Mrs. McElroy
College Prep English I
1/23/14
Mt. Everest Mt. Everest is the tallest mountain in the world at 29,029 feet which would be the height of 20 Empire State buildings and 5 ½ miles above sea level. Mt. Everest straddles the border of Nepal and Tibet. Mt. Everest is part of the Himalaya mountains. It is named after Sir George Everest that never even saw the peak. The Tibetans and Sherpas call it “Chomolungma” meaning “Mother Goddess of the Earth”. Mt. Everest is over 60 million years old and was formed by the movement of the Indian tectonic plate pushing up and against the Asian plate. Temperatures never rise above freezing. In the winter Everest is -32 degrees F and in the summer it is -2 degrees F although temperatures on the mountain can get as low as minus 60 C. The number of people that have attempted to climb Everest are 4,000. The number that were successful is 660. The first climbers of Mt. Everest were Edmond Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on May 29, 1953. The oldest person to climb Everest was 80 years old. Their name is Yuichiro Miura from Japan. The youngest was 13 year old Jordan Romero in May 2010. There are 18 different climbing routes on Mt. Everest. It takes 40 days to climb because your body has to adjust to the high altitude. There is 66% less oxygen each breath on the summit than at sea level. At 26,000 feet people start using bottled oxygen because of the lack of oxygen. People mostly eat rice and noodles when they are climbing. To stop from falling people have to use ice picks.