Everest is part of the Himalayan mountain range, rising above Central Asia on the border between China and Nepal. Everest’s summit stands 29,029 feet above sea level—or nearly 6 miles high. The Sherpa people of Nepal refer to the mountain as the “Goddess of the Sky.”
People have been climbing Everest for almost 100 years, but in the beginning, very few people succeeded. This year, about 900 climbers reached the top. Eleven never made it home.
On Everest, there are numerous ways to die. People might be crippled by frostbite, or they might tumble down a 5,000-foot slope of ice. They might even be buried by an avalanche—a mass of snow, rocks, and ice that slides quickly down a slope without warning.
But on Everest, the greatest threat to survival is the air itself. As you ascend the mountain, the air gets thinner and you take in less and less oxygen. Most climbers rely on bottled oxygen near the top of the mountain.
Even so, they gasp for air after every step and have difficulty thinking clearly.
Above 26,000 feet, the danger is so extreme it’s called the death zone. No one can survive there for long, given how little oxygen is in the air.