While I do love being able to explore the history of my home state and the region I love so dearly, once I’ve finished researching and writing for The 1306, I am honestly looking forward to reading just about anything else. I’ve hinted at my other preferred subjects before: art history, natural disasters, 19th-century literature by female authors, postcards, Bigfoot hunting shows of the 2010s and boats. The usual suspects.
Himalayan mountaineering is another one of those topics that becomes the subject of my late-night Wikipedia rabbit holes - which in turn becomes what I report to my mom the next morning when all she wants is peace and quiet with her coffee.
Long story short, I don't have a Michigan connection yet, but I am a Michigander, and I want to talk Everest, so here are some of my top facts I’ve learned about Mt. Everest this year! Sorry, Mom!
To start, did you know that Mt. Everest has a “tourist season?” The vast majority of expeditions to Everest take place in the spring, with the peak window in a narrow two-week period in May. Most guides (especially those who’ve paid upwards of $175,000 to climb) choose this period due to the relatively clear and pleasant weather conditions. However, this window is quickly followed by monsoon season in the Indian Ocean, which can cause disastrous winds that are liable to blow you right off the side of the mountain. The other preferable season is early autumn, once the monsoon season has concluded. Unless there is a freak blizzard like this year, which caught hundreds of tourists looking to climb to base camp off guard. While winter season expeditions are possible, only 15 climbers have ever successfully summited during that time.
Considering the narrow climbing season, and the rise in popularity of regular people attempting to climb Everest, recent years have seen “conga lines” at the top of the mountain of people trying to make their summit “bid.” This includes the May 2019 season, with the 22nd and 23rd each considered the “Day Everest Broke,” as described by journalist and climber Mark Synnott in his book “The Third Pole.” An estimated 800 people were essentially trapped on the Hilary Step, a narrow ridge located on the mountain’s Nepalese south face that leads to the summit. Eleven climbers died in their attempts that month alone. A photograph taken of the line went viral online, so you may have seen it. The photographer was Nepalese mountaineer Nirmal Purja, whose own Everest summit was merely a chapter in his 2019 expedition to summit all 14 of the 8,000-meter Himalayan peaks in just seven months.
Most deaths on Everest take place above that 8,000-meter line in an area known as the “Death Zone,” where the air is so thin the brain and body become starved of oxygen, leading to exhaustion and poor decision-making. An even more terrifying statistic is that most deaths on Mt. Everest occur on the descent, when climbers are high on the success of summiting but are at their most physically drained.
In my opinion, the most terrifying variety of death one can experience climbing these towering peaks is High-Altitude Pulmonary Edema, or HAPE. HAPE occurs when fluid collects in the lungs. If not treated properly and quickly, you could die from what is essentially drowning, thousands of meters above sea level. Imagine that, drowning on the tallest mountain in the world! The second most terrifying death on my list is when a building-sized column of glacial ice falls without warning and crushes you. Also up there is becoming so disoriented you unhook yourself from your guidelines and walk off the mountain. Lots of horrible ways to die!
How about some levity? Did you know that climbers on Mt. Everest can experience High-Altitude Flatus Expulsion? Sounds terrifying, but it basically just means that the low air pressure and low oxygen levels at these altitudes make you fart. A lot. And trust me, when many books on Everest are written by men, they usually take the opportunity to talk about their farts.
Now this is a history column, so I would be remiss if I did not discuss some of my favorite historical aspects of the climbing of Mt. Everest. For starters, Everest is known by two other names - Sagarmatha in Nepalese and Chomolungma in Tibetan. These were the names given to the mountain prior to the British occupation of India and subsequent surveying expeditions to the Himalayas. It was after one of these surveyors, a reportedly unpleasant man named Sir George Everest, that Westerners named the mountain after. So we’ve got Sagarmatha (“Forehead of the Sky”), Chomolungma (“Goddess Mother of the World”) and Everest (some Brit who didn’t even want the mountain named after him and whose name isn’t even pronounced like that).
The first official summiting of Everest was on May 29, 1953, by New Zealand climber Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. By official first summit, I mean the first successful and verifiable summit. There are theories within the mountaineering community that the doomed expedition of George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine in 1924 may have resulted in a successful summit, despite Mallory and Irvine’s deaths. The rest of the British expeditionary crew last spotted the pair just 300 vertical meters from the summit of Everest's North Face before they disappeared into the clouds.
When Mallory’s body was found in 1999, his personal effects were found in order and undisturbed, save for the missing photograph of his wife he said he’d place at the summit should he make it (his mistress’s letters were in fine condition). For years, many mountaineers have hedged all their bets that if Mallory and Irvine made it to the summit, there would be photographic evidence stored in the untouched film of Irvine’s VP Kodak camera. In September 2024, Irvine’s partial remains were found on Everest, though no more than a foot, sock, and boot were found. Camera discovery is still pending.
Also, if you, dear reader, have been to Everest or the Himalayas, please send me an email at cmarshall@whitelakemirror.com - I have so many questions for you!
