Original photo by Vixit/ Shutterstock
Standing 29,032 feet above sea level in between Nepal and Tibet, Mount Everest is the world’s highest peak. It’s also still growing. While there’s a push-pull dynamic at work in its vertical expansion — plate tectonics push it further into the sky at the same time that erosion does the opposite — the mountain gets about 4 millimeters taller per year on average. That means it’s actually growing at a slightly slower rate than many of its Himalayan counterparts, some of which are rising about 10 millimeters each year.
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It's a fibHawaii’s Mauna Kea is actually taller, but because more than half of its 33,500 feet are underwater, it reaches a much lower point above sea level. The volcanic mountain reaches an altitude of 13,802 feet above the Pacific, which still makes it an imposing peak in its own right.
At least 4,000 people have summited Mount Everest since 1953, although precise numbers vary depending on the source. It’s getting increasingly expensive to do so, however; the average cost in 2017 was about $45,000 per person, and some spend as much as $160,000 on travel, guides, food, and equipment. There are also growing concerns that expeditions up the mountain, which have increased in recent years, are having a negative impact. Both the crowds and the waste they leave behind degrade the mountain, and some have suggested it may be time to cease climbing the summit completely. Even so, adventurous spirits remain called to summit the highest peak on the planet — and will likely continue to feel that way for a long time to come.
Numbers Don't Lie
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The world’s second-highest mountain is ______.
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The world’s second-highest mountain is K2.
George Everest didn’t want the mountain named after him.
Before it was Mount Everest, the world’s tallest peak was officially known as Peak XV for a time — and, if the mountain’s namesake had had his druthers, it might have stayed that way. Sir George Everest was Surveyor General of India from 1830 to 1843, during which time he helped survey the entire Indian subcontinent as part of the Great Trigonometrical Survey. It was for this and other accomplishments that his successor and former pupil, Andrew Scott Waugh, proposed renaming Peak XV (which he identified as the world’s highest peak in 1856 based on work by Indian mathematician Radhanath Sikdar) in Everest’s honor. Everest thought a local name would be more suitable, as his own last name couldn’t be written in Hindi and he had no actual involvement in the mountain’s discovery, but his objections went unheard. Funnily enough, he was more right than he knew about people having trouble with his name — it’s actually pronounced EEV-rest. (Meanwhile, the Tibetan name for the mountain is Chomolungma, or “Goddess Mother of the World,” while the Nepali name is Sagarmatha, or “Goddess of the Sky.”)
Michael Nordine is a writer and editor living in Denver. A native Angeleno, he has two cats and wishes he had more.
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