage company Red Bull sponsored Valery Rozov, who successfully BASE jumped off of the mountain while wearing a wingsuit, setting a record for world's highest BASE jump in the process.
Everest and religion
The southern part of Mount Everest is regarded as one of several "hidden valleys" of refuge designated by Padmasambhava, a ninth-century "Lotus birth, lotus-born" Buddhist saint.
Near the base of the north side of Everest lies Rongbuk Monastery, which has been called the "sacred threshold to Mount Everest, with the most dramatic views of the world." For Sherpa people, Sherpas living on the slopes of Everest in the
Khumbu
Khumbu (also known as the Everest Region) is a region of northeastern Nepal on the Nepalese side of Mount Everest. It is part of the Solukhumbu District, which in turn is part of Province No. 1.Bradley, Mayhew; "Trekking in the Nepal Himalaya"; ( ...
region of Nepal, Rongbuk Monastery is an important pilgrimage site, accessed in a few days of travel across the Himalayas through Nangpa La.
Miyolangsangma, a
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...
an Buddhist "''Goddess of Inexhaustible Giving''", is believed to have lived at the top of Mount Everest. According to Sherpa Buddhist monks, Mount Everest is Miyolangsangma's palace and playground, and all climbers are only partially welcome guests, having arrived without invitation.
The Sherpa people also believe that Mount Everest and its flanks are blessed with spiritual energy, and one should show reverence when passing through this sacred landscape. Here, the karma, karmic effects of one's actions are magnified, and impure thoughts are best avoided.
Waste management
In 2015, the president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association warned that pollution, especially human waste, has reached critical levels. As much as of human excrement each season is left behind on the mountain. Human waste is strewn across the verges of the route to the summit, making the four sleeping areas on the route up Everest's south side minefields of human excrement. Climbers above Base Camp—for the 62-year history of climbing on the mountain—have most commonly either buried their excrement in holes they dug by hand in the snow, or slung it into crevasses, or simply defecated wherever convenient, often within metres of their tents. The only place where climbers can defecate without worrying about contaminating the mountain is Base Camp. At approximately , Base Camp sees the most activity of all camps on Everest because climbers acclimate and rest there. In the late-1990s, expeditions began using toilets that they fashioned from blue plastic barrels fitted with a toilet seat and enclosed.
The problem of human waste is compounded by the presence of more anodyne waste: spent oxygen tanks, abandoned tents, empty cans and bottles. The Nepali government now requires each climber to pack out eight kilograms of waste when descending the mountain.
In February 2019, due to the mounting waste problem, China closed the base camp on its side of Everest to visitors without climbing permits. Tourists are allowed to go as far as the Rongbuk Monastery.
In April 2019, the Solukhumbu District, Solukhumbu district's Khumbu Pasanglhamu Rural Municipality launched a campaign to collect nearly 10,000 kg of garbage from Everest.
Context and maps
Nearby peaks include
Lhotse
Lhotse ( ne, ल्होत्से ; , ''lho tse'', ) is the fourth highest mountain in the world at , after Mount Everest, K2, and Kangchenjunga. The main summit is on the border between Tibet Autonomous Region of China and the Khumbu ...
, ; Nuptse, , and Changtse, among others. Another nearby peak is
Khumbutse
Khumbutse () is the first mountain west (6 km) of Mount Everest. It lies at the border between Nepal and China.
Overview
Khumbutse's name indicates its location at the head of the Khumbu valley, down which the Khumbu Glacier flows. It is one ...
, and many of the highest mountains in the world are near Mount Everest. On the southwest side, a major feature in the lower areas is the Khumbu Glacier, Khumbu icefall and glacier, an obstacle to climbers on those routes but also to the base camps.
See also
* Lhasa#Rail, Chinese plan for a rail tunnel under Mount Everest
* Everesting
*
The Himalayan Database
''The Himalayan Database: The Expedition Archives of Elizabeth Hawley'' is a large digital and published record of mountaineering in the ''Nepalese Himalayas'' since 1903 (i.e. it does not include the ''Pakistan Himalaya'' peaks such as K2 and ...
* List of deaths on eight-thousanders
* List of elevation extremes by country
* List of Mount Everest death statistics
* List of Mount Everest summiters by number of times to the summit
* List of Mount Everest records
* List of people who died climbing Mount Everest
* List of ski descents of Eight-Thousanders
* List of tallest mountains in the Solar System
* Mount Everest in popular culture
* Mount Hood climbing accidents
* Mukhiyapatti Musharniya Rural Municipality, Mukhiyapatti Musharniya, the lowest point of Nepal
* Qomolangma National Park
* Rongbuk Glacier
* Sagarmatha National Park
* Timeline of climbing Mount Everest
* Timeline of Mount Everest expeditions
Data Visualization of Mount Everest Summit, Attempt, and Death
{{DEFAULTSORT:Everest, Mount
Articles containing video clips
China–Nepal border
Eight-thousanders of the Himalayas
Extreme points of Earth
First 100 IUGS Geological Heritage Sites
Highest points of Chinese provinces
Highest points of countries
International mountains of Asia
Mount Everest,
Mountaineering deaths
Mountaineering disasters
Mountains of the Province No. 1
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Seven Summits
Shigatse
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