Independent, The (London): THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO: Mount Everest

WHERE IS IT?

Mount Everest lies in the 2,000 mile-long chain of the Himalayas. The mountain stands in two countries: Nepal and Tibet, and the border actually crosses the summit. So when I stood on that elusive peak in 1993 I illegally entered Tibet with my left foot. Luckily, the stern Chinese border guards don't have a frontier post up there. Yet.

IS IT REALLY THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN IN THE WORLD?

There was a flurry of excitement in the climbing community in 1987 when George Wallerstein, an astronomy professor from Seattle, declared that K2 on the Pakistani-Chinese border was 8,858m (29,054 feet), 10 metres higher than the accepted height of Everest. On an expedition in the previous year he had placed a satellite receiver at K2 base camp, bounced signals off it from a US military satellite and then by triangulation came up with the new height.

The world's climbers began to divide into Everest and K2 lobbies. An Italian expedition raced out to K2 to check his figures. It was led by Ardito Desio, the leader of the expedition which first climbed the mountain in 1954. Since that time the Italians have thought of K2 as "their" mountain, so there was great eagerness to prove that K2 was the world's highest. Signor Desio's team put four receivers on K2 and bounced back signals from four different satellites. A similar process was carried out on Everest, from the Tibetan side. With admirable objectivity, the Italians concluded that Mount Everest is 15 metres higher than previously calculated, while K2 is four metres smaller than the pre-Wallerstein estimates.

Since then, the National Geographic Society has installed a permanent GPS receiver fixed by a steel bolt into the highest bit of rock. This lies under a nine-metre cap of snow which forms the actual summit. Mount Everest's height has since been adjusted by two metres, and is now an unofficial 8,850m (29,035 feet) high. Readings taken since then suggest that the mountain is moving steadily north- eastward about 6cm a year. So go and see it before it disappears into China.

What is amazing is that the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India came so close to the modern figure. In 1849 the British and Indian surveyors took a series of triangulations of the mountains of Nepal. To make their job even harder they were not allowed into the forbidden country and had to take their observations from the hills of India. They had worked all the way up from Ceylon (Sri Lanka), using five-mile lengths of chain and giant brass instruments to draw imaginary triangles on the new map of India. By the time they had reached the northern border they could have been forgiven for being slightly out of kilter - but their calculations came up with a figure of 29,002 feet for what they called Peak XV, which is within 33 feet of the accepted figure using 21st-century technology.

WHO CLIMBED IT FIRST, THEN?

The first verified ascent to the top was on 29 May 1953. A bee- keeper from New Zealand, named Edmund Hillary, and Tenzing Norgay, a Tibetan-born Sherpa, reached the summit in time for the news to be relayed back to Britain for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation. Hillary and Tenzing were certainly the first to climb to the summit and return alive. But some believe that George Mallory and his companion Andrew Irvine may have made it to the top when they disappeared into clouds near the summit in June 1924. My expedition found Mallory's body in 1999, but we could not find the camera that my great-uncle, Howard Somervell, gave to him. This camera might contain a photograph which could solve Mount Everest's greatest mystery: who got to the top first?

WHO ELSE HAS BEEN KILLED ON THE MOUNTAIN?

The awful catalogue of deaths on Everest expeditions began with the seven Sherpas who perished on Mallory's and Irvine's previous attempt in 1922. More than 170 people have now been killed on the mountain. Only 1,300 have summitted and lived to tell the tale.

THAT'S ONE FATALITY FOR EVERY SEVEN MAKING IT TO THE TOP. POOR ODDS

Agreed, this statistic makes it look only slightly safer than playing Russian roulette, but in fact the great majority of those killed have been Sherpas further down the mountain. They have to work in the dangerous Ice Fall area for the whole season, whereas most of their clients only have to pass through two or three times.

DEFINE A SHERPA

The name is applied to the ethnic group, originally from Tibet, who live on the slopes of the world's highest mountain. These are the incredibly fit men who support every attempt on the summit. It was Dr Kellas, the Scottish medic and adventurer, who in 1907 first climbed solely with local porters. The best of them, he discovered, came from a remote valley in Nepal. They were called Sherpas.

Tenzing Norgay always seemed shy of revealing his true birthplace; he sometimes said he was from Darjeeling in India, or, if pressed, Nepal. But he was actually born in Tibet, in the Kharta valley, literally in the shadow of the mountain he was eventually to climb.

Sherpas on the mountain nowadays look like Third World ski- instructors, with mirror shades, headbands and brightly-coloured Gore- Tex clothing. Somehow they always seem to be cheerful, and carry huge loads at great speed. They are physiologically better adapted to climbing at altitude than their Western clients.

They were delighted when Tenzing climbed their local mountain in 1953. His success has been their success: from among the poorest people in the Himalayas they have now become the richest and most respected. But the human cost has been high; hundreds of Sherpas have died in the mountains.

IS THERE MUCH EVIDENCE OF DEATH ON THE CLIMB?

Yes. I saw six corpses on my way up to the summit. Bodies are still periodically regurgitated by the glaciers, most famously Maurice Wilson - the mad Yorkshireman who tried to climb the mountain alone in 1934. His well-preserved remains regularly appear at advanced base camp during the spring thaw.

HOW MANY WAYS UP ARE THERE?

Everest is roughly a three-sided pyramid, and you can go up the ridges or the faces. In all there are 13 routes up the mountain, and at least two beautiful routes have yet to be climbed.

The North Ridge, approached from Tibet, was the first route to be attempted, in 1921 during the British reconnaissance. The most popular route is the South-East Ridge route, which starts in Nepal and was first successfully climbed by Hillary and Tenzing. The West Ridge was first climbed in good style by Hornbein and Unsoeld in 1963.

ER, CAN'T I JUST FLY PAST IT?

Yes. The nearest international airport is Kathmandu, from where you can buy a viewing flight right past Mount Everest with a guaranteed window seat for the one-hour flight on Buddha Air. The flight costs pounds 70, and can be added to just about every trek in Nepal with Exodus (020-8675 5550, www.exodus.co.uk) - such as the 15- day Nepal Explorer, which starts at pounds 1,595, full-board, including flights to Kathmandu on Gulf Air via Abu Dhabi.

Modern aircraft, which cruise at 30,000 feet or more, can comfortably evade the Himalayas, but unstable winds mean that pilots prefer to avoid the mountains. Flying saucers were seen passing over the summit by an oxygen-deprived Frank Smythe in the Thirties. Amazingly, the Duke of Hamilton flew a Westland biplane right over the summit in 1933, and Peter Mason did the same thing in a hot-air balloon complete with wicker basket in 1991. Helicopters are unable to get a grip on the thin air much higher than base camp.

BASE CAMP. CAN I GO THERE?

Which would you like to visit? The Nepali side is lush and beautiful; the people are delightful, but you can hardly see the mountain. Tibet is harsh but the views of Everest unforgettable.

A sane, untrained but reasonably fit person could expect to reach the Nepali Base Camp at 5,450m. The best time of year is before or after the monsoon, in April-May or October-November. The trip could take as little as 14 days, and it would cost between pounds 1,210 and pounds 1,695. Explore (01252 760000, www.exploreworldwide.com) and Himalayan Kingdoms (01453 844400, www.himalayankingdoms.com) are among the companies that run expeditions to the Nepali base camp. Some trips combine both the Nepali and Tibetan base camps.

Later this year, there will be a chance to see the rarely visited East (Kanshung) Face of Everest. I know for a fact that Himalayan Kingdoms is organising a trip to Tibet on 3 September for 11 days for pounds 3,195, because I am leading the trek. It will include a visit to Tenzing's birthplace.

All these treks are rated as "strenuous".

CAN I CLIMB EVEREST?

Yes, if you are physically fit and desperately want to do it. Most of the people I know who have climbed the mountain say that it's the hardest thing they have ever done. The technical difficulties are fairly easy to learn, so it's largely an exercise in tolerating pain. The tedious unpleasantness of life in the upper camps, and the agony of high-altitude fatigue are merely the beginning. But if it's something you really want to do - you can.

Book with a reliable company such as Jagged Globe (0845 345 8848, www.jagged- globe.co.uk), which will demand that you learn the trade of mountaineering on introductory courses, and then try you out on an 8,000-metre peak. Then you can book for Everest - it'll cost around pounds 30,000. Oh, plus air fares to Kathmandu. The company has a team on the mountain at the moment, which hopes to summit any day now; the next trip will go out in March next year.

WHAT'S IT LIKE?

When you awake at base camp on your first day of the expedition you will probably find yourself in a bright orange or yellow tent, about the same size and shape as a VW Beetle. When I awoke on 9 April 2000 I wrote in my diary that I was wearing climbing socks, underpants, a vest, shirt, fleece jacket and a fleece hat. I was lying in a light down bag, inside a thick down expedition sleeping bag, inside a big green Gor-Tex bivvy bag. Yet I still woke up cold. Maybe the lack of oxygen dulled the internal fires. That evening we ate tomato soup, yak steaks, potatoes. And Christmas pudding and brandy sauce.

Several weeks later, in the highest camp, it's so windy you think you've woken up inside a spin drier. Just pulling on your boots will have you gasping for breath because of the lack of oxygen, and breakfast is a muesli bar which you don't really want. Leave the tent at midnight if you want a good chance of getting back from the summit. Climbing the dark mountain in the solitary pool of light from your head-torch will make you very glad of the dawn, and it will be the best dawn you will ever see. If you stand on the summit later in the day your brain will be addled from the lack of oxygen. You will be fraught with anxiety about getting back to the tent before nightfall. But you will have the best view in the world, and you will remember it for the rest of your life.

WHAT'S THE SECRET OF A SUCCESSFUL CLIMB?

The tricky thing about climbing Everest is not the technical challenge; a competent amateur could easily cope with any aspect of the climb at sea level or thereabouts. It's the altitude. There simply isn't enough oxygen. At the summit there is only one-third of the amount you breathe at sea level, so consequently you gasp a lot, taking three or more breaths per step.

Mallory said he had a secret way of breathing which he would reveal once he climbed the mountain. I suspect it was something like breathing deeply as he lifted his leg for the next step, just to cram more thin air into the lungs. One trick I found works is hyper- ventilating as you approach a rise in the route, so that your oxygen level rises before you tackle the difficulty. Another trick is to drink more liquid than you would ever imagine necessary. Because of the panting in dry air you lose huge amounts of water. My great- uncle, Howard Somervell, drank 18 mugs of tea at a sitting after one summit attempt.

Even the oxygen sets on which climbers depend are not wholly reliable. Mine froze totally just below the famous Hillary Step, at 29,000 feet (8,841m) and I actually lost consciousness for 30 seconds or so. As I came up to the South Summit I smelt a familiar smell, and I rounded the corner to find one of the Sherpas taking alternate puffs of oxygen from his mask and smoke from his morning cigarette. You would think that smoking would be a bad idea, but most of the Sherpas indulge.

HOW CAN I TRAIN FOR IT?

Snowdon was used by the successful 1953 expedition to train for Everest, and you can do the same. As long as you accept that it's only one-10th as high as the real thing, you can mount your own expedition.

First find similarly deranged friends to act as Sherpas and set off from Llanberis (Kathmandu), following the rack-and-pinion railway up Snowdon (the South Col route). I suggest that you don't attempt to load up the local sheep as yak substitutes - they will try to raid your rucksack, though, being used to mugging tourists.

You might be surprised that your proportional base camp is going to be at a rather high 1,600 feet (488m). You could sit down for a rest here, and enjoy the view of the sea - you can't get that on Everest. After that, the first obstacle to tackle is the Ice Fall, with its ladders over huge crevasses. So find a stile, climb it and then tackle a cattle-grid, imagining you're wearing crampons teetering over a 100ft chasm.

Camp 1 is at 2,000 feet (609m) after surviving the Ice Fall. Camp 3 is only 300 feet higher. You might need all these rests by now as the rain will probably be lashing down and the wind rising. The biggest danger here is avalanche, or rather being run over by the steam train that is returning the five miles down the mountain from Snowdon's summit.

The last camp, Camp 4, is at around 2,800 feet (853m). From here, go to the summit without stopping. Walk straight past the railway station and the cafe and pose proudly by the trig. point for the summit photos. You've earned them.

EVEREST IS COVERED IN RUBBISH, ISN'T IT?

The South Col of Everest became the world's highest garbage dump a few years ago. This was because it was the last camp on the most popular route and climbers left anything they didn't need on the way down. In particular, more than 2,000 highly coloured oxygen bottles gathered on the football pitch-sized col. After stories emerged in the press, a programme was started to remove them. Sherpas were paid a bounty of $6 for each bottle taken down from the South Col; lives were not at risk as the men were on return trips anyway. The used bottles were disposed of in a landfill in Kathmandu, although I hear stories of them being sold as souvenirs.

On the Nepali side, expeditions now have to leave an environmental deposit of $4,000 (pounds 2,500) which is not returned unless they remove all their rubbish. As a result the heavily trafficked South Col route is now relatively clean.

Things are not so good on the north (Tibetan) side. When I first went there, base camp still felt like a pristine wilderness where you might find a 1920s British camp around the corner. Now the little snow-lake that my great-uncle painted is a sad, rubbish-filled puddle, and the Chinese have built an ugly concrete building over the hill-top where the British erected a monument to those killed on the mountain.

The best commercial expeditions take all their rubbish back down the mountain, and there have been several "clean-up expeditions", but I'm afraid at least one of these has used the resulting permit to go climbing, not cleaning.

WHAT ABOUT GOING TO THE LOO?

You now have to take all solid waste off the mountain, so at base camp you perch on a lavatory seat attached to a plastic barrel, which is taken down the valley and used by farmers as fertilizer. Up the mountain I remember performing into a plastic bag on a couple of occasions. I (very carefully) packed these and took them off the mountain.

To help acclimatisation, you have to drink pints and pints more than you normally would. As a result you have to urinate two or three times at night - but not outside. To prevent frostbite of vital parts we use a pee-bottle inside the tent. The resulting bottle of liquid mustn't be mistaken for your orange juice during the night and must be emptied before it freezes. Female climbers seem to manage all this in ways I can't even to begin to imagine.

A friend of mine who was stuck in a blizzard for three days eventually crawled out and stuck his bottom over a precipice into the whirling storm. He defecated successfully, zipped up the "bomb door" in his down suit and crawled back into the tent, where his companion immediately complained about the smell. "But I saw it go!" my pal expostulated. After a long search the offending stool was discovered lurking in the hood of his suit. Such is the power of the wind.

WHAT DO YOU DO ONCE YOU'VE CLIMBED IT?

For most climbers it seems to mark a turning point in their lives, a point when things get better. Some use it to further their careers, others relax. Edmund Hillary drove a tractor to the South Pole on one expedition after Everest. Howard Somervell decided that his life's work lay among the poor of India.

PACK-HORSES OF THE MOUNTAIN

YAKS CARRY HUGE LOADS BUT ARE VERY GRUMPY

"As a friend to the children commend me the Yak,

You will find it exactly the thing:

It will carry and fetch, you can ride on its back,

Or lead it about with string.

The Tartar who dwells on the plains of Tibet,

a desolate region of snow,

has for centuries made it a nursery pet,

and surely the Tartar should know."

Well, Hilaire Belloc clearly knew nothing about yaks. After years spent studying them, I have great respect for them. They're like hairy bulls with attitude. They carry huge loads up to 21,500 feet (6,550m), live on a mouthful of gravel and a sip of glacier water and they don't complain.

They are, however, extremely grumpy, especially when being loaded. They tend to wait until the last rope is being tied and then run backwards at high speed. The load comes off and is dragged through tents and bystanders. Once, I foolishly put my hand on a yak's horn as I squeezed past on a narrow path, and the animal nearly disembowelled me with a vicious, hooking lunge.

The Yakkies - their human owners - are actually quite proud of them, decorating their horns with red ribbons. Their owners are not supposed to slaughter them for meat - they are Buddhists - but it's amazing how many fatal accidents they have, and how tasty they are.

FALLING INTO TIBET

THE MAN WHO SURVIVED A FREAK ACCIDENT

The French winter attempt of 1982 produced one of the most bizarre events on the mountain. A Belgian climber, Jean Bourgeois, was descending the West Ridge in a storm when he disappeared. His team members searched for him for several days and then abandoned the expedition, returning to Kathmandu in mourning.

But then to their astonishment he turned up alive with an amazing story to tell.

Instead of falling off the steep Nepali side of the ridge, which would have killed him, he had slid into Tibet. Finding it impossible to re-climb the slope, he decided to try to make it to the Rongbuk monastery, which he found ruined and empty.

After spending several nights out in the open he eventually reached a village and was detained by the Chinese authorities. They eventually believed his story, gave him 500 rupees and packed him off back to Kathmandu.