Mountain Trivia
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99 free Mountain trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
41 free Mountain trivia questions with answers. Mountain trivia is more than 'which is the highest'. This quiz covers Everest's names, first ascents, death toll and nearest sea; K2 and why it is called the Savage Mountain; the fourteen eight-thousanders and the people who collected them, from Messner to Nims Purja; the Seven Summits and the argument over Australia and Europe; and the famous individual peaks: Kilimanjaro, Denali, the Matterhorn tragedy of 1865, Fuji, Chimborazo, Mauna Kea, Mount Rushmore and Olympus Mons on Mars. Early questions suit anyone who has watched a climbing documentary (which country Aconcagua is in, which plate built the Himalayas). Later ones will test geography teachers and armchair mountaineers: which eight-thousander was climbed last and why, who said 'it's a savage mountain', and how far the Rushmore presidents were meant to go. Good for a geography classroom, a hiking-club social or a pub quiz picture round. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the peaks and ranges, and each question shows its source.
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Q 01What height did the 2020 joint Nepalese-Chinese survey give for Mount Everest?
8,848.86 m
The 2020 joint survey put Everest at 8,848.86 m, about 86 cm above the long-used 8,848 m figure from a 1955 survey, by combining GNSS readings at the summit with radar soundings of the snow cap.
Q 02What does Sagarmatha, Everest's Nepali name, mean?
The head in the great blue sky
Sagarmatha, coined by the historian Baburam Acharya in the late 1930s, joins sagar (sky) and matha (head) to mean 'the head in the great blue sky'; Tibetans call the peak Qomolangma.
Q 03Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary made the first documented ascent of Everest in 1953 by which route?
The Southeast Ridge
Hillary and Tenzing reached the summit on 29 May 1953 by the Southeast Ridge, via the South Col, on John Hunt's British expedition.
Q 04George Mallory and Andrew Irvine disappeared on Everest during a summit attempt on 8 June of which year?
1924
Mallory and Irvine were last seen on 8 June 1924 high on the Northeast Ridge; Mallory's body was found in 1999, and whether the pair reached the top has never been proven.
Q 05By May 2024, roughly how many people had died on Mount Everest?
340
The toll stood at about 340 by May 2024; over 200 bodies remain on the mountain because retrieving them is too dangerous.
Q 06Which body of water is the closest sea to Everest's summit, almost 700 km away?
The Bay of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal, reached across the Ganges delta of Bangladesh, is the nearest sea to Everest, roughly 700 km to the south-east; the Arabian Sea lies well over 1,500 km away.
Q 07K2, the second-highest mountain on Earth at 8,611 m, lies in which range?
The Karakoram
K2 stands in the Karakoram, about 1,300 km north-west of Everest, and took its name in 1856 from a survey label for the range's second measured peak; Balti speakers call it Chogori.
Q 08K2's nickname 'the Savage Mountain' comes from a remark by which climber on the 1953 American expedition?
George Bell
George Bell, a member of Charles Houston's 1953 American expedition, told reporters 'It's a savage mountain that tries to kill you'; for decades roughly one climber died for every four who reached the top.
Q 09Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni made the first ascent of K2 in 1954 for which country's expedition?
Italy
Ardito Desio led the expedition up the Abruzzi Spur.
Q 10A team from which country made the first winter ascent of K2 in January 2021?
Nepal
Nirmal Purja and Mingma Gyalje Sherpa led the all-Nepali team.
Q 11Which peak, in the Ellsworth Mountains, is the highest in Antarctica?
Mount Vinson
Mount Vinson, 4,892 m, in the Sentinel Range of the Ellsworth Mountains, is Antarctica's highest peak; an American team made the first ascent in December 1966.
Q 12Which peak was the first eight-thousander climbed, by Herzog and Lachenal in June 1950?
Annapurna
Annapurna I, 8,091 m, was climbed on 3 June 1950 by Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal, who lost fingers and toes to frostbite on the descent; it was the first eight-thousander summited.
Q 13Which eight-thousander, entirely in Tibet, was the last to be climbed, in 1964?
Shishapangma
Shishapangma, 8,027 m, the lowest eight-thousander and the only one wholly inside Tibet, was first climbed on 2 May 1964 by a ten-man team led by Xu Jing.
Q 21Kilimanjaro, Africa's tallest peak, holds what worldwide distinction?
Highest free-standing mountain above sea level
Almost 85 percent of its ice cover disappeared between 1912 and 2011.
Q 22Kilimanjaro's summit, Uhuru Peak, sits on the crater rim of which of its three volcanic cones?
Kibo
Hans Meyer and Ludwig Purtscheller made the first ascent in 1889 and confirmed Kibo has a crater.
Q 23What does the Koyukon Athabaskan name Denali, applied to North America's highest peak, mean?
The high or tall one
Denali, from the Koyukon deenaalee, means 'the high one' or 'the tall one'; the federal name switched from Mount McKinley to Denali in 2015 and back to Mount McKinley in January 2025.
Q 14Who became the first person to climb all 14 eight-thousanders, in October 1986, without bottled oxygen?
Reinhold Messner
Reinhold Messner completed the set on Lhotse on 16 October 1986, having also made the first ascent of Everest without bottled oxygen with Peter Habeler in 1978 and the first solo ascent in 1980.
Q 15Nirmal 'Nims' Purja set what record on the eight-thousanders in 2019?
All 14 in six months and six days
Purja's Project Possible took him up all the peaks between 23 April and 29 October 2019, six months and six days, smashing the previous mark of almost eight years set by Kim Chang-ho.
Q 16Who was the first person to climb the Seven Summits, on 30 April 1985?
Richard Bass
Richard 'Dick' Bass, a Texas businessman, finished the Seven Summits on Everest on 30 April 1985, at 55 then the oldest person to climb it; his partner Frank Wells never reached Everest's top.
Q 17The Messner version of the Seven Summits swaps Australia's Kosciuszko for which peak?
Puncak Jaya
Puncak Jaya, also called Carstensz Pyramid, is a 4,884 m rock peak in Indonesia's Papua; unlike the walk up Kosciuszko, its climb 'has the character of an expedition', the reasoning behind the alternative list.
Q 18Depending on Europe's boundary, its highest peak is Mont Blanc or which Caucasus mountain?
Elbrus
Elbrus is 5,642 m against Mont Blanc's 4,810 m.
Q 19Why is Mauna Kea, only 4,207 m above sea level, sometimes called the world's tallest mountain?
Measured from its underwater base it exceeds 9,000 m
Its name is short for Mauna a Wākea and means 'white mountain'; thirteen telescopes crown the summit.
Q 20Olympus Mons on Mars is how many multiples of Everest's height above sea level?
2.5x
It is a shield volcano about 600 km wide covering an area the size of Italy, with six nested calderas at the top.
Q 24The first verified ascent of Denali, on 7 June 1913, was led by which Episcopal archdeacon?
Hudson Stuck
Hudson Stuck, Episcopal Archdeacon of the Yukon, organised the 1913 climb with Harry Karstens; Walter Harper, an Alaska Native, was the first to step onto the summit on 7 June.
Q 25What went wrong when four of Edward Whymper's party died descending the Matterhorn after its first ascent in 1865?
A rope broke
The rope linking Lord Francis Douglas to the elder Taugwalder snapped; Douglas's body was never found, and the tragedy is said to have ended the golden age of alpinism.
Q 26Which Alpine peak's notorious north face was first climbed in July 1938?
Eiger
The Eiger's 1,800 m north face was first climbed in July 1938 by Anderl Heckmair, Ludwig Vörg, Heinrich Harrer and Fritz Kasparek after a string of fatal attempts.
Q 27The summit of which Ecuadorian volcano is the point on Earth's surface farthest from the planet's centre?
Chimborazo
It is 2,585 m lower than Everest, but the equatorial bulge does the rest; Humboldt tried and failed to climb it in 1802 and Whymper succeeded in 1880.
Q 28Mount Fuji, Japan's highest peak at 3,776 m, last erupted in which years?
1707 to 1708
Fuji's most recent eruption, the Hōei eruption of 1707 to 1708, began on 16 December 1707 and dropped ash on Edo, 100 km away; the mountain was listed as a UNESCO Cultural World Heritage Site in 2013.
Q 29Fuji is one of Japan's 'Three Holy Mountains', along with Tate and which other peak?
Haku
Hakusan, or Mount Haku, 2,702 m on the Ishikawa-Gifu border, joins Fuji and Tateyama as Japan's Three Holy Mountains, the Sanreizan, all long revered by mountain pilgrims.
Q 30The Himalayas were formed when the Eurasian landmass collided with which other?
The Indian plate
The Indian plate began colliding with Eurasia about 50 million years ago, crumpling the sea floor between them into the Himalayas; the range's name is Sanskrit for 'abode of snow'.