The World’s Most Dangerous Mountain
The Worlds Most Dangerous Mountain is called Annapurna and can be found in the Gandaki province of Nepal. It stands at 8,091 meters (26,545 ft) above sea level and is the 10th tallest mountain on earth. It has become known as the most dangerous mountain in the world to climb but hasn’t caused the highest number of deaths due to its popularity.
There are an estimated 200 bodies that still remain on Mount Everest, with many more deaths occurring where the bodies have been removed. In comparison, Annapurna has only seen 72 recorded deaths but has only had 365 confirmed assents to the summit. The reason this mountain is classed as the most dangerous in the world is because of the high chance of not making it back down to the bottom alive.
Estimates on the death rate vary slightly, but most claim the mountain has between a 32% and 40% chance of someone dying while trying to reach the summit. The confirmed deaths in comparison to the people who successfully reached the summit are about 20%, but the highest estimate includes people who died without reaching it or those who only intended a much shorter climb.
Why is Annapurna so dangerous?
Apart from being so tall that oxygen and extreme cold cause a lot of problems, the mountain has an especially dangerous layout and is full of death spots. There are short overhanging ledges, crevasses, and sections of very smooth and steep faces that can’t be avoided, not to mention the higher amounts of rockfalls and avalanches this mountain faces. There isn’t a safe side of the mountain to climb and people are forced to choose the dangers they would rather face, but it doesn’t matter which way 3 people go up, because one of them is likely to never come back down again.
The main reasons Annapurna is so dangerous
1) Climb Difficulty
Something that climbers have to keep in mind is their oxygen supply when at high altitudes. The air is much thinner near the top and so climbers take their own oxygen tanks with them, which are often quite heavy. Because they can only carry a certain amount of weight that means there is a limited amount of air for them, and so gives them a time frame in which they have to make the top and get back to a certain point. The terrain around the summit of Annapurna is especially hard to climb and takes much longer to maneuver over than other mountains such as Everest. Because of this people spend much more time than planned near the summit and often get cut off or lost before their oxygen runs out, leading them to faint and freeze to death.
2) Avalanches
This mountain is particularly prone to avalanches and has hundreds of them each year. There can be several avalanches every day which happen at various points around the mountain, meaning people who are climbing it often have to “hope” that the area they’re crossing that’s known to be an avalanche hot spot isn’t going to start moving while they are in its path. Anyone climbing this mountain will be forced to pass through avalanche areas, and since they can be unpredictable the chance of not dying while moving through the path of a possible ice flow is normally down to pure luck.
3) Help
Due to Annapurna’s location and how isolated it is, there are no locals or anyone who lives close to the base that could come and get you. There is also no local sherpa group like there is at Everest, and due to Annapurna not being very popular to climb, it’s likely that no one will pass by to help. The weather and location of the mountain make it difficult for help signals to get out and even if they knew about your situation, it could take several days for a ground team to reach you, and that’s if they could get authorization to do so in the first place.
4) The weather
Weather up any mountain tall enough can change in an instant, but for some reason, the weather around Annapurna tends to be much more extreme than most. One of the explanations is due to the two countries the mountain borders, with Tibet to the north and India to the south. The hot Indian weather blasts against the mountain and cools rapidly causing intense cold swells which trigger storms and blizzards. The weather can change much faster along this mountain range and so makes those weather fluctuations even more deadly. This is also the reason it isn’t possible to send a helicopter to rescue someone because the dangers posed by the weather and altitude make it too dangerous for a helicopter to go near.
