DEADLY CHALLENGE
Mount Everest by the Numbers: Deaths, Cost to Climb, and More Mountain Records
Three climbers were declared dead Monday and two more are missing after battling particularly treacherous conditions in an attempt to reach the “rooftop of the world.” From the cost to climb to the number of people who have died in 2012, The Daily Beast breaks down the numbers of the world’s tallest mountain.
8,848 meters (29,029 feet): Height at the peak.
60 million years: Approximate age of Mount Everest.
$25,000: Cost of a climbing permit per person.
8,000: Height in meters (approximately 26,000 feet) at Mount Everest’s “death zone,” the low-oxygen area above the last camp and before the summit where conditions become increasingly harsh.
1953: The year Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first recorded climbers to reach Everest’s summit.
3: Number of countries visible from the summit (Tibet, India, and Nepal).
6: Number of people who have died on the mountain in 2012.
19: Number of people who died in one year—1996, the deadliest ever on Mount Everest—during a trek chronicled by writer Jon Krakauer in Into Thin Air.
30: Number of minutes before a climber dies after contracting hypothermia on Mount Everest, depending on how fast his or her body temperature drops
40: Record number of people to successfully reach Everest’s summit in one day (May 10, 1993).
200: Approximate number of total climbers who have died on the peak’s treacherous slopes.
4,000: Approximate number of people who have climbed Mount Everest since Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953.
13: Age of Jordan Romero, the youngest climber to reach the summit, in May 2010.
76: Age of the oldest climber to reach the summit, Min Bahadur Sherchan, in May 2008.
21: Record number of successful climbs to the summit by Apa Sherpa.