Mount Everest
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Before 'Into Thin Air,' the firsthand report on the 1996 Everest disaster, became a best-selling book, it was an ϳԹ story. Now it's been immortalized as an opera.
A new study shows that climbing teams from countries with rigid social structures are more likely to summit Himalaya mountains—but also more likely to die trying. Can the data predict summit success?
Would you buy a $400 tie—if it's been to the top of Everest?
The true story of the mountain's most horrific day, the Sherpas who paid the price, and the aftershocks that will change the mountain forever
Norbu Tenzing Norgay is deeply familiar with Mt. Everest—his father famously made the first summit with Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953. But alongside the beauty and adventure, there's real danger, especially for Sherpas. It's time to make a change.
Veteran Everest guide Adrian Ballinger was one of many leaders who cancelled their costly expedition this year. But it wasn't due to money, politics, or even danger.
When a Sherpa and a native Nepali paraglided off of Mount Everest in 2011, they flew into history. Now a new book chronicles their extraordinary journey.
Some climate scientists argue that it's getting warmer faster at high altitude. And that could spell disaster for mountaineers.
The climbing season may not be closed for business just yet this season, but it may be tough to convince the mountain's most important climbers to carry on.
Climbing Sherpas suffer the highest mortality rate on Mount Everest. We ran the numbers, and the results will shock you.
For the first time, armed police will patrol Everest Base Camp. just don’t expect them to curb the growing conflicts.
California guide Adrian Ballinger makes his play to become Everest's top dog with a climbing model that's fast, light—and very expensive.
After a near-fatal motorcycle accident, Hells Angel Tim Medvetz recovered by climbing the world's tallest mountain. Now he's taking wounded veterans on the same journey.
In an exclusive interview, a Sherpa involved in the incident speaks out on the now infamous scuffle with Western climbers
For more than a century, Western climbers have hired Nepal’s Sherpas to do the most dangerous work on Mount Everest. It’s a lucrative way of life in a poor region, but no service industry in the world so frequently kills and maims its workers for the benefit of paying clients. The dead are often forgotten, and their families left with nothing but ghosts.
In just six days in May, the British climber completed a trilogy that had never before been attempted: Everest, Lhotse, and Nuptse—three of the world's highest mountains—in a single push.
Already an Everest record-holder, the 29-year-old climbing great shares what it takes to reach the top
Bolotov, who was attempting a new route on the Southwest Face, died Tuesday in an apparent fall. A veteran mountaineer pieces together what is known.
We met Aydin Irmak last year when he was attempting to summit Everest with his bike. This year, he surprised us by returning to the mountain, summiting early—and finding himself in the middle of the brawl on Everest.
Although initially reported as the result of altitude sickness, the death of DaRita Sherpa on May 5 was likely the result of a cardiac event. We take a look at why Sherpas are less susceptible to altitude-related illness.
“I went out and this whole crowd was there, maybe 100 people. When I saw they had their faces covered, I knew this was going to be really bad.”
From Everest Base Camp, professional climbing guide Garrett Madison has been following developments on the fight between Ueli Steck, Simone Moro, Jonathan Griffith, and a group of Sherpas. He gives us the insider perspective and what the media got wrong.
Mountaineer Garrett Madison has summited Everest with 28 clients in the last four years and is one of the world's top expedition guides. He shares his first update of the Everest 2013 season from Base Camp.
In the 16 years since Into Thin Air, Mount Everest has become safer in many ways, with better storm forecasting and amazing high-altitude rescue helicopters. So why did 10 people die in 2012?
And is it likely that another deadly traffic jam will form this weekend? Grayson Schaffer, who has living been at Base Camp for the past month, has the answers.
Disaster strikes world's highest peak with only human error to blame
Over the last five years, alpinist Chad Kellogg has lost nearly everything and everyone—wife, brother, climbing partners—close to him. In the next few days, when he plans to make his second attempt to break the speed record on Mount Everest, he'll be carrying an understandably heavy load.
This is shaping up to be one of the deadliest seasons on record, with 10 deaths so far and too many helicopter evacuations to count. Here’s a sneak peak at the doctors on the front lines of the world's highest clinic.
The fact that Kobold's new Himalayan Edition watch is built with a few chunks of rock that, technically speaking, were removed illegally from Everest has caused a minor hubbub
The arrival of high-altitude helicopters on Mount Everest and other Nepalese peaks has transformed search-and-rescue and saved lives. But the choppers have also added to the chaos at the top of the world—and introduced a deadly new brand of danger.
British mountaineer Kenton Cool attempts to fulfill a long-lost pledge to bring his countryman's 1924 Olympic medal in alpinism—yes, alpinism—to the summit of Everest
Aydin Irmak knows his goal—to carry his beloved single speed to the summit—is highly improbable. Everyone at Base Camp has already told him as much. But the 46-year-old Turkish New Yorker refuses to call it quits.
The first graduate of the Sherpa Education Fund talks about how the program changed his worldview
The First Ascent team of Jake Norton, Brent Bishop, Charley Mace, and David Morton is through a patch of brittle ice and has fixed lines to within 1,200 feet of the West Shoulder.
Ahead of the 50th anniversary of the first American ascent of Everest, multiple teams are planning commemorative climbs. We’ll be there reporting on them as they happen.
With the 2012 climbing season underway, we look back at some of the most incredible moments to take place on the world's tallest mountain over the last 150 years
A brief history of glory, tragedy, and dubious achievement on the world's highest summit
Behind the tragic accident that took Namgya Tshering Sherpa's life
With the 2012 climbing season underway, we look back at some of the most incredible moments to take place on the world's tallest mountain over the last 150 years
The Khumbu Icefall has already claimed one mountaineer this season, but the obstacle is no more dangerous than most years. Here's the one place that has Everest climbers on edge.
Ueli Steck and Freddie Wilkinson reveal how Nepal's permitting system is holding climbers back in the Khumbu
Multiple teams of climbers will attempt the West Ridge this May, following the route first climbed by Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld in 1963. ϳԹ senior editor Grayson Schaffer is embedding with the team from Eddie Bauer to send back dispatches and photos. Here's a look at the route and the team.
Conceptual artist Fabian Knecht partners with American climbers Emily Harrington and Sam Elias to take his latest performance project to the top of Everest
Go local with Nepalese guide Jiban Ghimire's Sherpa Shangri La Treks & Expeditions
The top of the world is getting more crowded—last spring, 94 teams visited base camp, and 535 climbers reached the summit. Rescue operations are getting more sophisticated, too, with high-altitude helicopters and, starting this year, a team of Sherpa rangers. Here's a look at where things go wrong and the support systems in place when they do.
How fit do you really need to be to scale the highest peak in the world? An expert weighs in.
Start off 2012 right, with a trip to one of the world’s wildest destinations
The first woman to make a feature film on Everest talks about spending 40 Days at Base Camp
The list of seven summits climbers used to read like an alpinist all-star team. Now there are kids who can include it on their college applications.
I'm heading to Nepal (November through December) for a one-month trek to Mt. Everest Base Camp. Can you recommend a glove and gaiter that would suffice for trekking, scrambling, cold temps, etc. Nathan Los Angeles, CA
We polled the sharp-eyed nomads we trust most and came up with a bucket list of the best trips for getting the best shots around the world.
Douglas Brinkley's biography of Teddy Roosevelt proves we still have a lot to learn from the conservation giant.
Luanne Freer talks about saving lives in the world's highest emergency room.
I will be spending three months at Everest Base Cp. What jacket would you recommend? I a 5'1" female, and it seems all the jackets targeted for temps at 8,000 meters are only made for men. Torrey Kailua, HI
“Agonizingly vivid” is a fair description of Storm Over Everest, yet another rehashing of the 1996 disaster, by climber/documentarian David Breashears. Premiering May 13 on PBS’s Frontline, the two-hour film combines interviews with survivors, including guide Neal Beidleman and climber Beck Weathers (but noticeably no Jon Krakauer) with footage gathered…
Our unscientific but highly authoritative guide to the 20 BEST PARTIES on the planet
You were told that Everest base camp is an insult to the true spirit of mountaineering. (Harrumph.) But why weren't you told about the excellent bars, the butter people, and that friendly Playboy bunny from Poland? The author spends a month at the world's most exclusive party town.
A Playboy bunny, massage tents, martinis, bootleg movies, high altitude golf. As correspondent Kevin Fedarko reports in the July 2007 feature story, "High Times" the scene at Everest Base Camp ain't what you'd expect. Here, listen to an audio version of the story and hear an interview with Fedarko.
Helicopter rescues on the summit of Everest may soon be reality. And the pilot won't be anywhere in sight.
When freeskier Kit DesLauriers dropped in at 29,035 feet on Mount Everest in October, she became the first person to ski off the Seven Summits. Kit, her husband, Rob, and photographer Jimmy Chin also became the first Americans to ski from the top of the world's tallest mountain.
Listen to an interview with photographer and climber Jimmy Chin and see photo outtakes from the January Exposure Special, "The No Fall Zone," here.
Survivors from Everest '96 recall a day of terror and confusion that many still believe was distorted in ways that oversimplified complex events and dishonored the dead.
David Sharp's lonely death on Mount Everest revived the old, raging debates about personal ethics and the wisdom of commercially guided climbing. But whatever went right and wrong in 2006, the bottom line remains: You challenge this peak at your own risk, because its punishments are swift, terrible, and blind.
You need to learn your lesson! So listen up to Mike Roberto, a fast-talking consultant who uses the '96 saga as a teaching tool for students, lawyers, and businessmen.
Sending Jon Krakauer to Everest was my idea. After the news broke, I spent the better part of a day wondering if I'd put him in a frozen grave.
Is it possible to guide safely on Everest? Or will the mountain always demand its pound of flesh? MARK JENKINS talks to a dream team of veterans—between them, they've reached the summit 17 times—in a frank look at the risks, rewards, and nightmares of taking clients to the top.