Mount Everest: The Rooftop of the World and the Making of a Modern Myth

Mount Everest is, in the simplest terms, the highest mountain on Earth above sea level, a colossal pyramid of rock and ice whose summit currently stands at 8,848.86 meters (29,031.7 feet). Located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas, its peak marks the border between Nepal to the south and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China to the north. But to define Everest by its measurements alone is to describe a cathedral by the height of its spire. It is a geological infant, born from one of the most violent tectonic collisions in planetary history. To the indigenous peoples who live in its shadow, it is not a summit to be conquered but a sacred deity, Chomolungma, the “Goddess Mother of the World.” For centuries, it was an invisible giant, its superlative status unknown to the wider world until it became an object of imperial calculation and cartographic obsession. In the 20th century, it transformed into the ultimate terrestrial prize, a stage for tales of human endurance, national pride, and heartbreaking tragedy. Today, it stands as a complex and contested symbol: a bucket-list destination, a site of environmental concern, and a powerful mirror reflecting our species' most profound ambitions and our most troubling paradoxes.

The story of Mount Everest does not begin with humanity, but with the slow, inexorable dance of continents. Around 50 million years ago, the Earth looked very different. The supercontinent of Gondwana had long since fractured, and a massive landmass, the Indian subcontinent, was drifting north across the ancient Tethys Sea at a geologically blistering pace of 15 centimeters per year. Waiting for it was the colossal Eurasian landmass. The collision was not a single, cataclysmic event, but a grinding, crumpling process of unimaginable force that has continued for millennia. The dense oceanic crust of the Tethys Sea floor was forced to subduct, or dive, beneath the lighter Eurasian plate. But the Indian continental crust, too buoyant to be pushed under, slammed directly into Asia, and the land had nowhere to go but up. This colossal tectonic pile-up buckled the Earth's crust, folding and faulting the rock as if it were clay. The sedimentary rocks that had once formed the floor of the Tethys Sea—limestone, shale, and sandstone, containing the fossilized remains of ancient marine creatures—were thrust violently skyward. This is why, even today, marine fossils can be found high on Everest's flanks, a ghostly testament to an ocean that once existed miles below its current peak. The immense pressure and heat of this collision also cooked the deeper rocks, creating the metamorphic and igneous core of the mountain range. The Himalayas were born. Everest itself, as a distinct peak, is a product of this ongoing orogeny, or mountain-building process. It is composed of several distinct rock layers, stacked atop one another like a geological layer cake. The highest section, the Summit Pyramid, is made of the Qomolangma Limestone, the very rock that once lay at the bottom of the warm, shallow Tethys. Below it lie layers of shale and marble, all thrust upward by the relentless northward push of the Indian plate, which continues to this day at a rate of about 5 centimeters per year. This means that Mount Everest is, technically, still growing, rising by approximately 4 millimeters annually, even as the forces of erosion—wind, ice, and snow—work ceaselessly to wear it down. It is a living, breathing mountain, a dynamic monument to the raw, creative power of our planet.

Long before Western surveyors drew their lines and climbers planted their flags, the mountain was already possessed of a profound and sacred identity. For the Tibetan people to the north, it was—and is—Chomolungma, the “Goddess Mother of the World.” For the Nepalese to the south, it is Sagarmatha, the “Goddess of the Sky.” In these cultures, the mountain was not an inanimate object or a challenge to be overcome. It was a deity, a powerful spiritual presence whose slopes were the abode of gods, demons, and spirits. The Sherpa, an ethnic group of Tibetan origin who migrated to the valleys south of Everest around 500 years ago, developed a particularly deep spiritual relationship with the mountain and its surrounding peaks. Their worldview is steeped in a form of Tibetan Buddhism that is deeply animistic, seeing life and spirit in the natural world. To them, Chomolungma is the home of Miyolangsangma, a goddess of inexhaustible giving. She is a protector, and to approach her slopes was to enter a sacred precinct that demanded respect, reverence, and ritual. Monasteries like the famous one at Tengboche became vital spiritual centers, where lamas would perform pujas (blessing ceremonies) for any who sought to travel into the high mountains. To climb Chomolungma for sport or ego was a concept entirely alien to this worldview. It was considered a deeply prideful and disrespectful act, a violation of the sacred. The springs on its flanks were the milk of the goddess, the rocks her bones, and the winds her breath. Early Sherpas who encountered the first British expeditions were often torn between the economic opportunity they presented and a deep-seated cultural unease with the foreigners' goal: to stand on the very head of their goddess. This spiritual landscape, rich with myth and meaning, formed the invisible but powerful context against which the Western “assault” on the mountain would later play out. The story of Everest is thus a tale of two mountains: the physical peak of rock and ice, and the metaphysical peak of faith and folklore.

The transformation of Chomolungma into “Mount Everest” began in the 19th century, driven by the ambitions of the British Empire. The British Raj in India was not merely a military and economic project; it was an intellectual one. To control a territory, you first had to map it, to render its vast, chaotic landscapes into ordered, rational, and governable lines on a page. This impulse gave birth to one of the most ambitious scientific endeavors in history: the Great Trigonometrical Survey. Launched in 1802, the Survey was a monumental undertaking to measure the entire Indian subcontinent with unprecedented accuracy. For decades, teams of surveyors hauled massive, heavy instruments across plains, deserts, and jungles. The primary tool was the Theodolite, a complex surveying instrument weighing over 500 kilograms that required a team of a dozen men to carry. Using the principles of trigonometry, they created a series of giant, imaginary triangles across the land, measuring angles from one station to the next with painstaking precision. It was slow, grueling, and often deadly work, as surveyors succumbed to malaria, tigers, and treacherous terrain.

By the 1830s, the Survey had reached the foothills of the Himalayas. The colossal peaks of Nepal and Tibet, however, presented a formidable obstacle. Nepal was a closed kingdom, fiercely independent and suspicious of British encroachment, forbidding the surveyors from entering. The teams were forced to take their measurements from distant stations in the Indian plains, over 150 kilometers away. From these stations, they observed a series of towering white peaks, which they designated with Roman numerals: Peak I, Peak II, and so on. One peak, labeled “Peak XV,” consistently appeared taller than the others, but calculating its true height was a monumental challenge. The surveyors had to account for the curvature of the Earth, the refraction of light through the atmosphere, and the immense distances involved. The complex calculations were sent to the Survey's headquarters in Dehradun. In 1852, the “Chief Computer,” an Indian Bengali mathematician named Radhanath Sikdar, was processing the data from Peak XV. After cross-referencing multiple observations and making his final calculations, he reportedly burst into the office of his superior, Andrew Scott Waugh, and declared, “Sir, I have discovered the highest mountain in the world!” It took several more years to verify the calculations. Finally, in 1856, Waugh officially announced the finding. He proposed to name the mountain after his predecessor as Surveyor General, Sir George Everest. This decision was immediately controversial. Waugh argued that with so many local names, it was difficult to ascertain a single, commonly used one (a debatable claim, as Chomolungma was well-established). The Royal Geographical Society's policy was to use local names where possible, but the allure of cementing a British name onto the world's highest point proved too strong. George Everest himself, ironically, objected to the naming, arguing that his name was difficult for native Indians to pronounce. Nevertheless, the name stuck. Through an act of imperial cartography, the Goddess Mother of the World was officially christened Mount Everest, a name that forever tied it to the history of colonial science and ambition.

With the mountain measured and named, a new kind of ambition took hold. The question was no longer “How high is it?” but “Can a human being stand on its summit?” The “roof of the world” became the ultimate prize in the burgeoning sport of mountaineering, a final terrestrial frontier in an age when the poles had been reached and the globe's blank spaces were rapidly being filled. This began a new chapter in Everest's story: the age of the assault.

The first serious attempts on Everest were launched by the British in the 1920s. Following World War I, a successful ascent was seen as a way to restore national prestige. These early expeditions were monumental undertakings, more akin to military campaigns than modern climbs. They approached from the north, through Tibet, as Nepal remained closed. The technology of the era was shockingly primitive by today's standards. Climbers wore jackets of tweed and wool, layers of silk underwear, and hobnail boots that offered little insulation or grip. Their primary tools were the long, wooden-shafted Ice Axe and rudimentary Crampons (metal spikes strapped to their boots). Oxygen systems were in their infancy: heavy, unreliable, and fiercely debated. Many purist climbers felt that using supplemental oxygen was a form of cheating. The 1922 expedition saw the first humans climb above 8,000 meters, entering what would later be called the “death zone,” an altitude where the human body can no longer acclimatize and slowly begins to die. But it is the 1924 expedition that is seared into legend. On June 8th, two of its strongest climbers, George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, made a push for the summit. They were last seen by a teammate from below, “going strong for the top,” just a few hundred meters from their goal, before they were enveloped by clouds and vanished forever. Their disappearance created one of mountaineering's greatest mysteries. Did they reach the summit, 29 years before the official ascent? Mallory, a charismatic and almost poetic figure, had famously answered the question “Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?” with the simple, iconic reply: “Because it's there.” When his preserved body was discovered high on the mountain in 1999, it offered no definitive answers. The camera he and Irvine were carrying, which might hold a summit photo, remains lost to the ice. Their story transformed Everest from a geographical objective into a mythic stage for heroism, sacrifice, and enduring mystery.

After World War II, the political landscape shifted. Tibet was closed to foreigners after its annexation by China, but Nepal, in a bid to modernize, opened its borders. The climbing route now shifted to the south, via the treacherous Khumbu Icefall. Several Swiss expeditions in 1952 came agonizingly close, pioneering the route up the Lhotse Face and proving the southern approach was viable. The British, determined not to be beaten, mounted a massive, meticulously planned expedition in 1953. Led by Colonel John Hunt, it was organized with military precision. Technology had advanced significantly. They had lighter and more reliable Oxygen Bottle systems, better clothing, nylon ropes, and superior communication. The team was international, including a quiet beekeeper from New Zealand named Edmund Hillary and a veteran Sherpa climber who had been on more Everest expeditions than anyone else alive: Tenzing Norgay. The expedition employed classic siege tactics, establishing a series of camps progressively higher up the mountain, with teams of climbers and Sherpas ferrying supplies up and down. After one two-man team failed to reach the summit, the final chance fell to Hillary and Tenzing. On the night of May 28th, they camped at a perilously high Camp IX. The next morning, May 29th, 1953, they set out for the final push. They navigated the intimidatingly steep rock face now known as the “Hillary Step” and, at 11:30 AM, they stood together on the summit of the world. The news reached London on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, a symbolic triumph for the post-war British Commonwealth. Hillary's first words, upon returning to his teammates, were a classic of understatement: “Well, George, we knocked the bastard off.” The ascent was a global sensation. But crucially, it was a shared victory. Hillary and Tenzing became symbols of partnership, a bridge between West and East, a testament to what could be achieved when different cultures worked together. For the Sherpa people, Tenzing's ascent was a moment of immense pride, transforming their role from that of hired help to that of equal partners in the world's greatest mountaineering achievement.

The 1953 ascent did not end the story; it simply opened a new chapter. The question evolved from if it could be climbed to how else it could be climbed. The succeeding decades saw a flurry of new milestones that redefined the limits of human possibility.

• New Routes: In 1963, an American team forged a new, brutally difficult path up the West Ridge. In 1975, a British expedition led by Chris Bonington conquered the formidable Southwest Face, a climb so difficult it was considered the “last great problem” of the Himalayas.
• The First Woman: In 1975, Junko Tabei of Japan became the first woman to reach the summit, paving the way for female mountaineers.
• The Oxygen Debate Solved: The ultimate purist statement came in 1978, when Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler did what physiologists believed was impossible: they reached the summit without using supplemental oxygen. Their ascent proved that the human body, pushed to its absolute limit, could survive atop Everest. Messner cemented this achievement in 1980 by completing the first solo ascent of the mountain, again without oxygen.

These achievements shifted the philosophy of mountaineering away from large, national “siege” expeditions toward a new ideal: small, lightweight, “alpine style” ascents that emphasized skill, speed, and self-sufficiency over brute force and logistics.

The next great transformation of Everest's identity began in the late 1980s and exploded in the 1990s. The pioneering age gave way to the commercial age. The mountain, once the domain of elite national teams, began its journey to becoming a marketable commodity.

Entrepreneurs like New Zealander Rob Hall and American Scott Fischer saw a business opportunity. They realized that with the routes established and the logistics understood, they could guide wealthy clients—many with limited high-altitude experience—to the summit for a substantial fee. They created a model that professionalized the experience: providing the tents, the food, the oxygen, the route-fixing Sherpas, and the expert guidance. This commercialization had a profound effect. On one hand, it democratized the mountain, opening the dream of standing on the summit to anyone with the physical fitness and, crucially, the financial means (with costs running from $30,000 to over $100,000). On the other hand, it fundamentally changed the culture on the slopes. The mountain became populated by client-climbers who were often entirely dependent on their guides and Sherpa support teams. The ethos of self-reliance that had defined the sport was replaced by a service-based model. For Nepal, this industry became a vital source of foreign currency, and for the Sherpa community, it provided a lucrative, if extremely dangerous, livelihood.

The dark side of this new era was thrown into stark relief by the events of May 10-11, 1996. On that fateful day, multiple commercial teams were caught in a sudden, violent storm high on the mountain during their summit descent. The combination of inexperienced clients, logistical delays, and fierce competition between guiding companies led to a catastrophe. Eight climbers, including seasoned guides Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, lost their lives, making it the deadliest single day on the mountain up to that point. The disaster, chronicled in Jon Krakauer's bestselling book Into Thin Air, exposed the perilous ethics and inherent dangers of the commercial Everest industry to a global audience. Despite the tragedy, the industry continued to grow. In the 21st century, the problem of overcrowding became acute. On good weather days during the short spring climbing window, hundreds of climbers can attempt the summit on the same day. This has created infamous “traffic jams” at bottlenecks like the Hillary Step, where climbers are forced to wait in long lines, burning precious oxygen and body heat in the death zone. Viral photos of these queues have turned Everest into a symbol of over-tourism, a once-pristine wilderness transformed into a crowded, high-altitude theme park.

The sheer volume of human traffic has left a devastating mark on the mountain. For decades, expeditions left behind everything they couldn't carry down: empty oxygen bottles, torn tents, food containers, and human waste. Base Camp became notoriously polluted, and the higher camps were littered with the debris of past climbs. Everest earned the unfortunate moniker of “the world's highest garbage dump.” In recent years, cleanup expeditions and stricter regulations by the Nepalese government (requiring climbers to pack out their trash) have begun to address the problem, but decades of refuse remain frozen on the slopes. A more insidious threat is climate change. The glaciers of the Himalayas, including the treacherous Khumbu Icefall that climbers must navigate, are melting at an alarming rate. This makes the route more unstable and unpredictable, increasing the risk of avalanches and crevasses opening unexpectedly. The very ice and snow that define Everest are changing, and the mountain's future, like that of our planet, is intertwined with our global environmental footprint.

The history of Mount Everest is a journey through the changing landscape of human consciousness. It began as a raw, geological fact, an accident of planetary physics. It was then imbued with sacred meaning, becoming a goddess, a home for spirits, a place not to be touched. Through the lens of empire, it became a number, Peak XV, a problem to be solved and a prize to be claimed. In the 20th century, it was the ultimate arena for human courage and nationalistic pride, a canvas for stories of heroism and sacrifice. Today, its identity is more fragmented and contradictory than ever. It is a commercial product, a sacred site, a scientific laboratory for climate change, and a graveyard holding the bodies of over 300 climbers who never returned. Its story forces us to confront difficult questions. What is the value of an achievement when you can purchase the support to do it? What is our responsibility to the pristine places we visit? When does ambition curdle into hubris? Everest remains a powerful symbol precisely because it holds all these stories at once. It is a mirror reflecting our highest aspirations and our most profound flaws. It tells a story of tectonic forces and spiritual beliefs, of scientific curiosity and imperial ambition, of incredible bravery and reckless commercialism. It is a story that is still being written, with every new climber who steps onto its slopes and with every degree the planet warms. The Goddess Mother of the World has witnessed the full spectrum of the human experience, and she continues to stand, silent and supreme, a testament to the Earth's power and a lasting monument to our own complex, troubled, and endlessly striving nature.