Welcome to the Himalayas

Mount Everest stands 29,032 feet (8,849 meters) above sea level — the highest point on Earth. Its peak sits at the border between Nepal and Tibet, rising so high that climbers in the 'Death Zone' above 26,000 feet breathe air with only one-third the oxygen available at sea level.

But here is the astonishing part: marine fossils and limestone found near the summit prove that the rock forming Everest was once at the bottom of an ancient sea called the Tethys Ocean, before the Indian tectonic plate collided with the Eurasian plate 40-50 million years ago and pushed the seabed into the sky.

Everest still grows about 4mm per year from ongoing tectonic activity. And its glaciers are disappearing — the South Col Glacier has lost approximately 2,000 years of accumulated ice in just the last 30 years. Let's climb.