Q 01/05

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

A) 7

B) 14

C) 28

D) 56

Answer · why

B) 14

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 1...

Q 02/05

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

A) Reinhold Messner

B) Edmund Hillary

C) Chris Bonington

D) Krzysztof Wielicki

Answer · why

A) Reinhold Messner

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

Q 03/05

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

A) The red zone

B) The dark zone

C) The death zone

D) The ghost zone

Answer · why

C) The death zone

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...

Q 04/05

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

A) Everest

B) Nanga Parbat

C) Makalu

D) Annapurna

Answer · why

D) Annapurna

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 th...

Q 05/05

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

A) Nawang Gombu

B) Ang Rita

C) Tenzing Norgay

D) Pasang Dawa Lama

Answer · why

C) Tenzing Norgay

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.