Mount Everest routes: every major line, compared

Everest has been climbed by roughly eighteen distinct routes, a number that folds in a tangle of variations on its three great faces and three main ridges. Yet the statistic that matters is this: more than 95% of all summits have come by just two – the South Col from Nepal and the North Ridge from Tibet. Everything else belongs to expedition alpinism at its most serious.

That split exists because those two routes are the only ones that can be turned into repeatable, supportable, commercially guided climbs. They can be fixed with rope from bottom to top, stocked with a chain of camps, and supplied by Sherpa teams – which is what lets a fit, experienced amateur climb them with oxygen and support. The other lines cannot be tamed that way; they demand that a small, self-reliant team solve the mountain itself. One planning note for 2026: China did not open the Tibetan side for the season, so the North Ridge was unavailable and every climber this year was on the South Col. We still cover the North Ridge in full – it remains half the story, and it has reopened before.

The South Col, or Southeast Ridge, begins after the famous trek up the Khumbu Valley to Base Camp and climbs the mountain in a series of rotations. Below is the full chain, section by section – the legendary features that define the climb and the hazards each one carries.

Base Camp (5,364 m / 17,598 ft)

Everest’s south Base Camp sprawls across the rocky moraine at the foot of the Khumbu Icefall, and it is home for the better part of two months – the logistical heart of the expedition, with dining and communications tents, medical support, and a helipad. Even at 5,364 m, simply living here is a physiological strain.

The Khumbu Icefall (5,486-5,943 m)

Immediately above Base Camp lies the most dangerous obstacle on the route: the Khumbu Icefall, a chaotic, constantly shifting river of ice where the Khumbu Glacier tumbles off the lip of the Western Cwm. It is a maze of deep crevasses and house-sized seracs that can collapse without warning. Climbers cross it on aluminium ladders in the pre-dawn cold, when the ice is most stable, and aim to spend as little time in it as possible. The route through is fixed each season by the Icefall Doctors, a specialist Sherpa team, but no skill removes the objective danger – the Icefall has killed many, including in the 2014 avalanche disaster.

Camp I (6,065 m) & the Western Cwm

At the top of the Icefall sits Camp I, on the edge of the Western Cwm – a broad, gently rising glacial valley called the “Valley of Silence.” It is deceptively benign: walled by Everest, Lhotse, and Nuptse, it traps and reflects sunlight, and on a still day the heat becomes brutal even as the surrounding peaks stay frozen.

Camp II / Advanced Base Camp (6,400 m)

Camp II sits at the head of the Western Cwm beneath the enormous wall of the Lhotse Face – the main working camp high on the mountain, where climbers spend much of their rotation time. From here the route steepens dramatically.

The Lhotse Face & Camp III (7,200 m)

Above Camp II rises the Lhotse Face, a vast sweep of hard, glassy blue ice at 40-50 degrees, climbed on fixed ropes where a slip would be unstoppable. Partway up, Camp III is chopped into the ice of the face itself – an airy perch where tents cling to cut platforms. Around 7,200 m, most climbers begin using supplemental oxygen.

The Yellow Band, Geneva Spur & Camp IV / South Col (7,950 m)

The route crosses the Yellow Band (a stripe of sedimentary rock) and the Geneva Spur (a dark rock buttress) to reach the South Col at roughly 7,950 m – a desolate, wind-scoured saddle of ice and rock. This is Camp IV, the launch pad for the summit, and the threshold of the death zone: above 8,000 m the air holds about a third of the oxygen at sea level, and the body can no longer acclimatize – only deteriorate. Climbers usually set out for the summit the same night they arrive.

The summit push: Balcony, South Summit & Hillary Step

The final climb is the crux of the whole expedition, made through the night to summit near dawn and descend before the afternoon weather closes in. The milestones come in sequence: the Balcony (around 8,400 m), where climbers often swap oxygen bottles as the sun rises; the South Summit (about 8,750 m), a false top; the corniced, knife-edge summit ridge; and the Hillary Step (about 8,790 m).

The North Ridge, or Northeast Ridge, is the line of the early British attempts of the 1920s, where George Mallory and Andrew Irvine disappeared near the summit in 1924. It was first climbed in full by a Chinese team in 1960. Climbed from Tibet, it has a very different character from the South Col.

North Base Camp / Rongbuk (~5,150 m)

The northern Base Camp sits near the Rongbuk Monastery on the Tibetan plateau and – unlike the south – can be reached by road. Teams drive across the plateau from Lhasa, and a vehicle-supplied Base Camp lets expeditions stock their higher camps far more generously.

Advanced Base Camp (6,400 m)

A long trek up the barren East Rongbuk Glacier leads to ABC at around 6,400 m – already as high as the South Col’s Camp II, reached over gentle glaciated terrain. Because the approach is so mellow, teams build a remarkably well-equipped ABC with cook, dining, and sleeping tents. Above it, the fixed lines begin.

The North Col / Camp I (7,020 m)

A steep ice slope averaging around 45 degrees climbs roughly 300 m to the North Col at about 7,020 m – the sharp saddle between Everest and Changtse, and the first camp on the mountain proper. It was the first major feature reached on Everest, by the 1921 British reconnaissance. Steep, crevassed, and climbed on fixed ropes.

Camp II (7,500-7,800 m) & the North Ridge

From the North Col the route follows the exposed North Ridge – snow and firn to about 40 degrees – to Camp II, on tiny platforms of piled rock wherever a little shelter can be found. The north side’s reputation for relentless wind is well earned here.

Camp III / High Camp (8,300 m)

Higher still, Camp III sits at around 8,300 m on a steep, rocky, largely snowless face just below the Northeast Ridge. The terrain is so steep that platforms often fit only two-thirds of a tent, the rest hanging over the slope. This is the launch point, already deep in the death zone.

The Northeast Ridge & the Three Steps

The summit push follows the Northeast Ridge over its defining obstacles: the Three Steps, a trio of near-vertical rock outcrops at extreme altitude. The First Step comes around 8,564 m; the infamous Second Step, about 8,610 m, is a sheer rock wall climbed since 1975 using a metal ladder placed by a Chinese team – still in use today; and the Third Step, near 8,690 m, leads onto the final summit pyramid. These rock steps, climbed in the death zone, are what make the north side’s summit day more technical and committing than the south’s.

In short: the South Col trades the danger of the Icefall for more support, a shorter death-zone exposure, and an easier summit day – which is why it carries the higher success rate and the heavier crowds. The North Ridge trades crowds and the Icefall for cold, wind, a longer push, and the technical Three Steps. With the north closed for 2026 the decision is moot this season, but it has shaped Everest mountaineering for a century. Our dedicated South Col vs North Ridge comparison goes deeper.

These lines carry no rope to clip, no chain of stocked camps, and little prospect of rescue. They are listed roughly in order of fame, not difficulty; all are far beyond the reach of guided climbing.

What unites these routes is self-reliance: on the standard routes the mountain has been prepared for you; on these, you prepare the mountain. They are reminders that for all its commercialization, Everest still holds terrain as wild as anywhere on Earth. Messner’s 1980 solo of the North Face – alone, without supplemental oxygen, during the monsoon – remains perhaps the single most astonishing climb in the mountain’s history.

The single most important fact about summit day is that reaching the top is only half the job. The majority of Everest deaths occur on the descent, when climbers are spent, dehydrated, running out of oxygen, and racing afternoon weather. This is why a good guide enforces a hard turnaround time – often around 2 PM – even on a client who is agonizingly close. The day-by-day texture of a full season is in our account of inside an Everest climbing season.

The fuller risk picture is in our Everest death map and the analysis of why climbers fail on summit day. And one fact of modern Everest that is easy to miss: the climbable route does not simply exist – it is rebuilt from scratch every season. The Icefall Doctors pioneer and maintain the route through the Khumbu Icefall, while elite Sherpa rope-fixing teams fix line up the Lhotse Face and all the way to the summit, usually timed for the first weather window in mid-to-late May. Until the ropes reach the top, no one summits – which is why summit timing is dictated as much by the rope-fixing schedule as by the weather.

Without supplemental oxygen. On 8 May 1978, Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler reached the summit via the South Col without bottled oxygen – a feat many physiologists had believed impossible, and one that permanently changed the sport. Only a small fraction of summiteers have ever done it.

The first solo, and the North Face. In August 1980, Messner returned to climb Everest solo, without oxygen, during the monsoon, via the North Face and the Great (Norton) Couloir – still regarded by many as the single greatest Himalayan climb ever made.

The first winter ascent. On 17 February 1980, the Polish climbers Leszek Cichy and Krzysztof Wielicki made the first winter ascent of Everest via the South Col, launching the Polish golden age of Himalayan winter climbing.

The first traverse, and the most summits. The 1963 American West Ridge climb by Hornbein and Unsoeld was also the first traverse of Everest – up one side and down another. And on the commercial South Col, Kami Rita Sherpa has summited Everest more than thirty times, more than any other human – a record built one guided season at a time on the route most climbers know.

The South Col has the most support, the highest success rate, and the shortest exposure to the death zone, and it is the route virtually all commercial operators run. The North Ridge is a reasonable choice in years it is open, for climbers who want to avoid the Icefall and the crowds and who are comfortable with a colder, more technical summit day – but it is not a beginner-friendlier option; it simply trades one set of risks for another. The extreme routes are not a “choice” in any practical sense: they are the objective only for elite alpinists with the experience to attempt new-wave, unsupported climbing in the death zone.

If you are planning a first Everest expedition, the route is chosen for you – the work is in the preparation. Start with our training plan, gear list, and progression plan, and carry expedition insurance rated above 6,000 m.