World’s 10 Most Dangerous Mountains

 

Publish On 18/12/2017

Take it or leave it, this morbid article on the climbing world’s most dangerous mountains has a few interesting nuggets. Read on for the full scoop, a list of the World’s 10 Most Dangerous Mountains for Climbing.

1. ANNAPURNA, Central Nepal (26,545 ft.)- 

On this mountain, the 10th highest in the world, about 130 climbers have summited the avalanche-prone peak, but 53 have died trying — making Annapurna’s fatality rate of 41% the highest in the world.

2. NANGA PARBAT, Gilgit-Batistan (26,657 ft.)- Known as the man-eater, this craggy monster in Pakistan is a huge ridge of rocks and ice. The summit is the ninth highest in the world and the south side has the highest mountain in the world. Nanga Parbat claimed 31 lives before its conquest by Austrian Herman Buhl in 1953.

3. GRAND SIULA, Peruvian Andes (20,814 feet) - 

In 1985 the duo Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, whose journey was told in the book and the film Touching the Void, tried the west side of Siula Grande: a dizzying and vertical climb never completed. They came to the top but Simpson fell during the descent and broke his leg. Then Yates, leaving the wounded Simpson on the rope, left him out of sight over a cliff. After an hour had passed, where his position slipped away and Simpson was unable to secure himself, Yates cut the rope. Unbelievably, Simpson survived the 100-foot drop in a crack. Over the next three days he survived on slush and jumped back five miles to the camp, arriving shortly before Yates, assuming that Simpson had died, had to leave for home.

4. K2, border of Pakistan and China (28,251 ft.) - 

The second highest mountain in the world has a bad reputation, especially when it comes to climbers. The first woman to reach the summit was the legendary Polish climber Wanda Rutkiewicz, who reached the summit in June 1986. Over the next 18 years, the five climbers who visited the summit were killed. Three died during the descent on K2, two others on the neighboring mountains. Rutkiewicz also moved closer to Kangchenjunga in 1992. The curse was finally broken in 2004 by Edurne Pasaban, a 31-year-old Spanish mountaineer who remains alive to this day.

5. KANGCHENJUNGA, border between India and Nepal (28,169 ft.) - In 1999, a new James Bond novel found the uber agent to date his dramatic peaks. James may have stopped to admire the beautiful view, but, as our hero knows very well, outwardly can be misleading. Avalanches and bitter colds have made it one of the deadliest mountains in the world.

6. THE MATTERHORN, border between Switzerland and Italy (14,691 ft.) - These days the principle danger on the Matterhorn is its popularity, with overeager tourists sending loose rocks onto the heads of fellow climbers below.

7. EVEREST, border between Nepal and China (29,029 ft.) - With its status as a party tent, we can easily assume that it is the deadliest mountain of all. But for the pound, Everest claims a fairly low percentage of mountaineers (9%), given the number it tries each year. 

8. MT. WASHINGTON, New Hampshire (6,288 ft.) - 

To experience a murderer's mountain a bit closer to home, you do not have to look any further than this New Hampshire summit. The rapidly changing weather, hurricane winds and summer ice pellets that sand this slope have claimed more than 100 lives. Temperatures at the top can drop to -50 degrees Fahrenheit. In fact, the highest gust of wind ever recorded on Earth was recorded at this peak, a gust of 231 mph.

9. DENALI, Alaska (20,320 ft.) - 

The mountain is prone to earthquakes. And the combination of high altitude and extreme latitude also means altitude sickness kicks in much faster. (At the equator, a peak this size would have about half as much oxygen at the summit than at sea level; because of the latitude, the percentage on Denali is far lower.)

10. Mt. Fuji, Japan (12,388 ft.) - 

Sometimes you do not have to be a big mountain to be a deadly mountain. Take Mt. Fuji for example. At the base is the Sea of Trees, a vast expanse of cedar, pine and boxwood that was the only area that was not invaded by lava and ashes during a massive eruption in 1707.

This forest, known as Aokigahara, has gained cult status among the Japanese as the ideal place to die. Rumors about forests are abundant: the local population speaks of magnetic fields that disorient search and rescue operations; The forest population is said to consist of snakes, wild dogs and occasional demons.