Deadliest Mountains

The High, the Bad and the Ugly

The wind seems to split your face in half. The cold seems to feel like your ears are about to fall off. This is the stuff of nightmares. But you decided to take the risk. Was it worth it?

The deadliest peak in the world, recognized by the percentage of deaths on it, is Annapurna, in Nepal. 40% of people who climb it perish, and should be feared just as much as its neighbour, Mount Everest, and the worlds second highest mountain, K2. Legendary climber Anatoli Boukreev died on it in 1997, one year after the 1996 Everest tragedy, which claimed 8 lives. He was appraised for his efforts, but much has been debated around the topic. Jon Krakauer recorded the account of the Everest Tragedy in the book Into Thin Air, as he was present on the island.

Annapurna’s climbing history started when, in 1950, Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal first ascended the mountain. It has only been climbed 142 times, dwarfed by its cousin Mount Everest, which has been climbed 2,561 times.

For three years, it was the world’s highest climbed mountain in the whole world, until the 1953 Sir Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay ascent of Everest. This has become arguably the most famous climb by anyone, ever. The New Zealander and his Sherpa did it without oxygen, after numerous attempts by other climbers in the 1920’s. There is still around 129 corpses’ on Everest.

Everest is regarded by the average human being as the one mountain to put on ones resume. If you were to say ‘has climbed Annapurna,’ people would start to think that you had climbed some ten-metre high rock in outback Australia. When the name Everest is uttered with mountain climbing, immediately, people know you are the man, and everyone should know it.

While also up there with the deadliest is K2, on the Pakistani-Chinese border. This mammoth is the second highest mountain in the world. At 8, 611 metres high, it is mostly regarded as one of the hardest climbs in the world. Putting this on your resume is als a very good ting to put on there. It is arguably the mountain of mountains to climb. Every four people who climb this mammoth perish. It is also known as the savage mountain.

Watch out.