Mt. Everest is an ‘amateur’ climb compared to these other peaks, according to a professional mountaineer

Over the last 23 years, the number of people climbing above Mt. Everest’s base camp has nearly doubled, according to Alan Arnette, a Mt. Everest summiter and climbing coach who writes a blog about the mountain.

Reaching the top of Mt. Everest was once a feat that only the world’s most skilled mountaineers could accomplish. In the 1990s, only a few dozen people would summit per year, the Kathmandu Post reported.

Nowadays, hundreds of people stand atop the world’s highest peak each year. In 2023, roughly 600 climbers summited Mt. Everest, Arnette reported. For comparison, by 2023, only an estimated 689 people had ever summited K2, according to Climbing Magazine.

Only a few climbers have summited the Everest region’s triple crown. These three peaks, Mt. Everest, Mt. Lhotse, and Mt. Nuptse, are highly dangerous. And to earn the crown, mountaineers have to climb all three in a single season.

Even though Everest is the tallest of these three mountains, it’s not the most challenging to climb, Madison said.

“Generally Everest, as the highest peak, garners all of our attention, right? And we have assumed that it’s the hardest peak. But just because it’s the highest, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the hardest,” he said.

For example, Mt. Nuptse is roughly 3,000 feet shorter than Mt. Everest, but it’s far more challenging, Madison explained. “It doesn’t get a lot of attention and fanfare, but it’s right there next to Everest and Lhotse. It’s a much steeper, harder, more technical climb,” he said.

“The summit days are much longer in terms of elevation gain, total duration on the mountain, hours spent climbing, so it’s much more strenuous,” he added.

Despite these challenges, Madison has summited all three peaks twice now, once in 2023 and again this year. And he won’t stop there. After completing his second triple crown, he embarked on his ninth K2 expedition.

“I feel really lucky and privileged to get to go on these expeditions,” he said.