I am feeling a vibe like you have not climbed Everest 
Google AI input = how many people have summited Mt. Everest
Result = Since the first successful ascent in 1953, 7,563 unique individuals have successfully climbed Mount Everest as of December 2025. Because many guides and frequent climbers summit multiple times, these individuals account for over 13,700 total ascents in the mountain’s history.
Well, sort of, at least for the people doing it.
I’d be rather hard-pressed to think of another “adventure” activity that is both (a) physically possible with someone with moderate technical ability and (b) has fewer than 10k people that have ever done it.
If you want to drop a “oh, by the way, I did XXX” at a dinner party it’s pretty hard to beat “I climbed Mt Everest” for its combination of recognition and rarity.
Rarer mountain summits are almost always both harder technically and less recognized by the average person. Other reasonably well-known feats like “I hiked the entire Appalachian Trail” have been completed by vastly more people than have climbed Everest.
Other long distance hikes such as the Pacific Crest Trail and Continental Divide Trail are much more difficult and impressive, but most people have only heard of the AT which isn’t particularly challenging. And many more people have hiked the AT than the PCT or CDT. But the AT is better for bragging rights.
Especially if you’re Mark Sanford.
What bugs me about the Mt. Everest “achievement “ is that it more a reflection of one’s wealth and free time than it is of their mountaineering skills.
I have no personal interest in climbing Everest and I think it’s an overrun mess. But this isn’t a good assessment of what climbing it represents.
It is not something that anyone with enough wealth and free time can do. It is ridiculously hard and few people can successfully climb it, even if they had unlimited wealth and time. Even if advanced mountaineering skills aren’t needed, the physical challenge is immense.
And there’s something about reaching the highest point on the planet. Climbing some other mountain might be more challenging, or prettier, or less crowded, but it’s not the same. Everyone makes different decisions about what’s important to them.
As for only doing it for bragging rights, I don’t believe everyone here does something challenging for the sole purpose of bragging about it to others. But we fall into this trap where we think “I don’t want to climb Everest, therefore the only reason someone would climb it is to show off.” That isn’t true.
So if someone had been to the summit at all, their average trips there is not quite two. Interesting.
This is a case where median and mode are both 1, and the mean is skewed by a smallish group of experienced guides who’ve been to the top dozens of times.
And in general, the ratio of the mean to the median is a measure of the asymmetry of a distribution (see also, a person’s height, or wealth, or crimes committed, etc).
While I agree with this, I still think you have to be a douche canoe to do it. Because it is never only your own life that is at risk. There will always be sherpas at risk as well. And the climbers have created a false economy which requires these poor people to risk their lives over and over in order to care for their families in the cash economy that this tourism created.
It’s just an evil spiral. Anyone who doesn’t go through the simple thought process to see that, or who does and chooses to go anyway, is a douche canoe. And people who use maintaining the false economy as an excuse to go are just as bad.
It is disrespectful to their religion, but they do it in order to feed and educate their children. Every one of them knows someone who has died doing this job. It’s a job like coal mining, except it doesn’t support any industry, or any good other than an experience for one person.
Inherently, it’s an incredibly selfish act. For the total cost of the process, one could easily buy homes for at least three homeless families. It lacks priorities, it lacks respect for life, and it lacks basic decency. And while I agree it is proof of endurance and physical fitness, (I’m sure I’d have trouble just being at Base camp) it is by no means a proof of mountaineering skill. I just have no respect for it at all.
Money and free time buys you expert personal trainers, healthcare, physical therapy, etc, Krakaeur was likely overstating it when we said any person in reasonably good shape prepped with six months on a step-master could do it…but not by much.
Last week Tyler Andrews set a new speed record for summitting Everest, traveling Base Camp to summit in 9 hours 55 minutes. I heard an interview with him on the radio, he said he had to wait for the final day of the season so that the trails would be nearly empty and he wouldn’t have to wait in the long crowds.
Kathmandu hasn’t rolled out their Fast Pass program, yet?
I came across this video, which deals with the 1996 Everest disaster, in particular Krakauer’s accounts of it.
The poster (Michael Tracy - note: not Tracey) details many problems, errors and inconsistencies. Long, but clearly well researched and worthwhile.
Krakauer has responded many times about Tracy’s allegations. There is a good Slate article above about it.
There is also this one:
Interesting article from the Guardian today - the Indian government is planning an expedition to retrieve the body of “Green Boots” from where it’s been obstructing the path to the summit since his death in 1996, return it to India, and determine his identity.
That’s probably true, but I do have an example of an “adventure” activity (that I’ve actually done) that fewer than 10K people have likely ever done: breaking through the polar ice cap in a submarine and walking around on the polar ice.
Actually not vastly different (meaning same order of magnitude). While millions of people have hiked small sections of the the Appalachian Trail, only about 21,500 people have successfully hiked the whole trail.
Cite:
I’ll bet walking the Appalachian trail train involves more vertical feet (meters).
Whoops, answering my own question from AI, reddit.
Walking the entire Appalachian Trail (AT) involves a total elevation gain and loss of approximately 464,000 to 515,000 feet. This massive amount of vertical climbing is often compared to hiking the equivalent of Mount Everest from sea level 16 times.
The world we live in, n’est pas?
You first play Pop Warner football at… age 7? Zip ahead 22 years. You’re 29 and have just achieved the improbable: Led your NFL team to a Super Bowl win as the M.V.P.
Your head is filled with excitement, pride, adrenaline, love of team, of family, etc. And yet for many years, what did the player loudly proclaim ?
" I just won the Super Bowl-- I’m going to Disney World !!! "
I don’t know skiing OR mountainclimbing but I do know cameras and drones. The incredibly valuable real-time images coming back from drones that allow his team to guide him down saved his life over and over again.
Anyone who watches a Winter Olympics games becomes, by the end, a seasoned expert in the reflective nature of snow, how sunlight does or does not illuminate texture on snow, and so on. Which explains a run at 2pm is fundamentally more complex than a run at 8:15am.
Similarly, having drones that can zip to and fro from side to side relative to the line being followed by the skier means that the team can advise as to shifts in snow angle, hidden drops and crevasses and so on.
By all measure, an incredible feat.