Whether it was the Lewis and Clark expedition or the first moon landing, it is a fact that humans are obsessed with conquering the unknown. In 1865, Mount Everest was given its official name by the Royal Geographical Society and crowned as Earth’s highest mountain with its peak at 8,848 meters above sea level. It was only a matter of time before people started attempts to conquer this unforgiving mountain.

To this date, almost 4,000 people have successfully climbed Mount Everest but then there are also those who have suffered a more horrifying fate. More than 200 corpses of climbers remain on the mountain, some of which now serve as landmarks for those who continue with their efforts of achieving this arduous feat. This goes on to prove that no matter how intelligent and advanced we become, mother nature will always have the upper hand.

Literally everything on this peak will try to kill you. There are dangers of altitude sickness, extreme weather and the wind, avalanche hazards and deadly icefalls. Here we have combined a list of some of the people who fell victim to these dangers and experienced death on the great Mount Everest.

15. George Mallory

George Herbert Leigh Mallory was one of the first few people to attempt the ascent of the highest mountain in the world. He joined the 1924 Everest expedition and on June 4^th, Mallory and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine set off to reach the summit and become the first humans to do so. Whether they successfully achieved this is unknown and a topic of much debate and research because they never made it back to their camp.

Numerous expeditions after this tried to find their remains but all of them were unsuccessful. It wasn’t until 75 years later in 1999 that a research team found a frozen body at 8,157 meters which had name tags that bore the name “G. Leigh Mallory”. The cause of death was discovered as a golf-size puncture wound in his forehead which likely happened because of the ice axe he was using to control the speed of his descent.

14. Andrew Irvine

Andrew Irvine was part of one of the first British expeditions to Mount Everest. He was George Mallory’s climbing partner and similar to his fate, never made it back to their high camp from his attempt to reach the summit.

During another expedition in 1933, Percy Wyn-Harris discovered an ice-axe around 8,460 meters which is believed to have belonged to Irvine. When George Mallory’s body was discovered, it still had remnants of rope encircling his waist, which showed signs of serious hemorrhaging and strongly indicated that either Mallory or Irvine fell while they were still roped together. While there have been some claimed sightings of Irvine’s body, it still remains missing to this day.

13. Maurice Wilson

Mount Everest has proven itself to be a challenge for even some of the most experienced climbers to this day and experience can be the deciding factor in a life-or-death situation above 8,000 meters. Maurice Wilson was a brave individual filled with determination and this earned him the Military Cross for his gallantry in World War 2. Unfortunately, he was an inexperienced mountaineer but despite this, he still believed that he could conquer the highest peak in the world alone since he had extremely strong faith in his beliefs about prayer and spirituality.

After failing to make the ascent over and over, Wilson still didn’t give up and kept trying. Most of what is known about his ordeal came from the entries made in his diary which was recovered the year following his death. His body was found buried in a crevasse where he most probably died because of exhaustion and starvation.

12. Babu Chiri Sherpa

Sherpas are an ethnic group in Nepal known for their amazing climbing skills and resiliency at high altitudes. Babu Chiri was one of these legendary guides having reached the summit of Mount Everest a mind-boggling total of ten times. He also held two world records, one of which was for spending 21-hours on the summit without supplementary oxygen and the other one for the fast ascent of the mountain.

In 2001 Chiri signed on to what would be his eleventh and last Everest expedition. After reaching Camp II at a height of 6,500 meters on April 29, Babu Chiri fell into a crevasse and died. To honor him, the Royal Nepali Government erected a statue and inaugurated the Babu Chiri Memorial Museum.

11. Green Boots/Tsewang Paljor

Green Boots is perhaps one of the most well-known landmarks on the Northwest ridge route of Mount Everest. While no one is entirely sure about his identity, it is widely believed to be that of an Indian climber Tsewang Paljor.

On 10 May 1996, Head Constable Tsewang Paljor of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and two of his partners were caught in a blizzard while trying to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Radio contact was soon lost and none of the three managed to return to their high camp at 8,300 meters. Paljor died because of prolonged exposure to the harsh environment and his body now serves as a reminder to other climbers that they too could share a similar fate.

10. Francys Arsentiev

Francys Arsentiev was the first woman from America to successfully reach the summit of Mount Everest without the aid of auxiliary oxygen. In May 1998, Francys and her husband made the attempt to achieve the feat of climbing the highest mountain in the world. The two got separated during their descent and Francys didn’t make it back to the camp.

On May 23^rd, she was encountered by a team of Uzbek climbers but by this point she was severely affected by the lack of oxygen and frostbite. The harsh environment and limited supplies forced the team to leave Francys behind. She died on May 24^th, still clipped on to the guide rope in the perilous and freezing weather. He body was later nicknamed the “Sleeping Beauty” and became one of the easily visible corpses on the mountain.

9. Sergei Arsentiev

When Francys did not return to camp after their separation during descent, her husband Sergei set off to find and rescue her while carrying medicine and oxygen. The Uzbek team that had encountered Francys also saw Sergei climbing his way back up to her but unfortunately, this would be the last time anyone would see him.

Later his ice axe and rope were identified near the area where his wife had died but he was nowhere to be found. The mystery behind his disappearance was finally solved when his body was discovered by the 1999 expedition on the lower part of the mountain face. He died from a fatal fall while trying to rescue his wife.

8. Hannelore Schmatz

Hannelore Schmatz was a German mountaineer who was on an expedition to summit Mount Everest via the southern route of the mountain. She collapsed and died due to the harsh environment and exhaustion on October 2, 1979 during the descent from the summit.

For many years her body was visible to anyone who was climbing the mountain via the southern route. It remained frozen in a sitting position with her eyes open and hair blowing in the wind only a few meters above Camp IV. The wind eventually blew her remains down the Kangshung Face of Everest.

7. Marko Lihteneker

One of the biggest hazards climbers have to face when summiting any high mountain is the lack of oxygen. Humans lose the ability to think and act straight if their brain is deprived of sufficient oxygen for prolonged periods of time. That is exactly what happened to Marko Lihteneker unfortunately, resulting in his death during the climb of Mount Everest in May 2005.

He was last seen alive near the summit while trying to solve problems with his oxygen breathing equipment. It is unclear whether he was ascending or descending but his body was later discovered by Chinese porters on their way to the summit.

6. David Sharp

The death of David Sharp was perhaps one of the most controversial deaths to ever happen on Mount Everest. During the climbing season of 2006, Sharp made an attempt to summit the mountain on a solo climb which was his third attempt to accomplish the feat. He reportedly had very limited auxiliary oxygen supply and his descent late in the day forced him to camp out in the exposed and harsh environment.

Extreme cold and exhaustion combined with the lack of supplementary oxygen greatly reduced the survival chances of Sharp and contributed to the development of altitude sickness. On 15 May 2006, he died in the Green Boots Cave despite being passed by several expedition teams.

5. Shriya Shah-Klorfine

This was yet again another case of a death caused by inexperience and inadequate oxygen supply. Shriya Shah was a Nepal-born Canadian woman who died on May 19, 2012 while trying to reach the Everest summit. The guide firm that she had booked to climb with lacked experience and so did Shriya herself. The leader of the guide firm is said to have warned her to not attempt the summit on that particular day but she continued regardless.

Her body remained on the mountain for ten days before it was brought down and then taken off the mountain via helicopter. 2012 proved to be the worst season since 1996 with 11 climber deaths in total.

4. Ueli Steck

Ueli Steck was one of the most famous Swiss rock climbers and mountaineers having summited Mount Everest once before in 2012. Before his death on 30th April 2017, he was planning an attempt on the Hornbein route of Everest without the help of any auxiliary oxygen.

During the preparations for his attempt, his climbing partner, Tenji Sherpa suffered frost bite which made Steck change his plans and go for a climb of the nearby peak of Nuptse. Unfortunately, only 300m below the summit, Steck fell an estimated 1000m resulting in his death. The cause of his fall remains unknown to this day.

3. Dan Fredinburg

In April 2015, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal which resulted in an avalanche injuring 61 and killing at least 22 people. This was the deadliest disaster to have ever occurred on the mountain.

Among those who died was an American Google executive Dan Fredinburg. He was the head of privacy at Google X and was working to document ascent routes on Mount Everest for a project similar to Google Earth. He didn’t survive his head injuries that he had sustained due to the avalanche and was one of the four American citizens killed in the incident.

2. Scott Fischer

If you have seen the 2015 film “Everest” starring Jake Gyllenhaal, then you know who I’m talking about. It was made on the challenges Scott Fisher and his team had to face during the 1996 blizzard on Everest.

On May 10, Fisher reached the summit of Mount Everest late in the day but his ascent had exhausted him and his condition worsened possibly due to altitude sickness. During the descent, a blizzard caught him and his partner Lopsang Jangbu Sherpa which forced Fischer to stay back and let Lopsang descend without him. During the rescue when Fischer was finally reached, he was found dead because of the combined effects of the blizzard and altitude sickness. His body was left behind on the mountain where it remains to this day.

1. Marty Hoey

Marty Hoey was an American mountaineer who was a part of the 1982 expedition to Mount Everest. Had her ascent been successful, she would’ve become the first American woman to summit the mountain. According to the expedition leader, Hoey was one of the best female high-altitude mountain climbers in the world.

According to Jim Wickwire, he and Hoey were perched on a rock slope while carrying gear at an altitude of 8,100 meters when a buckle on her harness opened, releasing her to fall to her death 1,800 meters below into a crevasse. Hoey’s death proved to be a major factor in why the expedition failed to summit Everest despite three attempts.