The world’s tallest mountain, Mount Everest, is over 8848 meters high- and it is still growing!
It is situated at the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, on the border between Nepal and Tibet. Mount Everest is part of the long mountain system known as the Himalayas. The Himalayas were formed more than 45 million years ago, when two of the rocky plates that lie beneath the Earth’s crust crashed against each other, pushing up the area in between them. As these plates are still moving- of course, so slowly that we don’t realize it- the Himalayas and Mount Everest are still growing too!
The peak of Mount Everest has three, somewhat flat sides, and is said to be shaped like a three- sided pyramid. Glaciers and ice cover the sides of the mountain, and it is a very cold place indeed. In July, during summer, temperatures are still as low as zero degrees Fahrenheit. In January, temperatures drop even lower to -76 ® F. Despite the extreme cold, hurricane-force winds, and low oxygen levels, many people have climbed Mount Everest.
The first successful attempt was by Edmund Hillary and ten zing Norgay in 1953. However, the climb is so difficult and dangerous, that only one person in 10 is successful- and over 200 persons have died attempting to climb this beautiful, but forbidding mountain.
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