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TIL that climbing the full height of Everest means starting at sea level

Climbers typically ascend only part of Mount Everest’s elevation, as the mountain’s full elevation is measured from the geoid, which approximates sea level. The closest sea to Mount Everest’s summit is the Bay of Bengal, almost 700 km (430 mi) away. So to approximate a climb of the entire height of Mount Everest, one would need to start from this coastline, a feat accomplished by Tim Macartney-Snape’s team in 1990. Climbers usually begin their ascent from base camps above 5,000 m (16,404 ft).

It’s obvious once you think about it, but at what point would you consider it in daily life?

Steve ,

So whats the time limit? I’ve been to the ocean, i just went home for a few years before going mountain climbing.

ruk_n_rul ,

I believe the term for height from base is called prominence. The highest one can climb is Denali in Alaska, at around 5500m. Obviously omitting mountains that have their bases on the ocean floor like Mauna Kea ofc.

EvilHankVenture ,

Prominence is a bit more complicated than that. It refers to the height of a mountain or hill’s summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling it but containing no higher summit within it. Everest’s prominence is actually still its height above sea level.

porous_grey_matter ,

Everest is a bit unique in that regard since, as the highest peak, by definition it can’t have any higher peaks within any contour around it.

LibertyLizard ,

Weak. To really say you’ve climbed Everest, you need to start from the Challenger Deep.

MegaUltraChicken ,

Is it really climbing if you don’t start at the planet’s core?

grue ,

I read that in Boss Nass’s voice.

Knuschberkeks ,

if measured from the base, Everest isn’t even the highest mountain on earth. So if you don’t start at sea level, did you really climb the highest mountain?

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

I have climbed the highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you… Only to be with you…

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

You also desecrate a sacred mountain and have to climb over plastic bags of shit and human corpses.

Just pave a road to the summit at this point.

Carighan ,
@Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

I mean the corpses in their bright jackets are useful, they tell you about the dangerous spots! 💡

evasive_chimpanzee ,

Here is a really good article about the topic. The gist is that typically in mountaineering, there’s not often an official definition of the “start point”, but the “end point” is back at the start, so people who die midway on the return journey don’t “count”. The “top” should be easy to define, but often, the top of a mountain is a large area, and you aren’t going to hike around looking for which part is just barely the highest. Also, some true summits are habitually avoided as sacred places to the locals.

cron ,

If you measure from the surrounding area, the Mauna Kea is higher than Mt. Everest.

Skua ,

I kind of like the argument that Ecuador's Chimborazo is the tallest on the basis that it's the farthest point of Earth from the centre of the Earth

Kaboom ,

I never realized it before, but Mount Everest is a name straight out of a fantasy novel. Like a slightly more polite term for Mount Death. Pretty badass.

Skua , (edited )

Funnily enough, the man it was named after was against calling it that. It came about because the Tibetans and Nepalis on either side of the mountain used different names for it (Qomolangma and Sagarmatha respectively), so British surveyors concluded that there was no accepted name to put on a map and they would simply give it a new one. In English. George Everest, the prior top British surveyor in India, objected on the grounds that his name couldn't be written easily in Hindi, but the Royal Geographic Society ignored him and the used it anyway

Kaboom ,

Yeah, but you gotta admit, the name is pretty bad ass

expatriado ,

soon we’ll find bodies near the beach and claim Mount Everest took another victim… there lays green sandals

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