Mount Everest

In May 1953 Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay stood alone together at the very top of the world.

Thanks to advances in mountaineering equipment and the indefatigable efforts of Sherpa guides, more climbers than ever are reaching the peak of Mount Everest - a landmark that was once believed to be impossible to surmount.

Thanks to all this assistance, more than 3,000 individuals have scaled the mountain since 1953.They include Californian Jordan Romero, who in 2010 became the youngest person to climb Everest aged 13, and 80-year old Yuichiro Miura from Japan, who set the most recent record for the oldest summiteer.

Mark Inglis became the first double amputee to climb Everest in 2006

 Bonita Norris(22) is the youngest British woman to scale Mt Everest. Her party reached the 8,848m peak on May 17,2010 - the middle of climbing season on the world's highest mountain


As per National Geographic,in 1990 18% of summit attempts were successful.
By 2012 that figure stood at 56% .On a single day in 2012, no fewer than 234 climbers reached the peak

  

Westerners can pay anything from $10,000 (£6,600) to $100,000 (£66,000) for permits to climb the mountain and guides to accompany them, and a sizeable tourist industry has sprung up around the base

 No of  people who have died on Everest since 1953

A minimum of 18 months to two years of training is a "feasible" amount of time to spend in preparation for the climb

The first step for an absolute beginner is to get the hang of walking with ice axes in hand and crampons on boots - sharp spikes which ease the perils of walking on ice