Will There Be Drama on Mount Everest This Year? You Bet.

Every spring, hundreds of hopefuls make the trek to the world’s tallest summit and the surrounding high peaks. This is your base camp for all the news from the Himalayas.

(Photo: DanielPrudek/iStock/Getty)

Updated May 29, 2024 10:56AM

Hundreds of climbers and guides are venturing onto the world’s highest peak this month for the chance to spend a precious few moments on the summit. Our coverage of the mountaineering season in the Himalayas will encompass the climbs, rescues, records, and controversy on Everest. Veteran reporter and National Geographic Explorer Ben Ayers is leading our coverage alongside Nepali journalist Tulsi Rauniyar and Outside articles editor Frederick Dreier. We also have a series of in-depth features for 2024 on some of the most compelling stories on the peak: a profile of a forgotten hero from Everest’s first climb, a look at the brewing debate over the true summit locations of the highest peaks, and an examination of a deadly disaster on 26,335-foot Shishapangma that claimed four lives. Stay tuned to Outside‘s Everest Season 2024 coverage for the latest stories from the Death Zone.

The Man Who Raced to Tell the World That Mount Everest Had Been Climbed

From left: Sir Edmund Hillary, Colonel John Hunt, and Tenzing Norgay shortly after the first summit of Mount Everest in 1953; Ang Pemba Sherpa on the route his grandather ran after the climb (Photos: PA Images/Getty; Ang Pemba Sherpa)

When Tenzing Norway and Edmund Hillary made history by reaching the summit, a courier named Ten Tsewang Sherpa ran 200 miles to Kathmandu to deliver the news. His efforts ended up killing him. Last year, his grandson and I retraced his steps.

(Illustration: Tristan Kennedy (Jurgalski, Map); Getty (Messner); Art by Hannah Dewitt)

When Eberhard Jurgalski determined that Reinhold Messner narrowly missed certain summits, he told the world. He’s still dealing with the fallout.

The Latest from the Field

Abiral Rai is one of 1,500 workers on Mount Everest this year. (Photo: Abiral Rai)

For Nepali Guides on Mount Everest, Daily Life Is Full of Danger

Abiral Rai, an IMFGA-certified guide on Mount Everest, takes us inside his daily grind, which includes ascending skyscraper-sized cliffs, carrying heavy bags of gear, and avoiding deadly hazards.

Crews remove a body from Mount Everest following a deadly avalanche in 2015. (Photo: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty)

Removing Dead Bodies from Mount Everest Is Dangerous and Expensive. Here’s Why.

A team of 12 Nepalis is slated to ascend Mount Everest this month to bring five dead bodies down from the peak. Recovery missions come with a soaring price tag and a heightened potential for disaster.

Honnold on Everest? Stranger things have happened. (Photo: National Geographic/Pablo Durana)

Will Alex Honnold Ever Tackle Mount Everest? We Asked Him.

Five questions with the ‘Free Solo’ star about his future plans in big-wall climbing, high-altitude mountaineering, and outdoor filmmaking.

(Photo: Karin Dohmen/Getty (Everest); filo/Getty (Topo Map))

How Everest Was Turned into an Industry

Everest, Inc., a new book from veteran outdoor journalist Will Cockrell, documents the mountain’s transformation, first by Western guides and climbers, and now by Sherpas and Nepalis.

(Photo: From the documentary Americans on Everest)

In 1963, Jim Whittaker became the first American to summit Everest. Three weeks after he did, a second party from the same team made an even more stunning assault on the mountain’s unclimbed West Ridge. Using never before published transcripts from the expedition, Grayson Schaffer takes a new look at a bold ascent that changed mountaineering.

Remembering the First Three Women to Climb Mount Everest

From left: Junko Tabei of Japan, Phanthog of Tibet, and Wanda Rutkiewicz of Poland (Photo: Isabelle Agresti)

One inspired the world, one is in danger of being forgotten, and one disappeared. —originally published on Climbing

The Disposable Man: A Western History of Sherpas on Everest

Lhamu Chhiki, widow of Chhewang Nima, who died on Everest in 2010 while working for a private expedition. (Photo: Grayson Schaffer)

For more than a century, Western climbers have hired Nepal’s Sherpas to do the most dangerous work on Mount Everest. It’s a lucrative way of life in a poor region, but no service industry in the world so frequently kills and maims its workers for the benefit of paying clients. The dead are often forgotten, and their families left with nothing but ghosts.

An Oral History of Langtang, the Valley Destroyed by the Nepal Earthquake

This scene is based on earthquake footage taken in Langtang Valley by American trekker Corey Ascolani. (Photo: Owen Freeman)

You’ve seen the images from Everest Base Camp and Kathmandu, but one village was hit so hard that it ceased to exist altogether. Half the population was buried. The others had to find a way out. This is their story.

High Times

The world's highest party town illustration — (Photo: Istvan Banyai)

You were told that Everest base camp is an insult to the true spirit of mountaineering. (Harrumph.) But why weren’t you told about the excellent bars, the butter people, and that friendly Playboy bunny from Poland? The author spends a month at the world’s most exclusive party town.

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