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Updated: May 2009. Click on an image to see the FULL size with a caption.
Mount Everest (8850m, 29035ft) is the highest mountain in the world. The summit ridge of the mountain marks the border between Nepal and Tibet.
Height: The official height of Mount Everest was calculated to be 8848m (29,028 ft) in 1954. In 1999 the American Everest Expedition used GPS to recalculate the height to be 8850m. In 2005 the Chinese Everest Expedition Team used complicated measurement and calculation to measure the height of Everest to be 8844.43 m (29,017.07 ft). This new height is based on the actual highest point of rock and not on the snow and ice that sits on top of that rock on the summit. Mount Everest is still growing in height by a few centimetres each year as the India plate slides under the Asian plate.
Name: Peak XV of the Indian Survey was named Mount Everest by Sir Andrew Waugh, the British surveyor-general of India, who named it after his predecessor, Sir George Everest. In Nepal, the mountain is called Sagarmatha (Forehead of the Sky) and in Tibetan Chomolungma or Qomolangma (Mother of the Universe),
On June 8, 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made an attempt on the summit from which they never returned. Noel Odell, the expedition's geologist, saw the pair climbing up "with great alacrity... near the base of the final pyramide" [sic] at 12:50pm that day.
In 1999 the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition found Mallory's body, fueling lots of discussion and theories about whether they may have died after reaching the summit.
In 1953, a ninth British expedition, led by John Hunt, returned to Nepal. Hunt selected two climbing pairs to attempt to reach the summit. The first pair turned back after becoming exhausted high on the mountain. The next day, the expedition made its second and final assault on the summit with its fittest and most determined climbing pair. The summit was eventually reached at 11:30 am local time on May 29, 1953 by the New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay climbing the South Col Route.
Hillary: “I had carried my camera, loaded with colour film, inside my shirt to keep it warm, so I now produced it and got Tenzing to pose for me on the top, waving his ice-axe on which was a string of flags—British, Nepalese, United Nations, and Indian. Then I turned my attention to the great stretch of country lying below us.”
On May 25, 1960 the first successful ascent of the Everest North Face was made by a Chinese team consisting of Wang Fuzhou, Qu Yinhua and a Tibetan, Gingbu (Konbu) using the North Ridge.
On October 8, 1983, Americans Lou Reichardt, Kim Momb, and Carlos Buhler made the first ascent of the Everest Kangshung East Face.
On May 23, 1963 Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld successfully climbed to the Everest Summit via the extremely difficult Everest West Ridge. They then traversed the mountain and descended via the South Col route, having to bivouac near the summit without any food, supplemental oxygen, or shelter.
On September 24, 1975 Doug Scott and Dougal Haston made the firs tascent of the Everest Southwest face on a large British expedition led by Chris Bonington.
On May 8, 1978 Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler completed the first ascent of Mount Everest without oxygen, via the normal Nepalese southeast route.
On August 20, 1980 Reinhold Messner completed the first solo ascent of Mount Everest without oxygen via Tibet's North Face.
On May 12, 1988 Stephen Venables climbed a new route on the Everest Kangshung Face, up the South Buttress to reach the South Col, and then to the summit.
In May 1996 12 people died on Mount Everest, including guides Rob Hall and Scott Fisher, sparking wide publicity and raising questions about the commercialization of Everest. Journalist Jon Krakauer, on assignment from Outside magazine, was in on Hall's team, and afterwards published the bestseller Into Thin Air which related his experience. Anatoli Boukreev, a guide who didn't come off well in Krakauer's book, co-authored a rebuttal book called The Climb.