The Highest Peak in the World: Everest

The Mount Everest, also known as Chomolungma, is the highest peak in the world. The mount is a part of the Himalaya Asian mountain range, which includes some of the highest peaks in the world. The official height of the Everest is 8,848 meters according the Chinese survey in the year of 1975. Due to excessive length the climate of the Himalayas varies from tropical to eternal snow in different altitudes.

For thousands of years, the mount was called Chomolungma, having a Tibetian origin. Meanwhile, this part of the world was closed to the outer world. The Survey of exploring the mountain range lasted for several decades. The section of the mountain range starting from the south of India and extending to Nepal in the north, was explored by the Welsh geographer an surveyor George Everest. Accordingly, the official name was given to the mountain in honor of the Welsh Colonel George Everest.

Thousands of professional hikers all over the world are attracted by the challenge of climbing the highest peak in the world. Although most of them are professional hikers themselves, the local guides leading to the Everest are a must. There are two gates to climb the mountain; one is located in the southeast (Nepal), the other in the north (Tibet). The gate from the southeastern Nepal is also called standard route.

While admitting that those who climb the Everest should be professional hikers and climbers, we take into consideration the existing challenges of overcoming the cold winds, lack of oxygen, snow slides, sickness from altitude and many more. The majority of climbers uses oxygen bottles while climbing, though the number of climbers without a bottle is not little, as well.

The first human to climb as high as 8,300 meters was in 1922, by the British expedition members. For a long time mountaineer could not access the mountains from the Nepal part, as it was closed for foreigners. This is the reason why the British mountaineers accessed it from the Tibetian side climbing as high as 8,300 meters. The expedition of the British climbers in 1924  has been a mystery till nowadays. Two members of the expedition went to reach the top for no longer coming back. For a long time, there was a debate on whether these two climbers were the first to reach the top. The doubts vanished with the discovery of their corps at a height of 8,150 meters in 1999.

The Nepalese mountaineer Tenzing Norgay and the explorer Edmund Hillary from New Zeland were the first officially to climb the summit of Everest from the southeastern standard route in 1953.