Mount Everest

Long before anyone set foot on its summit, Everest was measured from a considerable distance using little more than triangulation and careful math, confirming its height decades before any expedition came close to reaching it.

Measuring the Roof of the World

Standing at 29,032 feet (8,849 meters), Everest was confirmed as the world's highest peak by a British survey team in the 1850s, using triangulation methods from a considerable distance since foreign travel into the region was restricted at the time. The mountain is known locally as Sagarmatha in Nepali and Chomolungma in Tibetan, meaning "Goddess Mother of the World."

The First Ascent

For decades, numerous expeditions attempted to reach Everest's summit without success, some ending in tragedy. On May 29, 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Nepali Sherpa mountaineer, became the first climbers confirmed to reach the summit, achieving one of the 20th century's most celebrated feats of exploration.

A Dangerous Pursuit

Since that first ascent, thousands of climbers have reached Everest's summit, aided by improved equipment, weather forecasting, and established climbing routes. However, the mountain remains extremely dangerous — extreme altitude, sudden weather changes, and avalanches have claimed several hundred lives, and the region above 26,000 feet is known ominously as the "Death Zone," where oxygen levels are too low to sustain human life for extended periods.

The Sherpa Community

The Sherpa people of the surrounding Khumbu region have played an essential and often underrecognized role in nearly every successful Everest expedition, working as guides and porters and carrying the overwhelming majority of expedition equipment up the mountain. Everest continues to draw hundreds of climbers each year during the narrow spring climbing season.