Everest: the tallest, trickiest peak
Updated on 11 January 2008
Find out more about the peak which Edmund Hillary, alongside Tenzing Norway, famously reached in 1953.
Located on the border between the two countries, Mount Everest is known as Chomolungma or Qomolangma in Tibet and Sagarmatha in Nepal. The mountain was given its English name by Andrew Waugh, the British surveyor-general of India, in 1865.
Mount Everest has two main climbing routes, the southeast ridge from Nepal and the northeast ridge from Tibet, as well as many other less frequently climbed routes. By the end of the 2006 climbing season there had been more than 3,000 ascents to the summit by more than 2,000 individuals.
Most attempts are made during May before the summer monsoon season as changing weather later in the year makes the climb more difficult and more dangerous. It's not exactly a walk in the park to begin with: more than 200 people have perished on Everest.
One of the most famous early expeditions was that of the UK's George Mallory and Andrew Irvine. On June 8, 1924 the pair made an attempt on the summit via the north ridge route. Like many others, they never returned.
In 1999 the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition found Mallory's body near the old Chinese camp.
Although controversy has raged as to whether Mallory and Irvine actually reached the peak 29 years before Hillary and Norgay in 1953, but the general consensus among climbers, is that they did not.
When asked why he wanted to climb Everest a year before his ascent, Mallory famously replied "because it is there".
In 1953, a ninth British expedition, led by John Hunt, returned to Nepal. Two pairs attempted the summit, the first turned back just 300 feet short of the summit, but turned back due to exhaustion.
Two days later, Hillary and Norgay set off, reaching the summit on May 29, 1953.
