Can you imagine the devastation if Mount Everest was a volcano, and it erupted? The whole of China and India could be covered in lava! Fortunately, this is unlikely to happen. And here’s why: Mount Everest is not a volcano, instead it is a mountain made of sedimentary layers of rock. So the summit of … Read more
Rainbow Valley sounds delightful, doesn’t it? But on Mount Everest it is a name that has a macabre meaning. Rainbow Valley is also known as Rainbow Ridge, the Rainbow Trail, the Rainbow Road, or Rainbow Path, but they all refer to the same area. Rainbow Valley is a section of the route on the North … Read more
Many people are unaware that it was a British expedition that first climbed Mount Everest, in 1953. Or that this was after no less than eight previous British attempts on the mountain. In this article, I will look at the strange British obsession with the world’s highest mountain. Even though the first people to climb … Read more
Everest is the highest mountain in the world. But it isn’t next to the sea, so how was the measurement of 29,031 feet (8,848m) above sea level arrived at? And who first measured Mount Everest, and why? Mount Everest was measured using imaginary triangles and basic mathematics. Everest was measured by British surveyors, who figured … Read more
Before Mount Everest was “discovered”, there were many mountains in the past presumed to be the highest in the world. One by one, higher mountains were found and measured, until Everest topped them all. So which mountains used to hold the title of tallest in the world? Here’s a list of each mountain that was … Read more
Everest is truly a mountain of extremes. Not only does it get very cold, it gets really hot, the air gets really thin and it also gets very windy. Mount Everest can be extremely cold. The lowest temperature measured on the summit of Everest was in February 2003 with a -41.8°F (-41°C) reading. And the … Read more
Mount Everest is often talked about as something truly enormous due to its height above sea level. But has anyone ever tried to weigh it? Mount Everest weighs around 350 trillion pounds or 175,000,000,000 tons. That’s about 200,000 Golden Gate bridges. But how does anyone know that? How do you weigh a mountain? How Heavy … Read more
Over three hundred climbers have died on Mount Everest, and in my nine expeditions to the mountain, I saw many dead bodies. What is surprising is the variety of ways in which they died. Analysing how they died is a valuable way of avoiding the same fate. 1. Avalanches and falling ice The most common … Read more
Whenever Mount Everest is in the news you’ll see images of dead bodies, or hear about tragic deaths. But how many people have died on the mountain so far? Around 310 people have died so far on Mount Everest. Most deaths have been accurately recorded since the first Everest expeditions in the 1920s. People dying … Read more
Whenever Mount Everest appears in the news the story eventually seems to come round to the subject of dead bodies on the mountain. There are now over 250 dead bodies on Mount Everest. There have been over three hundred deaths on the mountain, and many dead climbers are still there because few dead bodies get … Read more
