South Summit (Mount Everest) South Summit (Mount Everest) The South Summit of Mount Everest in the Himalayas is the second-highest peak on Earth, and is a subsidiary peak to the primary peak of Mount Everest. Although its elevation above sea level of is higher than the second-highest mountain on Earth, K2 (whose summit is above sea level), it is only considered a separate peak and not a separate mountain as its prominence is only 11 meters. The peak is a dome-shaped peak of snow and ice, and is connected to the summit of Mount Everest by the Cornice Traverse and Hillary Step. It was
Mount Everest several expeditions were caught in a blizzard high up on the mountain. During the 1996 season, 15 people died while climbing on Mount Everest. These were the highest death tolls for a single event, and for a single season, until the sixteen deaths in the 2014 Mount Everest avalanche. The disaster gained wide publicity and raised questions about the commercialisation of climbing Mount Everest. Journalist Jon Krakauer, on assignment from "Outside" magazine, was in one of the affected parties, and afterward published the bestseller "Into Thin Air", which related his experience. Anatoli Boukreev, a guide who felt impugned by Krakauer's