50 Fun Facts About Eight-Thousanders

How many mountains on Earth, all of them in Asia, rise more than 8,000 metres above sea level?

Only 14 mountains pass the 8,000-metre mark, every one of them in the Himalaya or the range beside it. The first was climbed in 1950 and the last in 1964.

Which climber from South Tyrol first summited every eight-thousander, finishing in 1986 without bottled oxygen?

Reinhold Messner needed 16 years to collect the full set, starting in 1970. He climbed every one of the peaks without supplementary oxygen.

What grim name do climbers give the altitude above 8,000 metres, where the body cannot survive for long?

The death zone earns its name on the summit of Everest, where each breath holds less than a third of the oxygen at sea level. Bodies there weaken even at rest.

Which mountain became the first eight-thousander ever climbed when Maurice Herzog's expedition summited in 1950?

Annapurna was climbed on 3 June 1950, three years before anyone stood on Everest. Herzog and Louis Lachenal paid with severe frostbite and lost all their toes.

Which Sherpa mountaineer stood on the summit of Everest with Edmund Hillary on 29 May 1953?

Tenzing Norgay had already been to Everest six times before 1953. Afterwards he chose to celebrate his birthday on 29 May, the day of the climb.

Which country is home to five eight-thousanders, including K2 and Nanga Parbat?

Pakistan has five of the giants, and four of them stand close together around Concordia, a meeting point of glaciers below K2.

Which Englishman, later branded the wickedest man in the world, joined the first serious attempt on K2 in 1902?

Aleister Crowley was a gifted climber before he became a notorious occultist. His 1902 party spent 68 days on K2 and reached about 6,500 metres.

Before climbing Everest in 1953, New Zealander Edmund Hillary earned his living in which trade?

Beekeeper was Hillary's day job: he tended 1,600 hives with his father and brother, keeping bees in summer and climbing in winter.

Which British climber vanished high on Everest in 1924 and was found on the mountain 75 years later?

George Mallory was found in 1999 at about 8,160 metres. Whether he and partner Andrew Irvine reached the top, 29 years before the first confirmed ascent, is still unknown.

Which bestselling book by journalist Jon Krakauer recounts the 1996 storm that killed eight climbers on Everest?

Into Thin Air began as a magazine job: Krakauer joined a guided climb to report for Outside and found himself in the middle of the disaster.

The K in K2, a label from a British survey in 1856, stands for which mountain range?

Karakoram gave K2 its name: Thomas Montgomerie sketched the range's two most prominent peaks from 210 km away and labelled them K1 and K2.

Which country's expedition made the first ascent of K2 in 1954, a year after Everest was first climbed?

Italy claimed K2 on 31 July 1954, when Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni reached the top arm in arm at about six in the evening.

What does the name Nanga Parbat, taken from Sanskrit, mean in English?

Naked Mountain comes from the Sanskrit words nagna and parvata. Climbers know the peak by a darker nickname, Killer Mountain, for the many lives it has taken.

Heinrich Harrer's arrest after a 1939 Nanga Parbat expedition began the adventures told in which bestselling memoir?

Seven Years in Tibet follows Harrer's escape from a British internment camp in India to Lhasa, where he became the young Dalai Lama's tutor.

Which climber became the second person to summit every eight-thousander, most of them by new routes or in winter?

Jerzy Kukuczka took less than eight years, about half the time the first man needed, and used bottled oxygen only on Everest.

Which Basque climber became the first woman to summit every eight-thousander, completing the set in May 2010?

Edurne Pasaban was the 21st person to finish the set. A rival who claimed it three weeks earlier was later ruled not to have reached one of her summits.

Which climber became the first woman to reach the summit of Everest, twelve days after surviving an avalanche in 1975?

Junko Tabei went on to become the first woman to complete the Seven Summits, the highest peak on every continent.

Climbers from which country made the first winter ascent of K2 in 2021, the last eight-thousander climbed in winter?

Nepal supplied all ten climbers: drawn from three separate teams, they joined forces and stepped onto the summit together on 16 January 2021.

Climbers from which country made the first winter ascent of any eight-thousander, on Everest in February 1980?

Poland made winter its speciality: after Everest, all-Polish teams completed eight more first winter ascents of the world's highest peaks.

An expedition from which country made the first ascent of Manaslu in 1956, alongside Sherpa Gyalzen Norbu?

Japan sent party after party to Manaslu until Toshio Imanishi and Gyalzen Norbu reached the top on 9 May 1956. The peak's name means mountain of the spirit.

Which Austrian climber reached the summit of Nanga Parbat alone in 1953, on the mountain's first ascent?

Hermann Buhl climbed the last 1,300 metres alone, then survived a night at almost 8,000 metres without bivouac gear. No other eight-thousander was first climbed solo.

Which nickname did K2 earn after climber George Bell's verdict on a failed American expedition in 1953?

Savage Mountain stuck because K2 is far deadlier than Everest: before 2021, roughly one climber had died there for every four who reached the top.

What is the Tibetan name for Mount Everest, a name often translated as holy mother?

Chomolungma, also romanised as Qomolangma, is the name used on the mountain's northern side. The southern side knows it as Sagarmatha.

Sir George Everest, namesake of the world's highest mountain, held which colonial post from 1830 to 1843?

Surveyor General of India was the post, but Everest had nothing to do with finding the peak and at first objected to the honour.

What does the name Kangchenjunga, borne by the world's third-tallest mountain, mean in Tibetan?

Five treasures of the high snow suits a mountain with five peaks. Local belief holds that the treasures, among them gold, salt and sacred scriptures, will show themselves only when the world is in peril.

What did Joe Brown and George Band do on Kangchenjunga's first ascent in 1955 to honour a promise to the local ruler?

Stop short of the summit: on 25 May 1955 the two Britons halted just below the top, having given their word that the peak itself would remain inviolate.

Kangchenjunga stands partly in which Indian state, a former Himalayan kingdom that joined India in 1975?

Sikkim holds the mountain's eastern flank, and three of its five peaks sit directly on the border. Until 1852 Kangchenjunga was assumed to be the highest mountain in the world.

Which eight-thousander, the lowest of them all, is the only one standing entirely inside China?

Shishapangma was also the last of the group to be climbed: a Chinese expedition reached its summit on 2 May 1964.

Which eight-thousander, whose name means Turquoise Goddess, is widely considered the easiest of the group to climb?

Cho Oyu owes that reputation to the moderate slopes of its standard route and a high pass close by. An Austrian party made the first ascent in 1954.

Which eight-thousander is joined to Everest by the South Col and has a Tibetan name meaning South Peak?

Lhotse is the fourth-highest mountain on Earth, and climbers bound for it follow Everest's route until high on the face, where the two paths split.

Which eight-thousander, named from Sanskrit for white mountain, was thought the world's highest after an 1808 survey?

Dhaulagiri held the title for 30 years, until Kangchenjunga took its place in 1838. It is still the highest mountain lying within the borders of a single country.

Gasherbrum I, the world's 11th-highest mountain, also goes by which name coined by explorer Martin Conway in 1892?

Hidden Peak reflects the mountain's remoteness: for most of the approach march it stays out of sight behind its neighbours.

The name Gasherbrum, shared by two eight-thousanders, comes from Balti words with which meaning?

Beautiful mountain is the meaning, from the Balti words rgasha and brum. The popular translation, Shining Wall, probably began as a nickname for the gleaming face of Gasherbrum IV.

Which Austrian shared the first ascent of Everest without bottled oxygen in 1978, a feat once thought impossible?

Peter Habeler and his partner reached the top on 8 May 1978. Four years earlier the same pair had climbed the north face of the Eiger in a record ten hours.

Which notoriously dangerous section of Everest's South Col route lies just above base camp and is crossed on ladders?

Khumbu Icefall is a glacier in motion, where ice blocks weighing thousands of tons can collapse without warning. Most climbers cross before sunrise, while the cold holds it still.

Which couloir, overhung by towers of ice about 400 metres below the top, is the most dangerous part of K2's usual route?

The Bottleneck forces climbers to traverse about 100 metres beneath hanging ice. In August 2008 falling ice there swept away the fixed ropes during a disaster that killed 11 mountaineers.

K2's standard route follows which ridge, named after the duke who led an attempt on the mountain in 1909?

Abruzzi Spur recalls Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi, whose 1909 party reached about 6,250 metres on it. The first ascent followed the same line 45 years later.

Which glacier leads trekkers towards K2's base camp, meeting the Godwin-Austen at the junction called Concordia?

Baltoro ice is ringed by giants: K2 and three more summits above 8,000 metres all stand within a 20-kilometre radius.

Which great river makes its northernmost bend beside Nanga Parbat, the western anchor of the Himalaya?

Indus water runs past the foot of the massif, whose northern flank climbs 7,000 metres from the river valley to the summit in just 25 kilometres.

Which lightweight method, with no fixed ropes, porters or stocked camps, was first used on an eight-thousander in 1975?

Alpine style reached the highest peaks on Gasherbrum I, where two climbers took a new route to the summit in just three days.

Who became the first woman to climb every eight-thousander without bottled oxygen, finishing on K2 in 2011?

Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner also climbed without high-altitude porters. The Austrian was the second woman to finish the set, a year after the first.

Which climber became the first woman to reach the summit of K2, in 1986, doing so without bottled oxygen?

Wanda Rutkiewicz had already become the first European woman on Everest. She was last seen alive in 1992, high on Kangchenjunga.

Which mountaineer became the first American to climb every eight-thousander in 2005, never using bottled oxygen?

Ed Viesturs was the 12th person to complete the set and only the fifth to do it without supplemental oxygen.

Which Bengali mathematician calculated in 1852 that Peak XV, now called Everest, was the world's highest mountain?

Radhanath Sikdar is said to have reached a height of exactly 29,000 feet. His chief added two feet so that the figure would not look like a rounded estimate.

An expedition from which country made the first ascent of Makalu in 1955, putting its whole climbing team on the summit?

France put Jean Couzy and Lionel Terray on top on 15 May 1955, and over the next two days every other climber in the team followed them up.

Which 2000 Hollywood thriller starring Chris O'Donnell follows a desperate rescue attempt high on K2?

Vertical Limit sends a brother after climbers trapped in a crevasse. Most of its mountain scenes were shot in New Zealand, around Mount Cook and Queenstown.

News of the 1953 British ascent of Everest was released in London on the morning of which royal event?

Elizabeth II's coronation fell on 2 June 1953, four days after the summit, and the press hailed the climb as a coronation gift.

Which airstrip, built under Edmund Hillary's supervision, is the usual starting point for Everest Base Camp treks?

Lukla got its airport in 1964. Hillary wanted to build on flat farmland, but local farmers would not give up their fields, so the runway went where it stands today.

Which weather system batters Everest's summit with freezing winds until it shifts north ahead of the monsoon?

The jet stream can hit Everest only because the summit stands so high. When it moves north each spring, climbers get a calmer window of about a week to ten days.

Which New Zealand guide died high on Everest in 1996 after refusing to leave a stricken client near the summit?

Rob Hall sent his Sherpas down with the other clients and stayed to help Doug Hansen, who had run out of oxygen above the Hillary Step.