The Real Reason Climbers Keep Dying on Mount Everest
It used to be the holy grail of mountaineering. Climbing Mount Everest. That lonely ice-covered rooftop above the clouds where only a few brave souls ever stood.
But now? Honestly, it’s kinda like waiting in line for the Matterhorn at Disneyland… except, you know, you could die.
Everest used to be for elite athletes. The kind of people who trained for years, spent a fortune on survival gear, and knew exactly what they were signing up for. Today, a lot of folks go mostly so they can brag about it later. No fitness test. No real background check. Just a big wallet, a permit, and maybe some fancy travel insurance they hope they’ll never use.
And here’s the wild part — it’s just as dangerous as it was back in 1953 when Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first made it to the top. Maybe even riskier now because more people = more crowding = more problems. And we still don’t know what happened to the two climbers who disappeared in 1924. Maybe they made it. Maybe not. Everest doesn’t really give answers.
One stretch on the north side is called “rainbow ridge.” Sounds cute, right? It’s not. The name comes from all the dead bodies frozen in bright climbing suits. It’s dark. It’s real. And yet, people still go up there thinking, “It won’t happen to me.”
So why so many deaths? Why do we keep seeing spikes in numbers even with better gear, guides, and high-altitude training programs? Everest climbers die for all kinds of reasons — altitude sickness, exhaustion, sudden storms, bad decisions, and yep, sometimes overcrowding that slows people down at the worst possible time.
Most climbers don’t think about stuff like emergency evacuation costs, life insurance coverage, or needing an injury lawyer if something goes wrong. They just want the selfie at the top. But Everest isn’t a place that cares about your bucket list.
And that’s why the mountain keeps taking lives.
It isn’t just falling
Everest sits up there at more than 29,000 feet. So yeah, you’d think falling would be the main killer. But nope. Falling is actually the second most common cause of death.
Most people who die up there get taken out by avalanches. Just giant walls of snow that don’t care how much your climbing trip cost or how good your survival gear is.
Then there’s exposure and frostbite, which knock out around 11% of climbers. Right behind that is acute mountain sickness. And then this big bucket of “other,” like falling ice, rope failures, pneumonia, even drowning. Everest basically has a whole menu of ways things can go wrong, and none of them care if you bought extra travel insurance or looked up life insurance quotes the night before.
What surprises a lot of people is that more climbers die coming down than going up. Your body’s wrecked, you’re tired, your brain’s foggy, and that’s when bad choices hit hard. Route workers die too — around 120 so far — and even people at base camp aren’t really “safe.” Everest doesn’t promise safety anywhere, not even for folks who paid for luxury expeditions or emergency evacuation packages.
Traffic jams
Everest is remote, brutal, and expensive. It takes 10 days just to walk to base camp, six weeks to get your lungs ready, and another nine days to push to the summit.
And somehow… it still gets traffic jams.
Climbing Everest now feels a bit like a tourist attraction. Only difference is, if you stand in line too long, you don’t just get cranky kids — you run out of oxygen and die. Really. That’s actually the problem: too many people, too little space, too little time.
Expeditions can cost anywhere from $30,000 to $65,000+. Some folks spend even more once they add upgraded gear, emergency medical evacuation plans, and all that. But none of that stops the lines. On a perfect day, hundreds of climbers try to hit the same narrow summit window. When you’re stuck behind people moving slow — or people who honestly shouldn’t be up there — you burn oxygen fast. And for a lot of climbers, that’s the beginning of the end.
Inexperienced rich people
There are two base camps — Nepal and Tibet. Both sides used to be picky about who could try the climb. But then tourism money rolled in. Nepal charges $11,000 for a permit, and the climbing industry is worth around $300 million a year, so the selectiveness kind of… vanished.
Nepal issued a record 381 permits in 2019. No fitness requirements. No skills test. No proof of training. So, adventure companies started accepting anyone with enough money — even people who barely train or have zero mountain experience. It’s the kind of thing that makes accident attorneys and injury lawyers very busy later.
More inexperienced climbers = more mistakes = more danger for everyone else. Critics say the whole system is messy, with corruption, shortcuts, and lax safety standards. And sadly, you feel that on the mountain, especially when someone freezes up, panics, or moves slow in dangerous spots where seconds matter.
A tiny, tiny, window of opportunity
You’d think Everest is best in summer. Warm, sunny, less scary. But nope again. You really only get a safe-ish climbing window in May — that tiny space between winter storms and the summer monsoons.
Even then, base camp hits maybe 59°F during the day and drops to freezing at night. Higher up, temps fall fast. And some areas get weirdly hot because sunlight reflects off the snow, cooking climbers who didn’t prep their survival gear right.
But even when the weather looks perfect, things get rough. That’s where the “blue sky” deaths come from — everyone thinks good weather means go time, and way too many people head up at once. In 2019, the window was extra short, and the crowding killed multiple climbers. Clear skies don’t mean safe skies.
Once you reach 25,000 feet, you’re already dying
This is the part most people don’t want to hear.
Once you reach around 25,000 feet, you’re in the death zone. Your body straight-up cannot survive there for long, no matter how fit you are or how many high-altitude training programs you bought.
Your brain swells. Fluid builds in your lungs. Muscles break down. You lose cognition — which means bad decisions in the worst possible place. Heart attacks, strokes, pulmonary edema, blindness… it’s all possible. Even elite athletes get wrecked. Even triathletes die here.
And that last 4,000 feet to the summit? It’s basically a race against your own body shutting down. Most climbers lose 10–20 pounds on the climb. Some don’t make it back at all.
Everest doesn’t care if you trained for two years, hired the best guides, or signed every travel insurance form out there. Up there, the mountain always has the final say.
When you can barely help yourself, there’s no way you can help others
Once you hit the death zone, you’re already half broken. Your body’s tired, your brain’s foggy, and you’re basically running on whatever oxygen your tank gives you. Hopefully you’re not so out of it that you can’t finish the climb… and hopefully you get down before everything really goes downhill.
But here’s the part nobody likes talking about: everyone around you is in the same messed-up state. Some are worse. Some are crashing fast. And that puts climbers in a brutal spot — do you risk your own life to help someone who probably won’t make it, or do you push on and pray you survive?
It sounds harsh, but up there you barely have enough strength to help yourself, let alone lift someone else or carry them. Even if you paid for the best travel insurance or emergency medical evacuation coverage, nothing can swoop in to save you at 28,000 feet. Climbers don’t abandon others because they don’t care — they do it because there’s literally no other choice. Everest doesn’t allow hero moments. It barely allows survival.
Summit fever can kill you and others
High altitude already wrecks your judgment. Add ego + a trip that cost as much as a luxury SUV + years of bragging, and suddenly you’ve got “summit fever.”
Summit fever hits when climbers refuse to turn back, even when it’s clear their body is done or their oxygen is almost gone. Some people think, “I spent $65,000 on this, I have to reach the top.” Others think it’ll ruin their identity if they quit. No one wants to go home and tell friends the mountain beat them.
But that mindset kills people. It blinds them. They stop considering safer options. They ignore guides. They push past what their high-altitude training programs actually prepared them for. And they can endanger everyone behind them, especially when they slow down critical bottlenecks or burn through shared resources.
Summit fever doesn’t care how strong you are. It just whispers, “Keep going,” even when your body is begging you to stop.
Good old-fashioned falling to your death
Falls happen all the time on Everest, even to super skilled climbers. A Sherpa died in 2012 because he didn’t clip his harness onto one of those shaking aluminum ladders. Another Sherpa fell in 2016 while prepping a route. And in 2017, Ravi Kumar made the summit but fell 650 feet into a crevasse on the way down.
Everest doesn’t care if you trained for years or if your survival gear cost more than your car. One bad step, one shaky ladder, one gust of wind — that’s all it takes. And no personal injury attorney or life insurance policy is bringing you back from that.
Green Boots may have been a victim of summit fever
Green Boots is one of Everest’s most well-known bodies. Most people think he was a climber named Tsewang Paljor, though no one’s 100% sure. Climbers used his body as a landmark for years — a morbid little reminder of how deep into the death zone you were.
He was moved in 2014, probably by someone who wanted to give him a little dignity after spending decades frozen in place like an accidental trail marker.
If Paljor really is Green Boots, he might’ve fallen victim to summit fever. He pushed to the summit even after warnings about bad weather. He made it to the top… but a blizzard hit during the descent. He and his partner never made it back. Everest doesn’t forgive late decisions.
David Sharp froze to death as more than 40 climbers passed him by
David Sharp’s death is still one of the most debated tragedies on Everest. He was young, strong, and fit. But he froze to death in the death zone while as many as 40 climbers passed him.
People were horrified when the news broke, but mountaineers explained the ugly truth: in the death zone, rescuing someone is almost impossible. Sharp was already badly frostbitten, barely conscious, and alone — no Sherpa team, not enough oxygen, no radio, no partner. Even climbers like Mark Inglis, who was suffering severe frostbite himself, couldn’t help without dying too.
It wasn’t cruelty. It was reality. Once you’re that high, it’s every climber for themselves, no matter what your travel insurance covers or how much you paid for the trip.
Sharp’s death still haunts Everest’s history — a reminder that the death zone doesn’t care about fairness, fitness, or good intentions.
Sergei Arsentiev died when he went back up the mountain after a successful climb
Francys Arsentiev wanted to be the first woman to reach Everest’s summit without supplemental oxygen. And she actually did it. But the way down wrecked her. Her condition went downhill fast, and at some point she got separated from her husband, Sergei. He assumed she was ahead of him… only to reach camp and realize she wasn’t there.
Without hesitation, Sergei went back up the mountain with oxygen and medicine. No hesitation, no worrying about risk, no thinking about life insurance policies or emergency rescue insurance — just pure instinct to save the person he loved.
Sadly, it’s unlikely he ever reached her. Two other climbers found Francys four hours from the summit. They gave up their own summit attempt and tried to help, but she was too far gone. They had to leave her to die. Sergei died too, probably while trying to reach her. His body was found a year later. Everest has a way of breaking even the strongest love stories.
Marco Siffredi died while snowboarding down Everest
Most people who die on Everest aren’t being reckless. High altitude messes with your brain, and people make bad calls. But then there was Marco Siffredi — the guy who literally snowboarded down Everest.
He’d actually done it once before. But not on the exact line he wanted, so he went back the next year. Summited. Strapped in. Went for it. And vanished.
Sherpas said they saw a snowboarder, but no tracks were ever found. There was a lot of fresh powder that day, so the best guess is an avalanche took him. His body was never found. Honestly, even the best survival gear or travel insurance package wouldn’t have made a difference. Everest doesn’t play around.
The high altitude causes confusion and potential brain damage
At extreme altitudes, you can develop HACE — High Altitude Cerebral Edema. And it’s terrifying. You get tired, confused, clumsy. Some people act drunk, some act lost, some get weird bursts of energy. Doctors think it comes from pressure inside the skull or damage from low oxygen, but it’s still not fully understood.
Only 0.5% to 1% of people above 4,000 meters get HACE, but the risk goes up if you rush the climb or ignore symptoms. Young climbers — especially the stubborn ones — seem to push through warning signs more often.
At first, HACE looks like normal mountain exhaustion or dehydration, which is why people miss it. But it can spiral fast: disorientation, slurred speech, trouble staying awake. If you don’t descend quickly, you can suffer permanent brain damage or die within 24 hours. No high-altitude training programs or expensive gear can “fix” it once it hits.
The fourth woman to summit was the first woman to die there
Hannelore Schmatz was an experienced climber, tough and determined. She and her husband Gerhard set out in 1979 — he would’ve been the oldest person to summit at the time, and she would become the fourth woman to ever reach the top.
Gerhard made it and warned Hannelore by radio that conditions were getting bad. She kept going anyway. Maybe it was pride. Maybe stubbornness. Maybe the same summit fever that pushes so many climbers past their limits.
She made the summit, but the descent destroyed her. Exhausted, she decided to stop for the night — a deadly choice in that altitude. She died the next day, asking for water. Her body sat upright on the mountain for years, her face worn by storms, until wind finally pushed her over the edge. Even with the cost of emergency evacuation or hiring elite Sherpas, recovering bodies is so dangerous that many simply stay there.
Your body will likely remain on the mountain
If you die on Everest, you’re probably staying there. No gentle return home, no funeral handled by family. Recovering bodies is insanely dangerous and costs over $100,000. Two people died just trying to bring back Hannelore Schmatz.
Because of that, more than 200 bodies are still on the mountain, perfectly preserved by the cold. Some are known, some are mysteries. Many still wear their bright survival gear, making them highly visible — sometimes heartbreakingly so — and climbers use them as landmarks.
Everest has around a 1-in-100 death rate, and more people die coming down than going up. If something goes wrong during descent, even the best travel insurance, emergency medical evacuation coverage, or elite guides won’t save you. The mountain decides who stays.
Doing it once is no guarantee of future success
People love to say summiting Everest is a “once in a lifetime” thing. But for hardcore climbers — and for the Sherpa community whose whole life is tied to the mountain — it isn’t just once. They go back again and again. But climbing it once doesn’t mean you’ll be safe the next time. Everest doesn’t care about your resume, your survival gear, or how much you paid for adventure travel insurance.
Sherpa legend Babu Chiri is the proof. The guy was unreal — literally superhuman. Climbed Everest 10 times. Once got from base camp to the summit in under 17 hours. Spent a night at the top and lived. Summited twice in one month. He was planning this insane traverse from the Tibet side to Nepal and back again.
And then he died… doing something “routine” for him. He fell into a crevasse while trying to take a picture. Just like that. Even the strongest climbers in the world aren’t safe. His death hit Nepal so hard that even the king offered condolences to his family. That’s how big a loss he was.
Even approaching Everest is challenging
People always focus on the summit, but honestly? Even the approach to Everest can kill you. Alexander Kellas proved that. He was a mountaineer and researcher studying how altitude messes with the body. Smart guy. Experienced guy. Used supplemental oxygen before it was cool.
But on his way to Everest in 1921, traveling overland for weeks at high altitude, he and his team got sick — classic Himalayan gastrointestinal misery. Kellas stayed upbeat the whole time, which is why everyone was shocked when he suddenly died a day before reaching the mountain. No emergency evacuation insurance back then. No helicopter rescues. Just the brutal reality of the Himalayas.
Three years later, two of the guys who traveled with him — Mallory and Irvine — also died on Everest. Their names, along with Kellas’, now sit together on a memorial.
Germs are there waiting for you
People think Everest is isolated. Like it’s too high for normal problems. But nope — germs absolutely love base camp. Hundreds of climbers show up every season, coughing, sneezing, using the same toilets, drinking the same treated water. Even the best travel insurance or medical kit won’t protect you from someone hacking up a lung in the breakfast tent.
In 2019, a nasty flu ripped through base camp and sent dozens back to Kathmandu by helicopter. In 2021, COVID hit base camp too, even though officials pretended it didn’t. Once a virus gets in, it spreads fast. Everyone eats together. Sleeps close together. And nobody wants to hang out outside because it’s freezing.
And then there’s diarrhea. Lots of diarrhea. Water supplies at base camp are infamous for contamination. More climbers = more waste. Not exactly a great combo at 17,000+ feet. No personal injury attorney can save you from bad water.
Avalanches
Avalanches don’t care who you are or how much your expedition cost. On Everest, they’re one of the biggest killers, and they strike fast. Snow + wind + steep slopes = a whole mountain sliding down on you.
Sometimes it’s not even a classic avalanche but a “serac” — a giant chunk of glacier that breaks off and falls like a collapsing building. And it can happen again and again as the sun melts and refreezes the ice.
The 2014 season was brutal: an avalanche killed 16 guides in one event, shutting down the mountain. In 2015, an earthquake triggered even deadlier avalanches that killed 22 people at base camp. Doesn’t matter how good your high-altitude training programs are — if a serac falls, it’s over.
Medical care is good – considering
There are medical professionals near base camp, and honestly, they do miracles with what little they have. But this isn’t a big-city hospital. Supplies arrive on yaks. Power is solar. Weather shuts down helicopters all the time. Running water is limited. If a yak has a bad day, someone’s medications simply don’t show up.
If you’re seriously sick or injured, you need to get to a lower altitude fast. That’s when emergency evacuation insurance becomes priceless — and even then, rescue depends on weather, visibility, and how fast your team can stabilize you. Still, these doctors and medics also help local Sherpas and porters who rarely have access to advanced healthcare. It’s one of the few bright sides of mountain tourism.
Blizzards
Blizzards can shut you down instantly. Zero visibility. Brutal wind. Snow blasting in your face. You can’t move, can’t see, can’t warm up. If you get stuck too long, your climb — and maybe your life — is done.
The 1996 blizzard is the most famous one, thanks to Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air. Too many climbers, too few guides, terrible planning, and then a monster storm hit. Eight people died that night. Some froze near the summit. Others got lost trying to descend. One disappeared completely.
Even with modern gear, better survival equipment, and stronger rescue insurance options, a blizzard on Everest is still one of the scariest things you can face. Weather wins every time.
