Q 01/05

News of the first ascent of Mount Everest reached London on the morning of which 1953 royal event?

A) Queen Mary's funeral

B) Princess Margaret's wedding

C) Elizabeth II's coronation

D) George VI's funeral

Answer · why

C) Elizabeth II's coronation

Elizabeth II's coronation on 2 June shared the front pages with the climb, after a Times correspondent sent a coded message down from Base Camp by run...

Q 02/05

Edmund Hillary, one of the first two climbers atop Mount Everest, earned his living in which trade?

A) Beekeeping

B) Sheep farming

C) Boat building

D) Coal mining

Answer · why

A) Beekeeping

Beekeeping filled his summers: he worked 1,600 hives with his father and brother, took up to 100 stings a day, and saved his climbing for winter.

Q 03/05

Which American author published the short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro in Esquire magazine in 1936?

A) John Steinbeck

B) William Faulkner

C) F. Scott Fitzgerald

D) Ernest Hemingway

Answer · why

D) Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway opens the story with the frozen carcass of a leopard near the western summit, then follows a writer dying of gangrene on safari.

Q 04/05

Hikers on Aconcagua in 1985 found the frozen mummy of a boy sacrificed by which empire?

A) Aztec

B) Inca

C) Maya

D) Toltec

Answer · why

B) Inca

The Inca left the seven-year-old about 5,300 metres up the mountain around 1500 CE, in a child-sacrifice ritual known as capacocha.

Q 05/05

In 1997 an expedition took which off-road vehicle to the East Peak of Mount Elbrus?

A) Land Rover Defender

B) Toyota Land Cruiser

C) Jeep Wrangler

D) Mercedes G-Class

Answer · why

A) Land Rover Defender

A Land Rover Defender reached the East Peak with a team led by mountaineer Alexander Abramov, a stunt that earned a place in the Guinness Book of Reco...