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Why Mount Everest
is
special
Mount Everest is the world's tallest mountain.
Mount Everest
tips & insights
 No
one realized that it was the tallest until 1856.
The
Mount Everest summit straddles the border between Nepal and Tibet, China.
In
1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first humans to scale Mount
Everest. Some say two climbers accomplished this feat in 1924, but the evidence is weak.
Since 1953, some 1500 people reached the summit, but about 170 climbers
died.
Climbing
Mount Everest is not cheap.
Commercial expeditions can cost climbers $60,000
to $75,00 each.
Climbers
face many deadly dangers, including:
  Avalanches
Slippery ice
Collapsing crevasses
Sudden storms
Strong winds
Subzero temperatures
Oxygen deprivation
Then why do people want to climb Mount Everest?
Certainly, challenge and prestige are two answers.
Another is "Because it is there", as
mountaineer George Mallory stated.
A
blind person, a one-legged person, a 15 year old,
and a 70 year old have successfully made it to the
top. And other adventurers have skied, snowboarded
and hang glided down the mountain.
The
annual window for ascending Mount Everest is short.
Normally, conditions in this part of the Himalayan
Mountains are the most favorable in April and May. Before then,
the freezing winds are too strong. After May, the
stormy monsoon season arrives.
The southern
ridge is the most popular (and easiest) route to the summit.
In the last decade, Mount Everest has been
attracting too many climbers for its own good, say
environmentalists. During the April to May window, base
camps are unbearably crowded with hopefuls.
Sadly,
mountaineer litter bugs discard plastic packaging and non-biodegradable climbing
gear (including empty oxygen tanks) on the formerly pristine slopes.
Mount
Everest is seen up close annually by tens of thousands of
hardy hikers who trek to breathtaking vantage points.
Non-hikers can see Mount Everest, too
(though from greater distances). China and Nepal have
sites for them. Darjeeling in India also has a special viewing spot.
Alternatively, you can take
a flight-seeing tour. Some fly within a couple of miles of Mount Everest.
Don't
call the mountain "Mount Everest" in Tibet or Nepal. That's British coinage.
Tibetans refer to it as Chomolungma and Nepalese call it Sagarmatha.
The
official height of Mount Everest is 8848 meters or 29,029 feet, which is based
on a 1954 ground-based measurement. However, in 1999, a National Geographic Society satellite-based measurement
indicated that Mount Everest was about 2 meters (6
feet) taller.
Mount
Everest is not standing still.
Due to massive geological forces, it is
rising at the rate of almost 1 centimeter (1/3
inch) per year - and moving northeast at about 6
centimeters (2 inches) per year.
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