No mountain on Earth inspires more fear and fascination than Everest — but just
how many human lives have been lost on its slopes?
With a summit 29,032 feet above sea level, Mt. Everest invokes awe and defiance in equal
measure. Maybe it's just the thrill of surmounting one of the greatest challenges on the planet.
Maybe it's a desire to ascend to a realm traditionally considered sacred by human beings.
Or maybe people just really like big stuff. One thing is for sure,
though — the privilege of climbing a peak like Mt. Everest exacts a heavy toll.
It's unlikely that Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay realized what they had truly
begun when they became the first people to stand at the summit of Mt. Everest in 1953. Hillary and
Norgay had a support team as bottom-heavy as Everest itself: 350 porters carrying a
massive load of supplies, 10 climbers, and 20 Sherpas to guide them all. Now, though,
there are five-step "how to" articles online made specifically for climbing Everest, complete
with gear and itinerary breakdowns, while entire businesses specialize in taking people up Everest,
assembly-line fashion. Despite this familiarity, however, Everest still kills every year.
"We all realize the risks involved, and accept those risks. Or you don't play the game."
These days, would-be ascenders of Mt. Everest can follow a generic itinerary and set path that
has been pounded into the snow by thousands of climbers. That's not to say that the task is easy,
of course. You've got to be extremely healthy and train for years, especially when it comes
to your cardiovascular system. Otherwise, the 70% drop in oxygen will straight-up kill you. Plus,
you've got to carry months' worth of heavy equipment and supplies on your back for the
entire trek up and down. Generally speaking, it's a 19 day round trip just to get to Everest Base
Camp, and 40 days from there to the peak. All together, the journey takes about three months.
Climbing Everest isn't cheap, either. Aside from the travel expenses to get
to Nepal and the money you'll need to take all that time off work,
you need a permit to actually climb the mountain in the first place. A solo permit is $25,000.
Taking all your expenses into account, you're looking at about $200,000 per person.
And yet, despite all of these enormous hurdles,
some 800 people attempt the climb every year. Over 4,000 climbers have reached the top,
not counting multiple ascents by the same person, and, since 1990, a steady 1% of them have died.
The University of Washington has published an extensive breakdown of success and death rates
of Mt. Everest climbers. The number of people embarking on first-time trips jumped from 2,200
per year from 1990 to 2005, to 3,600 per year from 2006 to 2019. Over 60% are successful,
a number largely attributed to improved weather forecasting.
Critically, those figures don't include Sherpas, photographers, and other support crew.
And yet, more people climbing means more people dying. 11 people died in 2019 during Everest's
summit window, between May and September. That's 11 out of 891 people who reached the summit — a
1.2% death rate consistent with the University of Washington's findings. Contrarily, Outside Online
says that, during the bulk of the May 2023 summit window, a full 10 people died out of the 500 that
reached the summit. That's not just a slightly higher number of deaths than usual — it's double
the percentage. Is this because of climber bottlenecks, post-COVID overeagerness,
sloppy planning, poor conditions, or something else? Right now, we simply don't know.
So what's the total number? Well, in November 2022, Climber News reported 310 total deaths on
Everest, to which we can add 10 more from 2023. And yet, because of the high number of climbers,
more people have died on Everest than any other mountain. Perhaps more grim than the
number of people who have died, however, is the amount of bodies left unretrieved.
Tragically, we don't know where most of the 200 or so dead who remain on the mountain are located,
or even how they died. Meanwhile, some of the bodies that would be too dangerous to
retrieve remain in sight of climbers; today, they serve as "markers" for those making the attempt.
There is a makeshift memorial to the dead situated along Everest's Base Camp route. Informally called
"The Scott Fischer Memorial," in honor of the climber Scott Fischer – who tragically lost his
life on Everest in 1996. The memorial is basically a conical pile of rocks decorated with colorful,
flag-like pieces of fabric. Sherpas, family members, and those wishing to pay respects
continue to build it piece-by-piece, in memory of the people who never came down from the mountain.