Stuff That Happened

If you ask an average person what the name of the tallest mountain in the world is, the person is likely to know the answer – of course, Mount Everest. At 29,029 feet, it ranks as the clear #1 in terms of height. It is also not an easy mountain to climb mainly because of the extreme altitude but there are other challenges as well, such as the Khumbu Icefall, extreme cold temperatures, a high number of climbers which can cause traffic jams in the Death Zone, unpredictable avalanches, deadly crevasses and vertical rock faces that are extremely difficult to climb such as the Hillary Step. Despite the challenges, however, Mt. Everest is not considered the most difficult mountain to climb. In fact, there are a few mountains considered more difficult from a technical aspect and one of them is the second tallest mountain in the world, one of that the average person may not be able to name – it is called simply K2. At 28,251 feet, it is just 778 feet shorter than Everest but the difficul...

The first expedition with the goal of making it to the summit of Mount Everest occurred in 1922. The expedition ended in failure and it wasn’t until over 30 years later when some one was confirmed to have reached the summit. Edmund Hillary and Tenzig Norgay achieved this incredible feat on May 29th, 1953. Since then, more mountaineers were able to reach the summit such as the legendary Jim Whitaker, the first American to summit Everest, who accomplished the feat in 1963. Throughout the 50’s and 60’s, only 24 climbers reached the summit. These were expeditions reserved only for the elite of the elite and consisted only of experienced and expert climbers. The casual every day person couldn’t just decide to climb Everest. It would be the same as deciding to pay some money go on a trip to the Moon – unfortunately, such a trip was reserved for astronauts only. Then, in the 90’s that changed. The once desolate and inhospitable landscape of Mount Everest, which at one time contained o...