Reaching One’s Summit
A simple explanation behind “documenting the ascent”
Did you know that just under 1,000 people attempt to climb Mount Everest every year? Of those, about 500 will succeed in reaching its peak, which stands at over 29,000 feet above sea level.
If you’re like me, that first number might seem a little low while the second one seems rather high. Just 1,000 attempts a year to climb Earth’s highest mountain? (And that includes the Sherpas, guides, and professional climbers who scale it regularly.) You’d think a few hundred people a day would be lined up to cross a feat like that off their bucket lists, especially given the considerably generous 50% success rate above.
About that success rate.
As one might imagine, it wasn’t always so generous. In fact, it was only about a third as high in 1990, trending upward as more guides and better equipment became readily available.
Even still, through August 2015, 7,001 summits of Everest have been made, with “only” 282 deaths.
I don’t know about you, but if my lifelong dream was to climb to the top of Mount Everest and you told me there was…
