One Wrong Step

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and racism.

Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the world, with a peak elevation of 29,032 feet. Known as a sacred mountain in both Tibetan and Nepali cultures, it is called Sagarmatha (Forehead of the Sky) in Nepal and Chomolungma (Goddess Mother of the World) in Tibet. The mountain is a place of worship and healing, and it is also associated with the idea of being fully connected to one’s religion and to the natural world. In Tibet, people called Sherpas live on the mountainside and perform prayer rituals before making ascents. In both Tibetan and Nepalese cultures, the mountain is believed to demand respect, and all those who set foot upon its slopes therefore enter into a sacred agreement to honor its power and majesty.

Early in the 20th century, mountaineers gained a keen interest in scaling Mount Everest, and British mountaineers made the first known attempts to reach its peak, utilizing the North Ridge route from the Tibetan side because Nepal did not permit foreigners to enter the country at that time. On the North Col, a reconnaissance mission reached a height of 7,000 meters in 1921, and the North Ridge path was later pushed up to 8,321 meters by the 1922 expedition. This attempt marked the first time a human had ever ascended above 8,000 meters. However, tragic events marred the group’s success when seven porters perished on the descent, and these became the first of many climbing expedition deaths on the peak.

In 1924, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine led an expedition that attempted to climb the notorious North Col to the summit. The two climbers were spotted above the group on June 8 and were only 800 meters from the summit when a thunderstorm struck the peak, surrounding the climbers entirely. Seventy-five years later, Mallory’s body was discovered 8,155 meters up the mountain, but Irvine’s body has never been located; it remains unknown whether the two ever made it to the summit. Nearly 300 individuals have died on the mountain since that time.

The second British expedition was sent to the summit decades later, using the southeast ridge path that one of the Sherpa guides had used to reach 8,595 meters the previous year on an excursion from Switzerland. A now-famous Sherpa guide named Tenzing Norgay, as well as the New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary, were part of the expedition, which was headed by Colonel John Hunt. On May 29, 1953, Hillary and Norgay became the first men to reach the summit of Mount Everest.