60 Fun Facts About Mount Everest

Which two countries share the summit of Mount Everest on their border?

The mountain lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas.

What official height for Everest did Nepal and China jointly announce in December 2020?

The two countries had argued for years over whether to measure the rock head or the snow cap.

What is Mount Everest called in Nepali?

The name is usually translated as goddess of the sky or the head in the great blue sky.

What does the Tibetan name for Everest, Qomolangma, literally mean?

The name was first recorded in the 1721 Kangxi Atlas.

Under what temporary label did the British survey know Everest before it was named?

Kangchenjunga, then thought to be the world's highest, was Peak IX in the same numbering.

After whom was Everest named, at the suggestion of Andrew Waugh in the 1850s?

George Everest himself objected, saying the name could not be written in Hindi or pronounced by Indians.

How did Sir George Everest pronounce his own surname?

The modern pronunciation of the mountain differs from the man's.

In which year did the Royal Geographical Society officially adopt the name Mount Everest?

Late-19th-century cartographers wrongly believed a native name for it was Gaurishankar, a different peak.

Which Indian mathematician was the first to identify Everest as the world's highest peak, in 1852?

He was working from Dehradun on trigonometric data gathered by James Nicolson.

How much did each giant theodolite used by the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India weigh?

Each one needed 12 men to carry it.

Why was Everest publicly declared to be 29,002 feet in 1856 rather than the calculated 29,000?

The exact 29,000-foot result looked suspiciously neat, so two feet were added.

What is the closest sea to Everest's summit, almost 700 km away?

Tim Macartney-Snape's team climbed the mountain's entire height from that coastline in 1990.

What kind of rock forms the summit of Everest?

Samples near the top contain fragments of trilobites, crinoids and ostracods, remains of a former sea floor.

What is the yellowish-brown marble layer between about 8,200 and 8,600 m on Everest called?

It forms the upper part of the North Col Formation and weathers to its distinctive colour.

Which two tectonic plates collide to push Everest upward?

One estimate puts the vertical uplift at about 4 mm a year, with the summit drifting northeast.

What creature found at 6,700 m on Everest may be Earth's highest permanent resident?

Euophrys omnisuperstes probably feeds on insects blown up by the wind.

Which bird did George Lowe of the 1953 expedition report seeing fly over Everest's summit?

Choughs have been spotted as high as the South Col at 7,906 m.

Roughly what fraction of sea-level air pressure exists at Everest's summit?

That leaves only about a third as much oxygen to breathe, which is why most climbers use bottles above 8,000 m.

Above what altitude does Everest's so-called death zone begin?

A 2008 study found most deaths there happen during descent from the summit.

What was the highest wind speed recorded at Everest's summit, in February 2004?

The peak reaches into the jet stream, and winds commonly hit 160 km/h.

The summit of Everest has been described as being about the size of what?

It is capped with snow over ice over rock, and the snow layer varies from year to year.

Who made the first documented ascent of Everest on 29 May 1953?

They reached the top at 11:30 am local time and buried sweets and a small cross in the snow.

Who led the 1953 British expedition that put the first climbers on the summit?

His first pair, Bourdillon and Evans, got within 100 m of the top before oxygen problems forced them back.

Which nationality was Edmund Hillary?

He was knighted within days of the ascent and later devoted much of his life to helping the Sherpa people of Nepal.

What was Edmund Hillary's occupation when he was not climbing?

His father sold honey and his mother bred and sold queen bees.

Beginning in 1960, Hillary devoted himself to helping Nepal's Sherpa people through which organisation?

He was appointed a Knight of the Garter in 1995.

Which country's 1952 team took Tenzing Norgay to a record 8,595 m a year before his successful climb?

He and Raymond Lambert set a new altitude record on the Southeast Ridge.

On which date in 1924 did George Mallory and Andrew Irvine disappear during their summit attempt?

Whether they reached the top before dying remains one of mountaineering's great debates.

In which year was George Mallory's body found on the North Face?

The Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition found it in a snow basin below the traditional site of Camp VI.

What famous three-word answer did Mallory reportedly give when asked why he wanted to climb Everest?

The New York Times printed the quote in March 1923 under the headline that climbing Everest was work for supermen.

In which year did humans first climb above 8,000 metres, on Everest's North Ridge?

Mallory, Norton and Somervell reached 8,225 m without supplemental oxygen.

Why did early British expeditions attempt Everest only from the Tibetan side?

Access from the north was closed to Western expeditions in 1950, reversing the situation.

Which country's team made the first reported ascent from the North Ridge, in May 1960?

Wang Fuzhou, Gonpo and Qu Yinhua made the climb.

Who was the first American to climb Everest, on 1 May 1963?

On the same expedition Hornbein and Unsoeld made the first traverse, up the North Face and down the South Col.

Who became the first woman to summit Everest, in 1975?

She was also the first woman to complete the Seven Summits.

Which two climbers made the first ascent of Everest without supplemental oxygen in 1978?

Two years later Messner went up solo without oxygen, porters or partners.

Climbers from which country made the first winter ascent of Everest, in February 1980?

Leszek Cichy and Krzysztof Wielicki reached the top; Poles went on to make ten first winter ascents of 8,000 m peaks.

Who was the first person to ski down Everest, in 1970?

He fell with extreme injuries after 1,300 vertical metres, and later became the oldest summiteer at 70 and again at 80.

How many climbers died in the blizzard of 10 and 11 May 1996 that inspired Into Thin Air?

Fifteen people died over the whole 1996 season, a record until the 2014 avalanche.

Which journalist on assignment for Outside wrote Into Thin Air about the 1996 disaster?

Guide Anatoli Boukreev co-authored The Climb a year later, partly as a rebuttal.

Which guiding company, led by Rob Hall, lost four members in the 1996 storm?

Scott Fischer, leader of the rival Mountain Madness team, was that group's only fatality.

Which Texan climber, left for dead in 1996, walked back into Camp 4 with massive frostbite?

He was later lowered to Camp 2 and lifted out by a Nepali Army helicopter.

How many people were killed in the 18 April 2014 avalanche below Base Camp 2, all of them Nepali guides?

Sherpa guides walked off the job afterwards and most companies pulled out for the season.

What triggered the avalanche that hit Everest Base Camp on 25 April 2015?

It was the first spring since 1974 with no summits, and it also destroyed the Hillary Step.

What was the Hillary Step, before it was destroyed in 2015?

It sat about 30 m below the summit and was the most technical part of the Nepal-side route.

Which Nepali guide made a record 32nd ascent of Everest in May 2026?

His brother Lakpa Rita, also a guide, had climbed it 17 times by then.

What is the name of the treacherous glacier section climbers cross just above the south-side Base Camp?

Climbers start before dawn so the freezing temperatures glue the ice blocks in place.

What nickname is given to the Western Cwm, because the surrounding topography cuts off the wind?

On a clear windless day it can become unbearably hot for climbers.

At about what altitude is the south-side Everest Base Camp in Nepal?

Expeditions fly to Lukla and trek six to eight days to reach it, acclimatising on the way.

Which French pilot landed a helicopter on the summit of Everest in May 2005?

He flew a Eurocopter AS350 B3 and stayed on the summit for about four minutes, twice.

Who funded the 1933 flight in which two aeroplanes led by the Marquess of Clydesdale flew over Everest?

The millionaire former showgirl backed the effort to photograph the unknown terrain.

Under Nepali rules introduced in 2014, how much waste must each Everest climber pack out?

As much as 12,000 kg of human excrement is left on the mountain each season.

Which Tibetan Buddhist goddess is believed to live at the top of Everest?

Sherpa monks say the mountain is her palace and climbers are only partially welcome guests.

Which monastery near the north side of Everest is called the sacred threshold to the mountain?

For Sherpas in the Khumbu it is an important pilgrimage site reached via the Nangpa La pass.

As of December 2024, roughly how many total summits of Everest had the Himalayan Database recorded?

Only about 200 people had reached the top by 1987, before the commercial era.

Roughly what share of climbers who reach the summit do so without bottled oxygen?

The death rate is double for those who try it without supplemental oxygen.

Per Into Thin Air, Everest's commercialisation began with a 1985 guided ascent by which amateur?

The 55-year-old businessman had four years of climbing experience and was guided by David Breashears.

Why did China issue no Everest permits on the Tibetan side in 2008?

Both countries later cancelled all permits in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

From 2026, Nepal's Everest permit rule requires a prior ascent of a peak of at least what height?

The regulation, introduced in April 2025, followed years of images of queues near the summit and deaths blamed on crowding.

Which neighbouring peak, at 8,516 m, is climbed with Everest for the so-called 'Double Crown'?

In May 2011 American guide Michael Horst summited both without descending below Camp IV.