Here are some interesting facts about the tallest mountain in the world.

Mount Everest, a peak in the Himalayan mountain range, is the tallest mountain above sea level on the planet. Here is all you need to know about the famous mound.

Discovery of Mount Everest

The year was 1852 when RadhanathSikhdar, a mathematician working for the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, discovered what he believed to be the highest summit in the world.

The highest-altitude animal lives on Mount Everest

At Everest’s 22,000-foot point, the Himalayan jumping spider has made its home. This makes it the highest permanent residence for any animal on the planet.  Being up so high, the spider reportedly survives on small hexapods, which are carried up the mountain by the wind.

The mountain is still growing

Mount Everest might be pretty tall, but it is still not done growing. This is because of the Indian subcontinent’s constant northward drift. The Himalayas get a boost when it bangs into the Eurasian continent. The mountain's height increases by about one-sixth of an inch, annually.

Mount Everest is more than 60 million years old

Scientists estimate Mount Everest is more than 60 million years old. It was reportedly formed when India’s continental plate crashed into Asia. The plate is said to have pushed under Asia and raised a gigantic amount of mass land upwards. As a result, it created the world’s highest mountain range.

Mount Everest and habitation

This mountain is not able to support human occupation in the long term as the climate up there is pretty severe. However, Tibetan-speaking people reside in the valleys below the mountain. The Sherpas are the most notable among them. They live in the Khumbu valley of Nepal, as well as other locations. The Sherpas traditionally treated the Himalayas as sacred living near the world’s highest mountain.

Mount Everest climbing season

The climbing season on Mount Everest generally occurs between April and May each year. The rest of the year, the mountain is engulfed by the jet stream for the most part. This makes climbing a huge challenge due to factors, like extreme subzero temperatures and strong winds. Harsh winter snows and summer monsoon rains also make climbing up this amazing mountain impossible.

Climbing Mount Everest

Many risks come with taking on a challenge as big as this, even for the most experienced mountaineers. Climbers usually spend months preparing to get their bodies ready for the extreme conditions which they know they are likely to encounter.