50 Fun Facts About Seven Summits

News of the first ascent of Mount Everest reached London on the morning of which 1953 royal event?

Elizabeth II's coronation on 2 June shared the front pages with the climb, after a Times correspondent sent a coded message down from Base Camp by runner.

Edmund Hillary, one of the first two climbers atop Mount Everest, earned his living in which trade?

Beekeeping filled his summers: he worked 1,600 hives with his father and brother, took up to 100 stings a day, and saved his climbing for winter.

Which American author published the short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro in Esquire magazine in 1936?

Ernest Hemingway opens the story with the frozen carcass of a leopard near the western summit, then follows a writer dying of gangrene on safari.

Hikers on Aconcagua in 1985 found the frozen mummy of a boy sacrificed by which empire?

The Inca left the seven-year-old about 5,300 metres up the mountain around 1500 CE, in a child-sacrifice ritual known as capacocha.

In 1997 an expedition took which off-road vehicle to the East Peak of Mount Elbrus?

A Land Rover Defender reached the East Peak with a team led by mountaineer Alexander Abramov, a stunt that earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

Which mountain represents Asia on the Seven Second Summits list, a tougher technical climb than Everest?

K2 stands 8,611 metres high, and with it on the list nobody finished all seven second summits until Christian Stangl did in January 2013.

In 1896 a prospector renamed Denali in support of which presidential candidate?

William McKinley became president the following year, and in 1917 the federal government made his name for the mountain official.

Until 1977, how could visitors travel to within a few metres of the summit of Mount Kosciuszko?

By car: a road ran from Charlotte Pass almost to the top until it was closed to public vehicles over fears for the alpine environment.

Which British climber, whose body was found on Everest in 1999, vanished near the summit in 1924?

George Mallory was last seen climbing towards the top with Andrew Irvine, and nobody knows whether the pair reached it before they died.

Which Japanese climber was the first woman atop Everest and the first woman to complete the Seven Summits?

Junko Tabei topped out on Everest in 1975, twelve days after an avalanche struck her camp, and completed the set in 1992 on Puncak Jaya.

Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest free-standing mountain in the world, stands in which African country?

Tanzania's dormant giant rises about 4,900 metres from its plateau base without belonging to any mountain range.

Aconcagua, the highest mountain outside Asia, stands in which South American country?

Argentina keeps the whole mountain, though the border with Chile passes only about 15 kilometres away.

Denali, the highest mountain peak in North America, rises in which US state?

Alaska's giant rises about 18,000 feet above the surrounding plateaus, one of the greatest vertical reliefs of any mountain on Earth.

Mount Elbrus, usually counted as the highest mountain in Europe, stands in which country?

Russia holds the whole mountain: its twin summits stand eleven kilometres north of the watershed that marks the border with Georgia.

Puncak Jaya, the highest mountain peak of any island on Earth, belongs to which country?

Indonesia governs the western half of New Guinea, where the peak rises 4,884 metres in the Sudirman Range of Central Papua.

Mount Kosciuszko was named in 1840 for a general who led a 1794 uprising in which country?

Poland's Tadeusz Kościuszko also served as a general in the American Revolutionary War, and the peak reminded its namer of a memorial mound to him in Kraków.

Mount Kosciuszko, the highest mountain on the Australian mainland, lies in which state?

New South Wales holds the 2,228-metre peak inside a national park that shares its name, close to the state's border with Victoria.

The North Ridge route up Mount Everest, tried by British expeditions in the 1920s, starts in which region?

Tibet was the only way in because Nepal barred foreigners at the time; climbers on that side now drive straight to the North Base Camp.

Which Sherpa mountaineer reached the top of Mount Everest with Edmund Hillary on 29 May 1953?

Tenzing Norgay had earlier stopped his partner's fall into a crevasse by anchoring the rope with his ice axe, which made him the climbing partner of choice.

Which Texas businessman became the first person to climb all Seven Summits in 1985?

Dick Bass was 55 when a guide led him up Everest to finish the set, which also made him the oldest person to have climbed it at the time.

Which future Walt Disney Company president climbed six of the Seven Summits in a single year, 1983?

Frank Wells, a former Warner Bros. executive, was beaten only by Everest, where bad weather turned his party back 3,000 feet below the top.

Which Italian mountaineer proposed a Seven Summits list with Carstensz Pyramid in place of Mount Kosciuszko?

Reinhold Messner wanted the harder New Guinea peak to stand for the Australian continent, and he was also the first person to climb all 14 mountains above 8,000 metres.

Which Alpine peak, first climbed in 1786, becomes Europe's highest if Mount Elbrus is counted as Asian?

Mont Blanc still counted as Europe's high point in 1956, when William Hackett climbed it on his way to the tops of five continents.

Mount Elbrus is the highest peak of which mountain range between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea?

The Caucasus Mountains decide the list: put Europe's boundary on the range's main watershed and the peak is European, put it farther north and it sits in Asia.

Uhuru Peak, the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, takes its name from the Swahili word for what?

Freedom Peak replaced Kaiser-Wilhelm-Spitze, the name Hans Meyer gave the top after he made the first ascent in 1889.

Which author's account of the 1996 Everest disaster argued the Seven Second Summits were a tougher challenge?

Jon Krakauer was on the mountain with one of the expeditions caught in the storm, and expanded his Outside magazine article into the 1997 book Into Thin Air.

Which explorer, also disbelieved over the North Pole, falsely claimed Denali's first ascent in 1906?

Frederick Cook's summit photograph was traced to a small outcrop now called Fake Peak, and his only companion later swore that they never reached the top.

Which Hawaiian volcano tops the Pacific Plate on a Seven Summits list drawn from tectonic plates?

Mauna Kea stands 4,207 metres above the sea, and measured from its underwater base some authorities call it the tallest mountain in the world.

Erik Weihenmayer, who finished the Seven Summits in 2002, was the first Everest summiter with which disability?

Blindness from juvenile retinoschisis, diagnosed when he was 15 months old, did not stop him climbing Denali in 1995 and Everest on 25 May 2001.

The Grasberg mine beside Puncak Jaya holds one of the world's largest reserves of which precious metal?

Gold comes out of the vast open pit together with copper, and the workings lie only four kilometres west of the summit.

The businessman who first completed the Seven Summits in 1985 opened which Utah ski resort in 1971?

Snowbird began as a partnership with Ted Johnson, who sold his share to the future Seven Summits climber three years after the lifts opened.

Which challenge adds the North Pole and the South Pole to the Seven Summits?

The Explorers Grand Slam counts even when the two poles are reached by skiing only the last degree of latitude, rather than from the coast.

Which New Zealand guide, who died on Everest in 1996, climbed the Seven Summits in seven months in 1990?

Rob Hall and his climbing partner Gary Ball began the run on Everest, and the pair then founded the guiding company Adventure Consultants.

Which Nepali name for Mount Everest is shared by the national park on the mountain's southern side?

Sagarmatha National Park protects the Nepalese slopes, while the northern side lies inside the Qomolangma National Nature Reserve.

Which hazard above Everest Base Camp in Nepal do climbers cross on ropes and ladders fixed each season?

The Khumbu Icefall is so dangerous that even the networks of rope and ladders installed by professional guides cannot prevent loss of life.

Kilimanjaro's Marangu Route, where trekkers sleep in huts, is nicknamed after which soft drink?

Coca-Cola lends its name to the easiest way up, yet the route's short profile also gives it the lowest summit success rate of any.

Vinson Massif honours Carl Vinson, a champion of Antarctic research funding who held which job for 50 years?

A US congressman from Georgia, he sat in the House of Representatives for 50 years and one month, a record that stood until 1992.

Mount Kosciuszko belongs to which Australian range, also known for a giant hydroelectric scheme?

The Snowy Mountains hold the five tallest peaks on the Australian mainland, all above 2,100 metres, and the dam-building scheme opened the high country to skiers.

Carstensz Pyramid honours a 1623 explorer from which country, mocked for reporting snow near the equator?

A sailor from the Netherlands, Jan Carstenszoon sighted the glaciers on a rare clear day, and nobody confirmed what he saw for more than two centuries.

The name Denali comes from the Koyukon language, where it carries roughly which meaning?

The tall one, or the high one, is how peoples north of the range named the peak; languages to the south simply call it the big mountain.

Which of the three volcanic cones of Kilimanjaro is the highest and carries the summit on its crater rim?

Kibo is only dormant and could erupt again, whereas the two lower cones beside it are extinct.

Which Austrian climber, played by Brad Pitt in a 1997 film, led the first ascent of Carstensz Pyramid in 1962?

Heinrich Harrer had also been one of the four men who made the first ascent of the North Face of the Eiger in 1938.

What did the men of the 1910 Sourdough expedition haul up Denali to plant near its north peak?

A spruce pole 14 feet long was set up near the top to prove the climb, and a party three years later reported seeing it through binoculars.

Which Canadian photographer was first to complete the Carstensz version of the Seven Summits, in 1986?

Pat Morrow had reached the top of Everest with a Canadian expedition in 1982, and argued for the harder list in his book Beyond Everest.

Which American teenager completed the Seven Summits at age 15 by climbing Vinson Massif in December 2011?

Jordan Romero had already stood on top of Everest at 13, and he phoned his mother from the summit.

Which filmmaker, later director of the 1998 IMAX film Everest, guided the first Seven Summits finisher up Everest?

David Breashears led his client to the top on 30 April 1985, and his film became the highest-grossing IMAX documentary of its day.

Which climber, the son of a Koyukon Athabascan mother, was the first person onto the summit of Denali in 1913?

Walter Harper reached the top seconds ahead of two teammates, and the expedition's leader later named a glacier on the mountain after him.

Vinson Massif stands in which Antarctic range, discovered from the air by a polar aviator in 1935?

The Ellsworth Mountains are named for Lincoln Ellsworth, who spotted them during a flight across the continent from Dundee Island to the Ross Ice Shelf.

Which Japanese adventurer vanished on Denali in February 1984 after making its first solo winter ascent?

Naomi Uemura radioed the day after his 43rd birthday to say he had reached the top; he was also the first person to reach the North Pole solo.

Jets carrying Vinson Massif climbers to the Union Glacier ice runway usually leave from which Chilean city?

Punta Arenas sends charter jets south from November to January, and they land on wheels on a rare natural runway of blue ice.