Elevation: 29,035 feet (8,850 meters) Location: Nepal/Tibet, Asia First Ascent: Sir Edmund Hillary (New Zealand) and Tenzing Norgay (Nepal), May 29, 1953
Fast Facts
Mount Evererst is also called Chomolangma, meaning “Goddess Mother of Snows” in Tibetan and Sagarmatha, meaning ‘Mother of the Universe’ in Nepalese.
British surveyors named the peak for George Everest (properly pronounced “I-ver-ist”) a Surveyor General of India in the mid-nineteenth century.
Everest's current elevation is based on a GPS device implanted on the highest rock point under ice and snow in 1999 by an American expedition.
Mount Everest was once surveyed at exactly 29,000 feet but the surveyors didn't think people would believe that so they added two feet to its elevation, making it 29,002 feet.
Mount Everest is rising from 3 to 6 millimeters a year.
The best time to climb Everest is in early May before the monsoon season.
The Southeast Ridge from Nepal and the Northeast Ridge from Tibet are the usual climbing routes.
In 1978 Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler were the first to climb Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen. In 1980 Messner made the first solo ascent.
Over 150 bodies of dead climbers are on the peak.
A jumping spider lives up to 22,000 feet on Everest.
A helicopter piloted by a Frenchman supposedly made a hover landing on the summit in 2005.
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