All 14 8,000m Mountains Ranked From "Easy" to DEADLY

Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth. It is not the deadliest. There are only fourteen mountains on the planet that rise above 8,000 meters (about 26,000 feet). Every single one sits within two mountain ranges: the Himalayas and the Karakoram. Nowhere else on Earth does the ground climb this high. This is a ranking of all fourteen, from the least dangerous to the most dangerous, measured by their standard routes in the main climbing season. And danger here is not just height, and it's not just how hard the climbing is. It's the total package: how technical the route is, how exposed the mountain is to avalanche and collapsing ice, how remote it is from any rescue, how violent its weather, and how long a climber is forced to spend in the death zone—the altitude above roughly 8,000 meters where the air holds so little oxygen that the body begins to shut down no matter how fit you are. Up there, judgment blurs and the body cannibalizes itself for fuel. You are dying slowly the entire time you are moving. So the question is never whether these mountains are dangerous. They all are. The question is what makes one deadlier than the next—and the answer is almost never the thing people expect. Make sure to subscribe for weekly videos!