1. Everest grows 4mm higher every year due to geologic uplift.
2. 1 in 10 successful summits ends in death.
3. Over 4,000 people have attempted to climb
Everest.
4. George Everest, Surveyor General of India from 1830
to 1843, discovered Everest in 1841.
5. Mount Everest is also home to a very minute
black jumping spider. These spiders hide in crevices and feed on frozen
insects. Their food depends largely upon what is blown by the wind into the
specific area. They live as high as 22,000 feet.
6. Over 260 people have died on
Everest (exact number unknown).
7. In 2014, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake triggered an avalanche
that base camp killed 16 Sherpa and climbers and injured 61. This is the greatest tragedy ever seen on Everest.
In 2014, an avalanche killed 16 Sherpa above the
Khumbu icefall. At the time
this was the worst accident in Everest history.
During 1996, around 15 people lost their lives while trying
to descend from the summit of Mount Everest (the 3rd most in one
year). In 2012, 11 people perished on Everest (the 4th most).
8. Sir Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay were the first
to summit Everest, on May 19 1953.
9. Over 2000 people have reached the top of
Everest.
10. There are around 120 dead bodies of climbers on the
mountain.
11. Avalanches are the greatest cause of death for
climbers scaling Everest (Avalanches at about a 2:1 ratio over falls).
12. The summit is just below the cruising height of a
jet.
13. The youngest person to reach summit was 13 and the oldest was 80 (same guy who skied Everest in 1971).
14. In Nepal the mountain is called Sagarmatha,
meaning ‘forehead of the sky’.
15. In Tibet the mountain is known as Chomolangma for
‘mother of the universe’
16. It is the highest mountain in the world
at 29,035 feet, although its exact height is often disputed.
17. Everest was created about 60 million years
ago.