People climbing Mount Everest are two times as likely to reach the top and less likely to die on the climb than 20 years ago, a new study finds. Everest, high in the Himalayans, is the tallest mountain above sea level on Earth. It reaches 8,848 meters into the sky. Between 2006 and 2019, around two thirds of climbers were successful in their attempt to reach the top. In the 15 years before that, only about one-third went all the way to the top. The study was a project of researchers at the University of Washington and the University of California, Davis. They found that the risk of dying on the mountain was 0.5 percent for women and 1.1 percent for men in recent years. That is down from 1.9 percent and 1.7 percent in the period from 1990 to 2005, the researchers said. The number of attempts to reach the top of Everest has risen sharply over the years, leading to a 300 percent increase in overcrowding. In 2019, 955 climbers tried to reach the mountaintop. Only 222 people did so in 2000.
