Mount Everest

Mount Everest is the highest mountain above sea level, rising on the border between Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China in the Mahalangur Himal of the Himalayas. Its summit is about 8,849 metres above sea level according to the 2020 joint survey by Nepal and China. Nepal calls it Sagarmatha and Tibetans call it Qomolangma (Chomolungma), and the peak became known in English after the surveyor George Everest. Its height comes from the collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates, a process described in plate tectonics and mountain building. Marine limestone near the summit shows that the rock was once part of the sea floor, which is one of the clearest pieces of evidence for this process.

The mountain matters for geology, climate science, medicine, and culture. Its extreme cold, thin air, and high winds make it a natural laboratory for studying the atmosphere and the limits of human physiology at low oxygen levels. Its glaciers respond to climate change, and its slopes have supported Sherpa and Tibetan communities and Buddhist and Hindu traditions for centuries. Since the first confirmed ascent in 1953, the mountain has also become a global focus for mountaineering, tourism, and expedition economics.

This entry covers the mountain's physical setting and how its height was measured, the geological processes that formed it, and its climate and ecosystems. It then describes the naming and cultural meaning of the peak, early exploration and the first ascent, the main climbing routes, high-altitude physiology, the commercial expedition industry and the Sherpa workforce, safety and fatalities, and environmental impact and conservation.

Location and physical dimensions

Position and protected area

Everest stands on the crest of the Great Himalaya, on the boundary between Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, at about 27°59′ N, 86°56′ E. It lies within the Mahalangur Himal, a section of the range in northeastern Nepal and south-central Tibet that runs from Nangpa La to the Arun River and includes Lhotse, Makalu and Cho Oyu. The Nepali flank falls inside Sagarmatha National Park, which was established on 19 July 1976 in Solukhumbu district. Its northern edge follows the main divide of the Great Himalayan Range, which here forms the international boundary, and it adjoins the Qomolangma National Nature Preserve on the Chinese side. Published area figures differ: the park's own materials give 1,148 km², while UNESCO's listing gives 124,400 hectares.

Height history

The first official figure came from the British Survey of India, which in 1856 put the peak, then designated Peak XV, at 8,840 m, based on distant trigonometric calculations. Indian surveyors recalculated the height in the 1950s with better instruments, arriving at about 8,848 m. Sources date this survey to either 1954 or 1955, and the figure remained the internationally accepted height for decades. A Chinese survey in 1975 reported 8,848.13 m, including the snow cover. In 2005 Chinese surveyors gave 8,844.43 m, a value based on rock alone.

Nepal sent its own surveyors to the summit in May 2019, using GPS on the top and ground-penetrating radar to estimate the depth of snow and ice. Speculation that the peak might have changed height, through warming or after the 2015 earthquake, had prompted an independent Nepali measurement. Chinese surveyors measured from the north in 2020 using the BeiDou satellite system. On 8 December 2020 the two governments announced a joint height of 8,848.86 m, about four metres above China's earlier figure and slightly above Nepal's previous one. The revision reflects better instruments and a clearer convention about what is being measured, not a sudden change in the mountain's rock.

Summit geometry

The summit is a three-sided pyramid. Its sides are three nearly flat faces, and the lines where two faces meet are called ridges. The Southwest Face rises over Nepal, while the North Face and the East, or Kangshung, Face lie on the Tibetan side. The Southeast Ridge is the most widely used climbing route. The Northeast and West ridges complete the north side of the pyramid, and some writers incorrectly call the Northeast Ridge the North Ridge.

Between Everest and Lhotse lies the South Col, a saddle at roughly 7,906 m that strong winds keep largely free of snow. It marks the foot of the Southeast Ridge, and most expeditions from the Nepali side launch their final push from there. Along that ridge, the South Summit, at about 8,748 m, sits a short distance below the true top.

How the height is defined and measured

Height is conventionally expressed as elevation above mean sea level. Modern determinations combine satellite positioning with ground-penetrating radar, which estimates how much snow and ice lies above the bedrock. The 2020 figure was based on trigonometric and GPS measurements carried out by both countries. Because the snow cap thickens and thins with season and weather, a single summit reading captures only one moment.

Why sources give different numbers

The main source of disagreement is whether the snow is counted. In the Nepali tradition, the snow is included, while Chinese practice has historically aimed at the rock beneath it. Older values also come from trigonometry, which carries larger uncertainties than satellite positioning, so the 1856 and 1954 figures are less precise than the modern ones. Many Nepali people still cite 8,848 m, and some Chinese sources still give 8,844.43 m, so the older numbers persist in public use long after the revision.

Geological formation

Everest's summit is capped by the Qomolangma Formation, which geologists date to the Ordovician, roughly 450 million years ago. The summit of Mount Everest is composed of a rock unit known as the Qomolangma Formation. A 2005 study of the summit limestone reported skeletal fragments of trilobites, ostracods, and crinoids, painting a picture of an ancient marine environment. These fossils show that the rock once accumulated as carbonate sediment on the floor of a warm, shallow sea that belonged to the Tethys Ocean, not as material that drifted in from elsewhere.

The sediment was lifted into the sky by the collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates. Estimates place the start of this convergence around fifty million years ago, and it still drives the range upward today. As the Indian plate was driven beneath Eurasia, the crust thickened and the strata were folded, faulted and thrust over one another, a process described in plate tectonics and mountain building. The summit rock records this history in its internal structure. Structural studies of the summit pyramid describe early deformation likely related to crustal thickening and later, more spatially restricted deformation reflecting the Miocene extrusion of the metamorphic core. Dating of a fault in the summit area places movement on the structure at about 16 million years ago.

Present-day uplift and erosion

Modern measurements show that the mountain is still rising. Researchers at University College London have said that they can see them growing by about two millimeters a year using GPS instruments. The same team argues that the mountain's rise is driven partly by a non-tectonic mechanism, isostatic rebound raising Everest faster than erosion wears it down. The process works like this: when rock is stripped away from a region, the underlying crust rises in response, and the isostatic adjustment is the reason the mountain keeps climbing even as its surface is eroded. Rates vary with the method and the observation window, and the exact annual rate depends on the time period studied and on whether scientists are discussing rock uplift, snow height, or net elevation change after erosion.

Erosion is not a passive process here. The Himalayas formed under prolonged crustal thickening and erosion by glaciers and rivers. In the Everest region, the most striking example is a river capture. The Arun River joined the Kosi river network about 89,000 years ago, and the greater water flow amplified its erosive power and washing away more of the surrounding landscape. Removing that mass unloaded the crust, and the study estimates that the resulting gorge, about 75 kilometres from the peak, has raised Everest by about 15 to 50 metres taller than it would otherwise be. The researchers also conclude that the uplift effect is small compared to tectonic processes, so it modifies the mountain's height rather than creating it.

Earthquake risk and the 2015 Gorkha earthquake

Everest lies in one of the most seismically active belts on Earth. The 2015 event ruptured the Main Himalayan Thrust, where the Indian Plate dives beneath the Eurasian Plate. The quake, a major (magnitude 7.8) earthquake with an epicenter near the town of Gorkha, struck on 25 April 2015. Its effects on the mountain were immediate. Tremors from the quake triggered an avalanche from Pumori into Base Camp on Mount Everest. Ice and snow fell from the ridge above the camp, and the air blast created by the avalanche flattened the middle part of EBC, killing 15 people and injuring at least 70. Later reporting raised the toll; one count reports that at least 19 expedition members killed at Base Camp, while another summary gives at least 24 people killed across the mountain. Analysis of data from a nearby weather station suggests that multiple air blasts passed the AWS, each associated with a distinct avalanche source, so the event was probably a swarm of avalanches rather than a single slide. The disaster also ended the spring climbing season, as a review of the event notes that the avalanche virtually closed the climbing season.

Climate, weather and ecosystems

Atmospheric circulation and the seasonal cycle

Two large-scale air systems set the mountain's yearly rhythm: the subtropical jet stream and the Indian monsoon. Jet streams are narrow bands of fast-moving air high up in the atmosphere. Sources place the jet stream directly over the summit from October into May, with winds reaching about 200 km/h. Jet stream winds pass directly over the summit from October through May, reaching 200 km/h (124 mph). In late spring, the monsoon develops to the south and pushes the jet stream northward, away from the peak. That shift creates the short calm period on which spring expeditions depend, when wind speeds can fall to levels that make a summit attempt feasible. As the Indian Monsoon begins to develop to the south, it pushes the jet stream northward, away from the mountain. This creates a "weather window"—a period of relative calm where wind speeds can drop to manageable levels. Monsoon moisture then arrives from June to September, and the precipitation falls mainly in the monsoon season and lesser from December to March. A second, shorter calm period follows the monsoon in autumn, although the vast majority of successful summits happen during the spring.

Summit temperatures and wind

Temperatures at the summit stay far below freezing in every month. Average figures are commonly given near −36 °C, and the coldest winter months can approach −60 °C. Coldest months: January–February, dropping to -60°C. Even in midsummer, daytime readings rarely climb above about −19 °C, and daytime temperatures at the summit rarely exceed −19°C (−2°F), even during the warmest months of July and August. Published monthly figures differ by several degrees between compilers, so these numbers should be treated as approximate.

Wind is the other defining hazard. Winds over 160 km/h are often described as the typical level, and gusts in winter have been recorded above 285 km/h. In dead winter from November to February, the global southwest-flowing jet stream moves in from the north, producing winds of hurricane force which beating the summit with a wind speed of over 285 km/h (177 mph). Wind chill then makes the cold far more severe on exposed skin. A wind speed of 100 km/h at −36°C produces a wind chill of approximately −70°C (−94°F), a temperature that causes exposed skin to freeze in under 30 seconds. The summit's altitude explains the persistent cold. Its air pressure is only about a third of the sea-level value, so the thin atmosphere offers little insulation and the mountain sits at a height where temperature is already far lower than at the valley floor. Wind speeds in May also vary between sources: some describe calm conditions of roughly 20–40 km/h, while others cite about 80 km/h.

Vegetation zones

Plant communities follow the elevation gradient closely. The park's lower slopes contain temperate forest, and at lower altitudes, you can find pine and hemlock forests, while higher altitudes are characterized by fir, juniper, birch, rhododendron, and alpine plant communities. Between roughly 3,000 and 4,000 m, the forests in the subalpine belt consist of fir, Himalayan birch and rhododendron. Juniper and rhododendron prevail at elevations of 4,000–5,000 m (13,000–16,000 ft). Above that, plant cover thins sharply. Sources disagree on where vegetation ends: one states that mosses and lichens grow above 5,000 m (16,000 ft)., while another reports that plant life is limited to dwarf shrubs, grassland, and cushion plants like mosses up to 6000 m. Most of the high ground is barren, and one source estimates that above 16,000 ft., 69% of the park is barren land. Warming temperatures are also changing these zones, as rising temperatures are altering vegetation patterns, forcing alpine plants to shift to higher altitudes and allowing invasive species to encroach on native habitats.

Wildlife at different altitudes

Animal life also changes with height. The park's mammals include snow leopard (Panthera uncia), the lesser or red panda (Ailurus fulgens), the Himalayan black bear (Ursus thibetanus) and the Himalayan musk deer (Moschus leucogaster). In the lower forests, which offer the richest mammal diversity on the standard Everest Base Camp route, musk deer, langur monkeys and forest birds such as laughingthrushes and sunbirds are common. Higher on the trail, Himalayan tahr frequently graze on steep slopes visible from the monastery grounds, and blood pheasants inhabit scrubby areas along the trail. Above Dingboche, where vegetation is sparse, mammal sightings decrease significantly. In that zone, the rocky ground still supports raptors and small mammals, including marmots and pikas. The park's overall fauna is smaller than in many other protected areas, which sources attribute to the arctic weather conditions of this region. Bird totals also vary by source, from about 118 to more than 150 species.

Names and cultural significance

Sagarmatha and Qomolangma

Everest has several names, and each reflects a different community's relationship with the mountain. In Nepali it is Sagarmatha. The name comes from the Sanskrit Sagarmāthā, built from sagar, meaning "sky," and māthā, meaning "forehead." Glosses in English vary, with "head in the sky" and "forehead of the sky" both common, and some Nepali sources render it as "goddess of the sky," which reflects a looser reading of the same words.

The Tibetan name is Qomolangma, or Chomolungma. Its lit. meaning is "holy mother." Other translations circulate. Some Tibetan-language and travel sources read it as "goddess mother of snows," while a Chinese account gives "the third goddess," explaining that the peak is third in a line of nearby summits. Four other peaks stand around it, which is why it is called the "third." The lack of a single authoritative etymology is typical of Himalayan place-names, which were rarely written down before modern mapping.

The Nepali name has a comparatively recent official history. Everest had no official name in Nepal until 1956, when the government formally adopted Sagarmatha. The name's popularisation is credited to the historian Baburam Acharya, who wrote about it in the late 1930s. He later insisted that he had discovered an existing local name rather than invented one, and the dating of his essay is reported inconsistently across sources.

The English name and Peak XV

The English name came from British survey work in India. The peak was first recorded as "Peak XV" during the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India and was later renamed Mount Everest. Its status as the highest peak emerged from calculations rather than sightings. In 1852, Radhanath Sikdar, an Indian mathematician and surveyor, was the first to identify Everest as the world's highest peak, using trigonometric calculations based on Nicolson's measurements. Official confirmation was delayed for years while the figures were checked. Sources differ on the exact dates of identification, with some placing the discovery in 1856.

The name was proposed by Andrew Waugh, who succeeded the surveyor George Everest. Everest had led the survey's work in India, but he had no direct hand in discovering the mountain and never had the chance to view it. Waugh argued that since the two nations were inaccessible, no indigenous name could be chosen. The Royal Geographical Society formalised the name in 1865. Everest himself reportedly opposed the honour.

Religious significance

In Tibetan Buddhism the mountain is regarded as the seat of a powerful protective female deity, and Tibetan pilgrims have long venerated its slopes. Monasteries on the northern side, including Rongbuk Monastery, have historically served as spiritual centres for the region. Rongbuk Monastery sits at the foot of the glaciers on the north face and is regarded as the highest monastery in the world.

For the Sherpa, the mountain is a deity rather than only a landmark. For the Sherpa and other indigenous communities of the Everest region, the mountain holds sacred significance and is considered a deity. Before expeditions, climbers and Sherpa guides usually hold a puja ceremony at base camp, led by a lama. Prayers are offered for safety and offerings are made to the mountain's spirits, and prayer flags are raised. This ritual is central to Sherpa identity and to how the climb is understood.

Hindu tradition has a more indirect connection. The Sanskrit roots of Sagarmatha tie the name to the wider South Asian religious vocabulary, but the major Hindu Himalayan pilgrimage sites lie elsewhere, notably Mount Kailash. Everest figures in Hindu discourse mainly through the Nepali name and the Nepali state's cultural framing of it.

Literature, film and photography

Everest became a global symbol after the 1953 ascent, and the mountain's image has been shaped by the climbing literature that followed. Jon Krakauer's 1997 account of the 1996 disaster, Into Thin Air, is among the most widely read books about the peak. The 2015 feature film Everest drew on the same events. Early summit and expedition photographs, especially those of the 1953 British expedition, shaped the public's sense of the mountain as a place of heroic struggle, and the mountain's silhouette recurs in mountaineering art, travel writing and mass media.

National identity in Nepal and China

For Nepal, Sagarmatha became a national emblem once it was officially adopted, and Sherpa figures such as Tenzing Norgay are central to the country's historical narrative of the mountain. Naming also carries political weight, since Acharya's publication in the 1930s was reportedly treated as an affront to British interests and his deportation was threatened.

For China, the mountain is known as Qomolangma (珠穆朗玛峰), and the Tibetan side is administered through national park and nature reserve structures. The Qomolangma National Park, which opened in 2012, occupies 78,000 square kilometres and includes mountains from 7,000 to 8,848 metres. The name thus embodies both Tibetan cultural continuity and the Chinese state's management of the Tibetan landscape.

Early exploration and attempts

Reconnaissance from the north (1921–1924)

Nepal was closed to foreigners in this period, so every early approach ran through Tibet. The 1921 reconnaissance, led by Charles Howard-Bury, found a workable line that climbed the Kharta Glacier and crossed the Lhakpa La to the north-east of the peak. The team also judged the North Col–North Ridge a viable route to the summit. George Mallory, who had never been to the Himalaya before, was a member and quickly became the de facto lead climber.

The 1922 expedition, again under Charles Bruce, made three unsuccessful summit attempts. Mallory's team used bottled oxygen and reached about 27,300 ft (8,321 m), a world altitude record at the time. Another pair without supplementary oxygen reached about 26,985 ft. On the third attempt, an avalanche on the slopes below the North Col killed seven Nepalese porters, and the expedition abandoned the summit push. In 1924 Bruce and Mallory returned and followed the 1921 approach. Their first attempt, made from the North Col on 1 June, was turned back by strong winds above 7,000 m. A second attempt, without oxygen, reached roughly 8,565 m before stopping.

The disappearance of Mallory and Irvine

The third summit push began on 6 June 1924 from Camp IV, with Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine using oxygen sets. They were last seen on the Northeast Ridge, about 240 m below the summit, and never returned. Mallory's body was found in 1999 by an expedition led by Conrad Anker at roughly 8,155 m, lying face down on a steep slope with severe injuries. A rope had broken at his waist, and his sun goggles were in his pocket. The photograph of his wife, Ruth, which he had planned to leave on the summit, was not on his body, and Irvine's camera, whose film might have shown a summit photograph, has never been recovered. In 2024, a team led by Jimmy Chin reported that partial remains believed to be Irvine's had been found, but the camera was not among them.

The evidence has been read in opposing ways. Some observers take the missing photograph and the position of the body as hints that the pair reached the top before dying on the descent, while others note that the goggles and broken rope fit a fall while descending in failing light. A 1933 expedition found an ice axe on the ridge, and an oxygen cylinder found below the first step is also disputed, since it may have been moved by later climbers. No document or object has settled whether they reached the summit, and most accounts conclude that the question remains open.

The 1930s: permits, funding and Sherpa labour

In 1932 the Dalai Lama's government allowed approaches from Tibet on the condition that all climbers were British. The Mount Everest Committee, a joint body of the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club, financed and organised the pre-war expeditions. The 1933 expedition under Hugh Ruttledge used porters recruited in Darjeeling. Airplane flights over the mountain that April produced aerial photographs of the summit, and the team used Sherpa climbers such as Ang Tharkay, who carried heavy loads and advised on dangerous sections of the route. In 1934 Maurice Wilson, an inexperienced climber, died alone above Camp III.

The 1935 reconnaissance, led by Eric Shipton, confirmed that the best northern approach ran up the East Rongbuk Glacier to the North Col. The 1936 expedition, again led by Ruttledge, employed about 30 Sherpas, supported by a supply chain of more than 400 porters, but an unusually early monsoon and heavy snow forced repeated retreats, and two climbers narrowly survived an avalanche. In 1938 Bill Tilman led a smaller, cheaper expedition in which some members used oxygen. Shipton and Smythe, with seven Sherpas, pitched Camp VI at about 8,290 m, but deep powder stopped them above it, and the North Col was climbed for the first time from the west.

War, closure and the end of the pre-1950 attempts

After 1938 the Second World War and the austerity of the postwar years halted expeditions, and public and press interest in the mountain had already waned after several failures. Political change then closed the northern route: the Chinese takeover of Tibet in 1950 ended access from the north for Western expeditions. Nepal opened its borders to foreigners the same year, and the British obtained permission to reconnoitre the southern approach in 1951, which set the stage for the first successful ascent from the south in 1953.

First ascent and later landmark climbs

The first confirmed ascent of Everest took place on 29 May 1953, when Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa, stood on the summit at about 11:30 a.m. They were the final pair in a large British expedition led by Colonel John Hunt, the ninth British attempt on the mountain. Hunt's team moved camps and bottled oxygen up the South Col route in stages so that two summit pairs could go up in turn, and Hillary and Tenzing were the second pair. After a night in a small tent at about 8,500 m, they climbed the final ridge using open-circuit oxygen. Just above the South Summit they passed a roughly 12-metre wall of rock and ice, now called the Hillary Step, which Hillary forced his way up by wedging himself into a crack between rock and snow.

For the British expedition the success ended a long run of failed attempts. The Swiss had come close in 1952, with Raymond Lambert and Tenzing reaching about 28,215 feet, so the 1953 team entered the season with a clear sense of urgency. The news reached London in time for an announcement on 2 June 1953, the day of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, and both men became public figures in their own countries. Accounts of who stepped onto the summit first have varied; Tenzing's 1955 autobiography is often cited as stating that Hillary reached the top first, while the two men had earlier stressed that the climb was a team achievement.

The 1960 Chinese ascent from the north

On 25 May 1960 Wang Fuzhou, Gonpo (Gongbu) and Qu Yinhua reached the summit at about 4:20 a.m. by the North Col and the northeast ridge, the first ascent from the Tibetan side. The expedition was very large, with well over 190 members, and the climbers used the difficult step on the ridge that is now called the Second Step, where a teammate reportedly stood as a human ladder. The ascent is widely accepted, but Western climbers have doubted it, chiefly because no photograph from the summit has been produced. The highest photograph the team released was taken below the second step, and a picture that the Chinese said was taken on the descent at about 8,700 m was published in a French journal but was not among the images sent to the Alpine Journal. In 1975 a second Chinese expedition, with nine members reaching the top on 27 May, fixed an aluminium ladder to the Second Step, which reduced the difficulty for later climbers.

Women's and national milestones

Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit, on 16 May 1975, by the South Col route, during the Japanese women's expedition. The same 1975 season also brought the first Chinese woman to the top, from the north side. These ascents were early steps in a longer process, in which women from many countries later became regular summiteers, and in which national expeditions from Nepal, China and elsewhere took their own routes to the top.

The first ascent without supplemental oxygen

Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler made the first ascent without supplemental oxygen on 8 May 1978, reaching the summit at about 1:15 p.m. Their first attempt on 21 April had failed, after Habeler fell ill with food poisoning at base camp, and Messner's own try with two Sherpas was turned back by bad weather. Many mountaineers and physicians at the time believed that a climber could not survive at the summit without bottled oxygen, and some critics later claimed the pair had breathed from the bottles at intervals. Messner had argued in the 1970s that the mountain should be climbed "by fair means" or not at all, and Habeler described the climb in his 1978 book The Lonely Victory.

Messner returned in August 1980 and became the first person to climb Everest alone and without oxygen. He approached from the north side, crossed the East Rongbuk Glacier to the North Col, followed the North Ridge, and spent a solitary night at about 8,200 m before reaching the summit the next day. At the top he was so exhausted that he lay down in the snow for a time before finding the strength to descend. His solo climb is often treated as the most radical of the early milestones, because it combined the absence of bottled oxygen with the absence of partners or porters.

Climbing routes and logistics

The South Col route, the standard approach from Nepal, starts at Everest Base Camp on the Khumbu Glacier at about 5,300 metres. The first major obstacle is the Khumbu Icefall, a section of moving ice towers and crevasses between base camp and Camp 1 at roughly 6,000 metres. The glacier itself advances down the mountain's flank by roughly one metre a day, so the route has to be rebuilt and checked throughout the season. Climbers cross open crevasses on aluminium ladders, some lashed together end to end, and clip their harnesses to fixed ropes. Above Camp 1 the route follows the Western Cwm, a comparatively flat glacial valley at about 6,400 metres, where tents and stores are set up before the climb steepens.

From the Western Cwm the route rises onto the Lhotse Face, a steep wall on the west side of Lhotse, where Camp 3 sits at about 7,160 metres. Above it, climbers pass the Yellow Band and the Geneva Spur before reaching the South Col (Camp 4) at about 7,920 metres, a saddle between Everest and Lhotse. The summit push then climbs to a rest point called the Balcony at about 8,400 metres, crosses the South Summit at about 8,750 metres, and reaches the Hillary Step at about 8,790 metres. The Hillary Step is a steep rock step of roughly 12 metres that Hillary and Tenzing Norgay overcame in 1953. Accounts differ on its current form: the 2015 Gorkha earthquake is generally reported to have altered the rock, and some recent accounts describe it as now largely a snow slope with a fixed rope, while others still call it a technical obstacle. The final ridge leads to the summit at 8,850 metres.

The northern route from Tibet is less crowded and avoids the Icefall, but it has its own structure. Tibet Base Camp lies at about 5,150 to 5,200 metres near the Rongbuk Glacier, with an Advanced Base Camp at roughly 6,400 to 6,500 metres. From there climbers reach the North Col at about 7,000 metres, which is lower than the South Col and farther from the summit. Fixed ropes begin near the col, and the upper route follows the northeast ridge through the First, Second and Third Steps. The Second Step is an almost vertical section that has historically been climbed with the help of a metal ladder, and it is a common bottleneck in bad weather.

Camp structure varies by guide and operator. The south side generally uses Base Camp plus several high camps; some sources describe three high camps, while others count four, with Camp 4 at the South Col. Climbers do not go straight to the top. They make repeated trips, or rotations, between camps to acclimatize, carrying loads up and returning to lower camps to rest. A full south-side expedition typically takes about two months from arrival at base camp to departure. The Icefall Doctors, a team of Sherpas, usually reach base camp in early spring and set the route before the expeditions arrive. Their work is paid for through a fee that every south-side expedition contributes, and they remove the equipment again at the end of the season.

Equipment and supplies are the main logistical burden. Climbers rely on crampons, ice axes, harnesses, ascenders for the fixed ropes, and down clothing. Supplemental bottled oxygen is carried upward and is used for much of the climb above the South Col, with many climbers first using it on the upper Lhotse Face. Fixed ropes are anchored with ice screws and pickets, and ladders are used both flat over crevasses and upright against vertical ice. Loads are carried mainly by Sherpas, and food, fuel, tents and oxygen are stored in the camps in advance. At base camp, helicopters are used for logistics and for evacuations, and guides can call them in an emergency. In 2026 the Icefall Doctors also began using drones to carry aluminium ladders and rope up to Camp 1, which reduces the number of loads carried on foot through the Icefall.

High-altitude physiology

Above about 8,000 meters, the air contains too little oxygen to keep human tissue functioning for long, and this is the physiological basis of the term "death zone." The label dates to 1952, when Swiss physician Edouard Wyss-Dunant introduced it after studying the early Everest expeditions. At that height, barometric pressure is roughly 356 millibars, less than a third of the sea-level value. Each breath therefore carries far fewer oxygen molecules, even though the oxygen fraction of the air is unchanged. This is the core of hypoxia, the condition in which tissues receive less oxygen than they need. The body draws down its oxygen stores faster than they can be restored, so a prolonged stay without supplemental oxygen leads to declining body function, unconsciousness and eventually death.

The brain is among the first organs to suffer. Cognitive effects such as poor judgment, slowed reactions and confusion are common, and they matter on a mountain where decisions about turnaround times must be made under stress. The lungs and cardiovascular system are also strained, and the risk of heart attack and stroke rises at extreme altitude. Not all researchers accept the strict boundary. Scientists at the High Altitude Pathology Institute in Bolivia have disputed the idea of a death zone, citing patients with chronic mountain sickness and normal fetuses whose oxygen levels resemble those at the summit.

Acclimatization is the body's gradual response to lower oxygen. Over days and weeks, the body increases red blood cell production, raises the amount of hemoglobin circulating in the blood, and breathes more deeply and frequently to draw in more air. In a controlled 16-day study at 5,260 meters, arterial oxygenation and hemoglobin concentration increased, subjects did not develop acute mountain sickness, cognitive function improved, and exercise performance rose by about 8 percent. Those benefits were partly retained after a return to lower altitude, and subjects who reascended were protected from acute mountain sickness, although the hemoglobin increase was not preserved. Expedition planning exploits this by using staged ascents and rotations between camps, though this process has limits and cannot keep pace with the physiological demands above the death zone threshold.

Altitude illness takes several forms. Acute mountain sickness (AMS) is the most common, with headache, nausea, sleep disturbance and fatigue. Acetazolamide and dexamethasone can prevent AMS and high-altitude cerebral edema, but only acetazolamide also aids acclimatization. A typical adult prophylactic dose of acetazolamide is 125 mg every 12 hours. For more serious AMS, dexamethasone is considered a more reliable treatment for moderate to severe AMS, which often also requires descent.

High-altitude cerebral edema (HACE) is the most dangerous form affecting the brain. Its early symptoms generally resemble those of moderate to severe AMS. It is uncommon, occurring in less than one percent of people who ascend to 4,000 metres. Untreated patients usually die within 48 hours, while those who receive treatment may take weeks to fully recover. The usual response is dexamethasone at 8 mg, followed by 4 mg every six hours.

High-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) is a potentially life-threatening, non-cardiac pulmonary edema that affects otherwise healthy individuals at high elevations. Its treatment differs from HACE. Acetazolamide should not be used for treatment of HAPE, according to one practice guideline, and nifedipine or phosphodiesterase inhibitors are useful for HAPE. Prevention relies on dexamethasone and tadalafil taken before ascent, which are effective in HAPE prevention according to the same review. For both HACE and HAPE, immediate descent is required, and descent is the most important treatment for altitude illness generally. On Everest, expedition doctors rely on supplemental oxygen, portable pressure bags, and carried medications, but the ultimate remedy is usually a descent to lower ground.

Research on high-altitude physiology has contributed well beyond mountaineering. Physiologist Griffith Pugh's work on the 1950s Everest expeditions helped establish acclimatization schedules. Later laboratory programs, such as the Operation Everest II project in the 1980s, used decompression chambers to simulate the summit's oxygen levels. Studies of oxygen sensing and the body's response to low oxygen, recognized by the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, have shaped understanding of how cells regulate red blood cell production, a finding with implications for anemia and cancer treatment. High-altitude work also informed clinical medicine on brain swelling and lung injury, and it continues to inform the care of patients in intensive care units.

Cold injuries, including frostbite and hypothermia, are a separate hazard that compounds hypoxia. Exposed fingers, toes and faces are the most vulnerable, and climbers often treat frostbite in the field before evacuation.

Commercial expeditions, Sherpas and permits

Commercial guiding and business models

Since the 1990s, Everest has increasingly been sold as a guided service. Operators package permits, logistics, oxygen, insurance and Sherpa support into a single price, and the price spread is wide. For the 2025 season, one industry analysis put the median price of Western-guided packages on the Nepali side at $76,600, while Nepali-run operators typically charged about $45,000 but often discounted by up to 25% (Over the past ten years, companies with Western guides on the Nepal side have increased their median prices from $64,000 to $76,600 today, while Nepali guides have gone from $36,000 to $45,000 but heavily discounted by up to 25%.). On the Tibetan side, the same analysis reported a 2026 median of $68,900, a rise of 14.5%, led by international operators (on the Tibetan side, expedition fees increased by 14.5% to a median of $68,900, led by International Operators). Large international companies often charter helicopters and fold the cost into the package, while low-cost local operators compete hard on price (Large operators will hire helicopters and bundle the expense with the overall price.; Price competition among lower-cost Nepalese Operators remains intense).

The Sherpa workforce

Sherpa crews do much of the physical work that makes commercial climbs possible. They fix ropes through the Khumbu Icefall and cut a path through snow and ice before clients arrive. The 2014 avalanche showed the danger of this work: the men were trying to fix ropes and crack snow and ice to carve out a route for foreign climbers. Beyond route preparation, Sherpas carry loads between camps and guide clients on the upper mountain. For many of them, the work is the main source of income. In 2014, Reuters reported that guiding foreigners could bring in up to $7,000 a year, in a country where average annual income was just over $700 (Guiding foreign climbers is the main livelihood for sherpas, helping them make up to $7,000 - and some even more - each year in a country with an average annual income of just over $700.). Staffing rules also shape demand for Sherpas. Since 2019, Chinese-Tibetan authorities have required one climbing Sherpa for each client on commercial expeditions (Since the beginning of 2019, the Chinese-Tibetan authorities have been demanding that one Climbing Sherpa is deployed per one client of a commercial expedition.).

Permits and fees

Permit fees are a major source of state revenue for both countries. Nepal raised its individual spring permit from $11,000 to $15,000 in September 2025 (Nepal increased the Everest climbing permit fee from $11,000 to $15,000 in September 2025.). Autumn permits cost less, with one operator's guide listing $7,500 per person for September to October (US $15,000 per climber from April to May and $7,500 per person from September to October.). Foreign climbers on the Nepali side must also hire a licensed trekking agency and pay for a government liaison officer, which pushes total costs well above the permit fee alone (Each permit also requires hiring a licensed trekking agency and a government liaison officer — costs that push total expedition packages well above the permit fee alone.). China sells permits on a team basis, at $15,800 to $18,000 per person for a team permit of 4 or more.

Nepal has also tried to restrict demand. Its measures include requiring a mandatory Nepali guide on all expeditions and a $4,000 waste management fee (The measures introduced to limit numbers include the use of a mandatory Nepali guide on all expeditions, a $4,000 waste management fee, and proof of a "dead body management" specific insurance.). A proposal to require prior experience on a 7,000-metre peak was still under discussion in 2026 and had not yet become law (the laws have only passed one chamber of Nepal's Federal Parliament and still need to pass the lower chamber and be signed by the President before taking effect.).

Permit numbers in the 2026 season

Nepali authorities reported record figures for 2026. The Department of Tourism reported that a record 1,008 climbers successfully summited Mount Everest during the 2026 spring climbing season. The permit count is reported differently across sources: one report gives a record 492 Everest permits in 2026 despite higher fees and new rules in place, while another gives 495 (record numbers of permits (495) and summits (1,008), including 274 on a single day). These figures count paying clients only. As one report noted, the count does not include the guides, mountain workers, and climbing Sherpas who lead the expeditions and help clients up the mountain. Tibet issued no permits in 2026 (Nepal issued nearly 500 climbing permits for the 2026 season, while Tibet issued none.).

Labour and safety disputes

The 2014 Khumbu Icefall avalanche was the deadliest accident in the mountain's history. It killed 16 Sherpas at base camp, though early reports gave 13 with others missing (On 18 April 2014, an avalanche ripped through the base camp of Mount Everest killing 16 Nepalese Sherpa guides.; Thirteen bodies were recovered and three Sherpas still missing are presumed dead.). The disaster led to a boycott by Sherpas, who demanded higher compensation, better life insurance and a relief fund paid from climbers' fees (The accident, the most deadly in the mountain's history, triggered an unprecedented boycott among the Sherpas, who refused to return for the rest of the climbing season. The Sherpas demanded better compensation and life insurance and that a relief fund for injured guides be set up funded by the climbers fees.). The government agreed to raise minimum insurance cover by 50 percent to about $15,000 and to create a relief fund, but the Sherpas said the sums fell short (The government has offered to set up a relief fund for injured guides using up to five per cent of fees paid by climbers, while increasing life insurance payments by 50 per cent. Both amounts fall short of the sherpas' demands.). Guaranteed pay for Sherpas if a season is cancelled was not granted (it did not agree to other demands, notably the request for guaranteed pay for all Sherpas even if the climbing season is ultimately canceled.). Death compensation was also contested: it had been raised to one million rupees, and Sherpa groups asked for two million, partly because funeral rites are costly (The sixth point in the Sherpa manifesto asks that this be raised to two million rupees. This increase relates directly to the cost of traditional funerals—pujas—which are often very expensive in Nepal). Some of these demands remained unmet two years later (Two years on and some of the Sherpa demands remain unmet.).

Safety, fatalities and record seasons

The cumulative toll on Everest is usually given as about 339 people for the years 1921 to 2025, with 207 members and 132 hired workers, primarily Sherpas. Other counts run slightly higher, because databases are updated at different times and some include people who died on approach routes. Since the first expeditions in 1922, the mountain has averaged about five deaths per year. The split by side is roughly 229 deaths on the Nepali route and 110 on the Tibetan route according to one breakdown, which reflects the much heavier traffic on the south side.

Causes are rarely single. The most common recorded causes are avalanche, falls, acute mountain sickness including HACE and HAPE, and exhaustion; by one tally, avalanche (79 deaths), falls (78 deaths), Acute Mountain Sickness including HACE and HAPE (48 deaths), and exhaustion (32 deaths) lead the list, together accounting for about 70 percent of the total. Icefall collapses are the most concentrated danger for Sherpas. On 18 April 2014, a serac fell from the West Shoulder onto the route through the Khumbu Icefall, and sixteen Nepali climbers, all of them Sherpa guides preparing the route for the spring climbing season, were killed. In 2015, a further avalanche in the icefall took out most of the ladders and reportedly killed three Sherpas, pushing the death toll on the mountain to at least 24. Above the icefall, most summit-day fatalities occur in the death zone, where the lack of oxygen and the cold combine with exhaustion. Many deaths happen on the descent, after the summit has already been reached, often when climbers run low on oxygen or make errors in judgment.

Supplemental oxygen is a major factor in survival, but the picture is complicated. Of the 339 deaths through 2025, 180 deaths (53%) involved climbers not using supplemental oxygen. A large share of those were not summit attempts at all: at least 128 of the 180 non-oxygen deaths occurred during route preparation, primarily Sherpas working below Camp I in the Khumbu Icefall, where supplemental oxygen is not standard practice.

Annual totals fluctuate sharply. In 1996, a season remembered for storms, 15 people died. In 2014 the icefall disaster made the total far higher than usual. More recently, 2023: 17 deaths, the deadliest modern season, although other counts put that season at 18 or more, and the 2023 toll included three Sherpas whose bodies were never found after a collapse. Recent seasons have been lower; one summary gives 2024: 8 deaths and 2025: 5 deaths. Over the decade 2015 to 2025, 77 people died on Everest, yet the normalized death rate during this period declined to approximately 0.69, which indicates that rising traffic has been partly offset by better support systems.

Recovering bodies is difficult and sometimes impossible. In the 2014 avalanche, only 13 bodies were recovered, and in 2023 none of the bodies would be recovered. Bodies in the icefall can be buried under shifting ice or in crevasses, while those above the highest camps lie on steep, exposed terrain where rescuers risk their own lives and where helicopters cannot operate in the thin air. Some remains have stayed on the upper slopes for years and serve as grim landmarks along the routes. Where recovery is possible, helicopters are used: in 2022, a Sherpa found dead near the Football Field in the icefall was recovered by longline.

Congestion has become a separate concern. On 21 May 2026, a record 274 climbers reached the summit of Mount Everest in a single day from the Nepal side. The spring 2026 season as a whole recorded a record 1,008 climbers successfully summited Mount Everest, according to Nepal's Department of Tourism, though the permit count reported by different sources varies from about 492 to 495 (Nepal issued a record 492 Everest permits in 2026). The previous high was 877 summits in 2019 smashing the previous high of 877 from 2019. The 2019 season showed the risk of bunching: a massive queue on Everest forced teams to wait hours in freezing temperatures to make the summit. The delay lowered climbers' depleted oxygen levels, leading to sickness and exhaustion. At least four of 11 deaths that year were blamed on overcrowding. Nepal has responded with a proposed rule requiring prior experience on a 7,000-metre Nepali peak, but as of the 2026 spring season that measure was not in force.

Rescue on Everest is organised in layers. Below the icefall and at the lower camps, helicopters have been used repeatedly. During the 2015 avalanche, 60 people were rescued from Camp I and 170 were rescued from Camp II on 27 April. Above the highest camps, however, rescue is largely limited to self-rescue and assistance from nearby climbers and Sherpas, since the altitude, the weather and the steep terrain prevent aircraft from reaching the stranded, and rescue teams themselves are exposed to the same hypoxia that caused the emergency.

Environmental impact and conservation

Accumulated waste

Organised clean-up on Everest dates from 2000, when Japanese climber Ken Noguchi is widely credited with starting the first such effort. His team removed nearly nine tonnes of rubbish, including more than 400 discarded oxygen cylinders, and by 2007 he had helped collect about 90 tonnes. Oxygen canisters, plastic bottles, ropes, food waste and human excreta have been left behind by climbers, Sherpas, guides and porters over decades. Human waste was already a target in 1995, when the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC) ordered a bucket system for removing it from expedition base camps. Solid waste management is one of the most challenging issues for authorities in the Mt Everest region, and a 2020 study estimated that the park and its buffer zone generate more than 1,000 tonnes of solid waste a year.

Reported totals from the 2019 spring campaign differ between sources. Figures of roughly 22,000 pounds (about 10 tonnes) and 11,000 kilograms both appear in press coverage. Only a small share of what was collected could be recycled: of about 10 tonnes gathered in one reported operation, roughly two tonnes went to recyclers, while the rest was soil mixed with wrappers and partly burned items. Army-led clean-ups also drew criticism over financial transparency and the lack of a long-term waste framework. In response, the government adopted a five-year Everest Cleaning Action Plan covering 2025 to 2029.

Glacier retreat and changing snowpack

Recent research indicates that the glaciers around Everest are shrinking. A study presented in 2024 found that glaciers in the Mount Everest region have shrunk by 13 percent in the last 50 years and the snowline has shifted upward by 180 meters, while small glaciers under one square kilometre have lost a larger proportion of their area. The same team recorded a warming regional climate alongside declining snowfall since the early 1990s. Mass loss in the Everest area has accelerated, from −0.23 m water equivalent per year in 1964–1969 to −0.39 m per year in 2009–2019.

The clearest case is the South Col Glacier, at roughly 8,000 metres beside the standard southern route. Ice cores and a 2019 field campaign led by a University of Maine team estimated that it lost as much as 55 metres of thickness over 25 years, and that its thinning rate was approaching two metres a year. Researchers have linked this loss to human-caused warming, and they warn that the glacier may disappear by mid-century. Thinner ice can expose bedrock that makes the route more hazardous, and it may trigger more avalanches. Because the glaciers feed rivers, the melt also affects runoff and the formation of glacial lakes downstream.

Management of Sagarmatha National Park

Sagarmatha National Park (Nepal's name for the Everest region) is governed through a mix of central authorities, local communities and non-governmental groups. Its management plan for 2016 to 2020 has expired, and a successor had not been published at the time of the most recent UNESCO assessment. Tourism enforcement relies on a visitor tracking system, and the SPCC has placed waste containers along trekking routes. Visitor numbers fell from a peak of 58,018 in 2018–19 to 4,819 during the pandemic and then recovered to 25,521 in 2020–21.

Waste practice in the park has depended on a command-and-control model, in which regulations are enforced by government agencies. Expeditions have been required to post cash deposits as an incentive to bring back specified amounts of waste. Much of the solid waste in the Khumbu, however, is still disposed of in open pits, and some of it is burned. Those practices release toxic chemicals and can contaminate groundwater supplies. A 2020 plan published in Mountain Research and Development proposed a four-step system: segregation at source, collection, preprocessing at material recovery facilities, and transport to Lukla airport for onward recycling. Local authorities had received the plan by early 2020, but its implementation remained under consideration. Policy on the Tibetan side of the mountain is covered less fully in this section.

Significance for climate debate and water supply

Everest has become a symbol of the wider problems facing high-altitude environments. Scientists regard the mountain as one of the most sensitive places to climate change, and they have found that existing glacier models may underestimate the melt rate in the upper reaches, partly because strong winds are not fully accounted for. Researchers argue that tracking glaciers across the Hindu Kush Himalaya is essential for disaster planning, since the region's rivers supply water to large downstream populations. Pollutants transported across borders have also been detected in the region's glacier-fed waters. For this reason, debates about access limits, waste and cleanup on Everest are closely tied to the future of the cryosphere, the regional water supply, and global climate change policy.

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