Interesting facts about Mount Everest
Mount Everest is known as the tallest mountain in the world and is also called various names such as Sagarmatha, Chomolungma, Zhumulangma Feng, or Chumulangma Fene (also spelled Qomolangma Feng.) It resides in a country with seven other mountains which are over 8000 meters.
- Mount Everest’s most common Tibetan name is Chomolungma which means “Goddess Mother of the World”.
- This peak lies in the upper regions of Nepal in a district called Solukhumbu.
- This peak was not found until 1852 when the governmental Survey of India discovered it. In 1865 the mountain was previously referred to as ‘Peak XV’ and it was renamed ‘Everest’ for Sir George Everest.
- Everest is 29,031.69 feet or 8,848.86 meters high making it the highest peak on earth from the sea level.
- Although Everest is considered the highest point, Hawaii’s Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain base-to-peak: 10,210m (33,500 ft), 4,205m (13,796 ft) above sea level.
- This mountain was formed when India’s continental plate crashed into Asia. The plate pushed under Asia and the impact raised a huge mass of land upwards creating the world’s highest mountain ranges.
- Mount Everest grows approximately 44 millimeters every year. This is due to the continuous shift of tectonic plates, that push the Himalayas upwards.
- This mountain is over 60 Million years old.
- The costs to scale Mount Everest isn’t cheap. A climb to summit Mt. Everest takes at Least 30,000 USD
- It takes approximately 39-40 days to summit Mount Everest. This is excluding the training between camps and adjusting to the temperature which in total takes about 10 weeks.
- The first recorded climb to the peak of Mount Everest was done on May 29, 1953, by Edmund Hillary from New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay from Nepal.
- The climbers start using their bottled oxygen above 26,000 feet. This however makes only a 3,000-foot difference in their breathing environment.
- The climbing season for Mount Everest starts in May and spans to October.
- The first climbers to summit Everest without bottled oxygen were the Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner along with the Austrian mountaineer Peter Habeler in 1978.
- Tabei was the first woman to summit Mt. Everest, the world’s highest peak, in 1975. She also became the first woman to conquer the “seven summits” aka the highest peaks of all seven continents.
- Lakpa Gelu Sherpa (Nepal) became the fastest person to summit Mount Everest which was recorded in just 10 hours and 56 Minutes. The fastest Everest summit was recorded in just 10 hours 56 minutes.
- The first blind person to reach the summit was the American Erik Weihenmayer in 2001.
- Lhakpa Sherpa holds the record for the most female Everest climbs at 9.
- Kami Rita Sherpa holds the record for the most successful summits at an impressive 24.
- The first people to get married on the summit of Mount Everest were Nepalese in 2005.
- Jordan Romera (American) was the youngest person to reach the summit of Mount Everest at the young age of thirteen.
- There have been 10,271 summits of Everest through August 2021, on all routes by 5,790 different people.
- Records suggest there have been just over 280 deaths on the mountain.
- The Death rate while climbing mount Everest has fallen as low as 1%
- There is a “2 o’clock rule” when climbing Mount Everest. This means one has to get to the summit by 2 PM. If it is any time later, they’ll have to return in case of accidents as it is a lot cold and has very unpredictable weather.
- The Death Zone is referred to as an altitude above 8,000 meters. This zone is called so because of the lack of oxygen the super cold temperature and proves to be a very exhausting climb.
- The scale to Mount Everest has about 17 routes that have been discovered but almost everyone climbs through one of the two routes: South Ridge and North Ridge.
- The Ministry of Tourism (Nepal) collects millions of dollars annually just for permit fees. This goes to show how popular and adventurous sport climbing Mount Everest is.
- The actual summit of the mountain is a small dome of snow about the size of a dining room table. Where a half dozen or so climbers can stand and enjoy the view.
- 30.About seven thousand people have successfully summited Mount Everest.
- The wind can blow over 200 mph in parts of Everest making it very difficult and risky for any helicopter/aircraft to hover. This is also the reason why helicopter rescue is so difficult in the region.
- Most climbers eat a lot of rice and noodles for food to gain energy.
- Although Everest is the highest and without a doubt the hardest one to climb, Annapurna I has a higher data rate, double that of Everest’s.
- The Everest Base Camp also offers Wi-Fi service.
- Climbing Mount Everest is no small job. It takes months or years of training to climb it.
So, the above listed are some interesting facts on Mount Everest.
