Want to know some amazing Mount Everest facts? Your search ends here. Do you find the mountains intriguing and mysterious? Do you dream of scaling the highest mountain peak in the world? If so, these 30 Mount Everest facts will simply blow your mind. Get ready for some of the most amazing and unbelievable facts about Earth’s highest mountain peak! Let’s start:
Mind-Blowing Mount Everest Facts: 1-5
1. Based on 1954’s ground measurement, Mount Everest stands at 29,029 feet but when a satellite measured the height of this mountain in 1999, it found that it is six feet taller. There are no grounds to prove the satellite’s measurement is accurate.
2. There is only one-third of oxygen present near Mount Everest (when compared to the amount of oxygen at sea level). This is due to the fact that air pressure is too less there. Want to know how much? The air pressure at Mount Everest is 4.89 psi (pound-force per square inch) while the air pressure at sea level is 14.69. Got the picture? Good.
3. From 1969, it has been a tradition that at least one man should die climbing Mount Everest every year. The only exception to this tradition (from 1969) was 1977.
4. A passenger jet flies at around 31,000 feet above sea level. It means that if Mount Everest would be any taller, its peak would have touched the planes.
5. The common name that we use for the highest peak of the Himalayas is Mount Everest but did you know, it has other native names as well? Natives of Tibet call Mount Everest as “Chomolungma” which means “Mountains’ Mother Goddess” and natives of Nepal call it as “Sagarmatha” which translates into “Sky’s Forehead”.
Mind-Blowing Mount Everest Facts: 6-10
6. How did the name Mount Everest come into the picture? Andrew Waugh, a British Surveyor had tried to name this mountain but when he failed to get any good name, he just gave this mountain the name of the Surveyor General – George Everest.
7. Surveyor General George Everest modestly declined the naming of the mountain after him but British Government changed the name from “Peak XV” to “Mount Everest” in 1865.
8. The wind on this mountain blows at a speed of 200 miles per hour or 321.869 kilometers per hour.
9. Every 1 person out of 10 successful climbers reach the peak of the Mount Everest but die there.
10 . Can you imagine that there are around 200 corpses on the mountain and weird thing is that these corpses end up helping other climbers to find the routes and as waypoints?
Mind-Blowing Mount Everest Facts: 11-15
11. It was Reinhold Messner who was the first to climb Everest all alone and with no oxygen. He achieved this great feat in 1980.
12. You just won’t find corpses there but a lot of junk as well. Humans didn’t leave Mount Everest also! There are almost 50 tons of garbage on the mountain. Human waste, empty oxygen cylinders, climbing equipment etc. are the garbage found. What is more distressing being the fact that the garbage is increasing every year!
13. The Eco Everest Expedition, which started in 2008, is trying to solve this issue by collecting the garbage. It has so far collected around 13 tons of garbage.
14. The Nepalese government is leaving no stone unturned in resolving this issue. It recently, in 2014, made a new rule for all the climbers to bring down around 8 kg of waste and if they fail to do so, they simply won’t get back the deposit of $4000.
15. Everest 8848 Art Project is helping to spread the awareness about the garbage disposal on the mountain. The artists converted 8 tons of waste into 75 art bits.
Mind-Blowing Mount Everest Facts: 16-20
16. The oldest man to climb Mount Everest is an 80-year-old Yuichiro Miura. He is a citizen of Japan.
17. Now some people do snowboarding on Everest as well. Macro Siffredi of France and Stefan Gatt of Austria snowboarded for the first time in 2001.
18. Burj Khalifa, which is the tallest man-made and artificial structure stands at 829 meters. Mount Everest is 10 times taller than Burj Khalifa.
19. The second tallest building in the world, Taipei 101 in Taiwan, should be increased 17 times its length to match Everest.
20. Mount Everest is getting taller every year by 4 mm because of the upward thrusts of the two tectonic plates.
Mind-Blowing Mount Everest Facts 21-25
21. You can actually find 3G signal on the peak of Mount Everest. A man named Kenton Cool tweeted for the first time from there in 2001.
22. A 13-year-old boy named Jordan Romero of United States of America is the youngest person in this world to reach the mountain’s top. Earlier the youngest person was Ming Kipa, a 15-year-old boy, of Nepal.
23. Due to the popularity that it gained over the years, humans have to wait in long queues to reach the top. Because of waiting, the climbers become more exhausted and get killed at few areas of Mount Everest which are called as “death zones”.
24. To ease the situation and to help the climbers, Nepal Government is providing more fixed ropes near such death zones. The government is even planning to fit permanent ladders.
25. China and Nepal disputed on the height of Mount Everest. According to China, the height of Mount Everest was 8,844 meters and according to Nepal, it was 8,848 meters.
Mind-Blowing Mount Everest Facts: 26-30
26. China, when measuring the height, didn’t include snow whereas Nepal did. These two countries agreed on the official height of Mount Everest as 8,848 meters in 2010 (because most of the mountains are measured including snow).
27. Did you know that Apa Sherpa and Phurba Tashi jointly climbed the Mount Everest 21 times? According to Apa Sherpa, the consequences of global warming is crystal clear on Mount Everest and he worries that for his community, which is completely depended on mountains, the future is gloomy.
28. A species of spider named “Euophrys omnisuperstes” which translates into “standing above everything” is found on Mount Everest. It feeds on any insect which is brought by the wind. Some grasshopper species and some species of birds are the only other creatures which are found on the mountain.
29. Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first to climb Mount Everest. They reached the peak on 19 May, 1953.
30. Most of the people might know that Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the world. But it is the tallest when counted from above-the-sea-level point. Mount Kea is the tallest mountain if it is measured from its base which is under the surface of the water. Mount Kea measures up to 10,200 meters or 33, 465 feet.