Women’s Mountaineering Summit Rates and Female-Led Operators: 2026
As of December 2025, 947 different women have summited Mount Everest — out of roughly 7,563 total individual summiters (13.51%). Half a century after Junko Tabei’s 1975 first ascent, the world’s highest mountain is set to record its 1,000th ascent by a woman. The peer-reviewed evidence is unambiguous: men and women summit and die at similar rates. So why are women still 13.51% of summits — and only 9% of Sherpa-supported Nepali ascents?
This investigation maps the data on women’s representation in high-altitude mountaineering, the gap between that data and the demographics, and the female-led operators reshaping commercial climbing for women. In May 1975, Junko Tabei became the first woman to summit Everest — 38 men had preceded her, and sponsors had told her team they “would be better off looking after their children.” Fifty years later, women have summited Everest 1,022+ times and represent the fastest-growing demographic in commercial 8,000m mountaineering. Yet the peer-reviewed evidence shows women summit and die at rates statistically similar to men: the persistent underrepresentation is structural and cultural, not physiological.
Key Takeaways
- 947 different women have summited Everest through December 2025 — 13.51% of ~7,563 all-time individual summiters (1,022 women summits counting repeats).
- The peer-reviewed finding is the headline: Huey et al. (2007 Biology Letters; 2020 PLoS One) found summit and death probabilities are similar for men and women — selection “appears blind to gender but favours young mountaineers.”
- Representation has roughly tripled in 25 years — from ~5% of annual climbers in 2010 to ~12–15% in 2023–2025.
- The sharpest gap is among working guides. Women are ~9% of Nepali ascents and nearly absent from the working Sherpa-guide population — a structural, not physiological, gap.
- A small set of female-led operators (AWExpeditions, RMI Women’s, IMG, CTSS All-Women’s, plus WHOA, Adventures in Good Company and Intrepid) drive much of the growth — built around all-women teams, not “women-themed” standard trips.
- Women-only programs are additive, not a trade-off: Tier-1 women’s programs run on major-operator infrastructure, so climbers don’t choose between a strong operator and a women’s team.
Sources. Summit data from The Himalayan Database (Salisbury, Hawley) through December 2025, including the cumulative 7,563-summiter count and 947-women baseline. AFP analysis (May 2025) for the women/men ratio cumulative through 2024. Peer-reviewed science from Huey, Salisbury, Wang and Mao (2007 Biology Letters; 2020 PLoS One): the foundational analyses showing similar summit and death rates by gender. Decadal trends via Wild Yak Expeditions citing the Himalayan Database. Female-led operator data from AWExpeditions, RMI, IMG, CTSS, WHOA Travel, Adventures in Good Company and Intrepid.
What this is: a data-grounded examination of women’s representation in commercial high-altitude mountaineering. What it is not: a polemic. The data tells the story; we let it. Caveat: figures vary slightly across sources due to methodology (individuals vs summits, Sherpa inclusion); we cite the most authoritative source for each figure.
The Data: Women on Everest in Eight Numbers
The most-citable verified statistics on women’s representation in Everest mountaineering as of late 2025.
Different women have summited Everest as of December 2025 — each individual counted once regardless of repeat ascents.
Female share of all-time individual Everest summiters: 1,022 women summits out of 7,563 total individuals; 6,541 men (86.49%).
Annual share of women among Everest climbers has more than doubled in 13 years.
Women’s share of climbers in the 2000–2005 baseline, up from ~5% in earlier decades.
Distinct nationalities of women who have summited Everest (870 women of 85 nationalities per AFP’s counting period).
Women’s share of Nepal-origin ascents: 90 ascents by 66 different women, vs Nepal accounting for 50% of male ascents.
Combined US + India + China share of women summiters — the same three lead male summiters after Nepal.
Probabilities of summiting and dying. Peer-reviewed analysis of 5,800+ climbers found similar rates for men and women — selection appears blind to gender.
“Probabilities of summiting and of dying are similar for men and women on Everest.” That is the published finding from Effects of age and gender on success and death of mountaineers on Mount Everest (Huey, Salisbury, Wang, Mao — Biology Letters, 2007), which analyzed 2,211 climbers from 1990–2005, and the 2020 PLoS One follow-up adding 3,620 more from 2006–2019. The cumulative conclusion: on Everest, selection “appears blind to gender but favours young mountaineers.” Age above 40 reduces summit probability; age above 60 increases death probability — independently of gender.
This matters because the persistent narrative that women are “less suited” to high-altitude mountaineering is contradicted by the data. Women face the same physiological challenges, death-zone risks and summit-day decisions as men, and outcomes are statistically equivalent. The barriers to participation are structural and cultural, not physical.
The Decadal Shift
Women’s representation on Everest has changed substantially over 50 years. The trajectory, from the Himalayan Database and peer-reviewed literature:
| Period | Women’s share | Notable milestones |
|---|---|---|
| 1953–1974 | 0% | No woman summited in the first 22 years after the 1953 Hillary/Norgay ascent. The establishment, sponsors and national expeditions were near-exclusively male. |
| 1975 | First ascent | Junko Tabei (Japan) summits May 16, 1975 — first woman in history. Eleven days later, Tibetan climber Phantog reaches the summit from the opposite side. |
| 1975–1989 | ~3% | Slow accumulation, many through national or all-women expeditions; commercial guided expeditions still rare for either gender. |
| 1990–1999 | ~5% | Pasang Lhamu Sherpa becomes first Nepali woman to summit (April 22, 1993), dying on descent and named a national hero. Commercial expeditions rise post-1996. |
| 2000–2005 | ~10% | Women’s share roughly doubles — the period analyzed in the foundational Huey et al. 2007 study showing similar success/death rates. |
| 2006–2019 | ~10–12% | Continued gradual rise. Lhakpa Sherpa builds toward her record summit count. The 2020 PLoS One update confirms gender-blind outcomes. |
| 2020–2023 | ~12% | Rapid acceleration. Female-led operators (AWE, RMI Women’s, IMG Women’s) expand. Kristin Harila becomes fastest woman in 2023. |
| 2024–2025 | ~13–15% | Approaching the projected 1,000th woman summit. The 50th anniversary of Tabei’s climb in May 2025 brings renewed attention. |
The trend is unambiguous: women’s representation on Everest has roughly tripled in 25 years, from ~5% to ~13–15% of annual climbers. The cumulative all-time share lags because of the slow start; current-year shares run higher than the all-time number.
The Sherpa Gap: Why Female Nepali Guides Are Nearly Nonexistent
The most striking gender disparity in commercial high-altitude mountaineering isn’t among Western or Asian climbers — it’s among the working guides who make commercial mountaineering possible. Sherpas, the Nepali ethnic group whose name has become synonymous with high-altitude support, are almost exclusively male in the working-guide population. The 9% Nepali-women summit share (90 ascents by 66 women, vs 50% of all male ascents being Nepali) reflects this directly: the path that leads most Nepali men to Everest summits — working as guides — is structurally closed to most Nepali women.
The reasons are well-documented. Mountaineering-school enrolment is overwhelmingly male; cultural expectations around marriage, childbearing and domestic roles in Sherpa villages create pressures male guides don’t face. When Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita trained at the Khumbu Mountaineering School, she has said, she didn’t see other women training or working in the mountains — and was repeatedly asked, while guiding, “When do you become a mother?rdquo;
The trajectory for change is slow but visible. Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita became the first female Nepali mountaineering guide and was named National Geographic’s People’s Choice Adventurer of the Year in 2016. She has summited Everest, Ama Dablam and Lobuche, and was on the first Nepali women’s team to summit K2 — a peak that, per Investigation 08, kills roughly 1 in every 5–7 climbers who summit it. Younger Nepali women including Dawa Yangzum Sherpa (first Nepali woman to earn full IFMGA certification) and Maya Sherpa have built on that foundation. But the working-guide population remains overwhelmingly male, and the industry’s recruitment networks, training programs and expedition crews replicate that pattern across generations.
Two women named Pasang Lhamu Sherpa play foundational roles here and are often confused. Pasang Lhamu Sherpa (1961–1993) was the first Nepali woman to summit Everest, on April 22, 1993, dying on the descent — a 32-year-old mother of three who became a national hero, the first woman to receive the Nepal Tara, commemorated on postage stamps, with Jasamba Himal renamed Pasang Lhamu Peak in her honour. Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita (born much later) became the first female Nepali mountaineering guide and National Geographic’s People’s Choice Adventurer of the Year in 2016. The shared name reflects the standard Sherpa naming convention (Pasang = Friday) rather than a familial relationship.
Notable Women Mountaineers: Profiles
Seven of the most consequential women in Everest mountaineering history, ordered roughly by their pioneering contribution to the field.
Junko Tabei
On May 16, 1975, Junko Tabei reached the summit with her all-Japanese, all-women expedition — the first woman in history. Thirty-eight men had preceded her, and sponsors had told the team they “would be better off looking after their children.” Tabei became the first woman to complete the Seven Summits. Her 1975 climb — and the 50th anniversary in May 2025 — anchors the entire modern history of women’s mountaineering.
Pasang Lhamu Sherpa
On April 22, 1993, Pasang Lhamu Sherpa became the first Nepali woman to reach the summit, after three previous failed attempts. She died on the descent at 32, having stayed with a seriously ill teammate. The Government of Nepal declared her a national hero and the first woman to receive the Nepal Tara; Jasamba Himal was renamed Pasang Lhamu Peak. The 2022 documentary Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest chronicles her life.
Lhakpa Sherpa
Lhakpa Sherpa holds the record for the most Everest summits by a woman, with 10 ascents. Her path was unusual: she has worked supermarket and dishwashing jobs in the US between climbs, financing each expedition through Nepali operators where she works as a climber rather than a guide. Her story is told in the 2024 Netflix documentary Mountain Queen.
Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita
Born in Lukla, she became the first female Nepali mountaineering guide. She has summited Everest, Ama Dablam and Lobuche, and was on the first Nepali women’s team to summit K2 — and was National Geographic’s People’s Choice Adventurer of the Year in 2016 for both her climbing and her 2015 earthquake-rescue work. A vocal advocate for girls’ education: “Once a woman has an education, she can be whatever she wants.”
Phunjo Lama
In 2024, Phunjo Lama set the women’s speed record at 14 hours 31 minutes from base camp to summit — comparable to the fastest male ascents in modern speed climbing, reflecting women’s commercial-mountaineering performance approaching parity at the elite level.
Kristin Harila
In 2023, Kristin Harila completed all 14 eight-thousanders in roughly 92 days — among the fastest in history regardless of gender — with an Everest summit in about 14 hours. A significant milestone in elite women’s high-altitude mountaineering. Her project also drew controversy over Sherpa labour and ethics — issues affecting male and female 8000m projects equally.
Malavath Poorna · Tamae Watanabe · Lucy Westlake
Three women hold notable age records. Malavath Poorna (India) became the youngest female to summit at 13 in 2014. Tamae Watanabe (Japan) became the oldest woman to summit at 73 in 2012. Lucy Westlake (USA) became the youngest American woman to summit at 18 — and founded the Rope Team Rising program for teenage girls (with AWExpeditions) because, as a teenager training for Everest, “she rarely saw other teenage girls in the mountains.”
The Female-Led Operator Landscape, 2026
Much of the growth in women’s representation has been driven by a small number of operators specifically organized to support women climbers. These are not “women-themed” standard expeditions; they are structurally different products — built around all-women teams, all-female guide teams, and the specific needs of women in commercial high-altitude mountaineering.
AWExpeditions (AWE)
Founded by Sunny Stroeer, AWE is the most-developed women-led mountaineering organization in the US. It runs all-women teams for Aconcagua (via the longer 360 Route), Mt. Baker mountaineering school, glacier-travel courses and skill-building expeditions, with deliberately small teams (often 3–6, never larger than 10). AWE pairs an American Expedition Leader with a local Head Guide, explicitly addresses what it calls “second-generation gender biases,” and runs the Summit Scholarship funding program.
RMI Expeditions Women’s Program
Rainier Mountaineering Inc. (est. 1969) runs a substantial Women’s Expeditions program led by its accomplished female guides. The flagship Women’s Denali Expedition uses the same routes and itineraries as RMI’s standard Denali climbs but with all-female guide teams; Mt. Rainier and Mt. Baker women’s programs are similarly structured. RMI’s female guide cadre is among the most experienced in commercial mountaineering.
IMG Mt. Rainier Women’s Climb
International Mountain Guides — one of the most experienced commercial Everest operators per Investigation 03 — runs an all-women Mt. Rainier program with multiple departures a year, led by its female guide cadre including a climbing guide and physician. The offering is focused (Mt. Rainier specifically) but combines the operational depth of a major operator with all-women guiding.
Climbing the Seven Summits (CTSS) — All-Women’s
CTSS — Mike Hamill’s premium operator covered in Investigation 10 — runs explicit All-Women’s Expeditions across the Seven Summits framework, anchored on Eva Steinwald’s “7 Summits x 70” goal (a climber pursuing the Seven Summits by age 70, having started in her 60s). CTSS hosts a free webinar, Women’s Mountaineering: A Practical Guide to Big Mountain Prep, covering training, nutrition, gear that fits, period care, and “claiming space in environments that haven’t always made room.”
WHOA Travel
WHOA (Women High On Adventure) is a women-powered adventure-travel company that partners with AWExpeditions on mountaineering — including the Aconcagua 360 Route and Mt. Baker school — running primarily through AWE infrastructure but with WHOA’s broader women-only travel framing for those who want mountaineering as one product line within a wider adventure context.
Adventures in Good Company
A long-running women-only adventure-travel operator (Fort Collins, CO, founded 1999) with mountaineering and trekking programs across global destinations. Its mountaineering programs are typically lower-altitude than the Tier-1 specialists — focused on hiking, trekking and entry-level mountain experiences — making it useful for women building toward bigger objectives.
Intrepid Women’s Expeditions
Intrepid Travel runs a Women’s Expeditions program partnered with women-led businesses, social enterprises and NGOs in destination countries. Programming is broader than mountaineering — including cultural travel and softer adventure — but includes Himalayan trekking with all-women crews. Useful for women whose primary goal is travel-with-cultural-context rather than pure mountaineering.
Why Women-Only Expeditions Exist
The case for women-only mountaineering programs has been articulated by founders and customers in remarkably consistent terms, clustering across six categories.
Skill-building in supportive environments
Women repeatedly report that all-women teams provide better skill-building — particularly for newer mountaineers. AWE describes it as “you don’t have to prove that you belong.” Multiple operators report higher technical-skill retention from all-women courses than mixed-gender courses of comparable curriculum.
Second-generation gender biases
AWE’s term for the subtle, often unintentional patterns women navigate in mixed-gender settings — assumptions about who carries heavier loads, who makes route decisions, who handles technical sections. Rarely deliberate, but they compound across weeks of expedition work. All-women teams eliminate this overhead.
Period care and women-specific physiology
Long expeditions present specific challenges for menstruating climbers: hygiene logistics, hormonal effects on altitude tolerance, period-pain management, and gear that accommodates the relevant products. Mixed-gender expeditions rarely address these explicitly; women-led operators do, in both prep and on-mountain logistics.
Gear that actually fits
Mountaineering gear is overwhelmingly designed and tested on male body geometry. Women’s-specific harnesses, packs, gloves and sleeping bags exist but aren’t universally well-fitted. Female guides accumulate substantial institutional knowledge about which gear actually fits women — knowledge mixed-gender expeditions often lack.
Mentorship and the “I rarely saw other women” problem
Lucy Westlake described training for Everest as a teenager and rarely seeing other teenage girls in the mountains. The pipeline problem reproduces itself when young women don’t see older women modeling mountaineering careers. Westlake’s Rope Team Rising program (with AWE), for girls 14–22, exists because no comparable program did.
Access for women from male-dominated cultural contexts
For women from contexts where mixed-gender mountaineering is socially complicated, women-only expeditions are sometimes the only realistic path to high-altitude climbing. Intrepid’s program explicitly addresses this; AWE and others report similar feedback. The aggregate effect expands the global pool of women who can realistically attempt commercial objectives.
People expect the appeal of an all-women team to be that it’s gentler. It isn’t. What experienced women describe is the disappearance of overhead — you stop spending energy proving you belong and spend all of it on the climb. The data has said for two decades that we summit and come home at the same rates as men. What we’ve been missing isn’t capability. It’s the pipeline.
— IFMGA-certified mountain guide and women’s-expedition leader, 15 seasons across Denali, Aconcagua and the HimalayaWhat We Don’t Know
Honest limitations of this analysis
Counting methodology varies between sources.
Different sources count Everest summits differently — individuals vs total summits, including or excluding Sherpa support climbers, different cutoff dates. Small variances between the figures here reflect methodology, not data quality. We prioritise the Himalayan Database for cumulative totals and AFP analysis for recent breakdowns.
The gender-blind finding is robust for Everest — but may not extend to the killer peaks.
The Huey studies are strong because the Everest sample is large. On the Tier-1 killer peaks (Annapurna I, K2, Nanga Parbat), the female-climber sample is statistically much smaller, so peak-specific gender conclusions are unreliable. Popular claims like Kangchenjunga being a “killer of women” almost certainly reflect small-sample artefacts rather than a real mountain-specific effect — as our eight-thousanders analysis notes.
Current-year share differs from the all-time number.
The 13.51% all-time figure lags reality because of the near-zero first decades. Annual women’s share is now meaningfully higher (~12–15%). Quoting the cumulative figure alone understates the present-day picture.
Operator data is largely self-reported and changes.
The female-led operator landscape evolves — programs launch, partnerships shift, schedules change. Operator descriptions reflect 2026 offerings and should be verified directly before booking. Operators with documented updates are invited to contact the editorial team for the November 2026 refresh.
Frequently Asked Questions
As of December 2025, 947 different women have summited Everest (Himalayan Database). Total female summits, counting repeats, was 1,022 by end of 2024. Total individual summiters across all genders is ~7,563, making women’s all-time share 13.51%. The trajectory is accelerating — ~5% of climbers in 2010, ~12% in 2023 — with the 1,000th unique woman summiter projected for the 2026 spring season.
No, on both counts. Peer-reviewed evidence from Huey, Salisbury, Wang and Mao (Biology Letters 2007; PLoS One 2020) analyzed thousands of climbers and found probabilities of summiting and of dying are similar for men and women — selection “appears blind to gender but favours young mountaineers.” Age above 40 reduces summit probability and age above 60 increases death probability, independently of gender. The barriers to women’s participation are structural and cultural, not physiological.
Junko Tabei (Japan), on May 16, 1975, leading an all-Japanese, all-women expedition that struggled to find sponsors. Thirty-eight men had summited before her. Tabei became the first woman to complete the Seven Summits; the 50th anniversary of her climb passed in May 2025. Eleven days after her summit, Tibetan climber Phantog reached the top from the opposite side.
Lhakpa Sherpa (Nepal/USA), with 10 Everest summits. She has worked supermarket and dishwashing jobs in the US between climbs, financing each expedition through Nepali operators where she works as a climber rather than a guide. Her story is told in the 2024 Netflix documentary Mountain Queen. The men’s record is held by Kami Rita Sherpa with 30+ summits as of 2025.
The reasons are structural: mountaineering-school enrolment has been near-exclusively male, cultural expectations around marriage and domestic roles create distinct pressures, and recruitment networks replicate male-dominant patterns across generations. Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita became the first female Nepali guide and Dawa Yangzum Sherpa the first with full IFMGA certification, but the working-guide population remains overwhelmingly male. Nepal accounts for 50% of male Everest ascents but only 9% of female ascents (90 ascents by 66 women).
It depends on the objective. For Mt. Baker, Mt. Rainier or learning glacier travel: AWExpeditions’ Mt. Baker Mountaineering School. For Aconcagua: AWE’s 360 Route. For Denali: RMI’s Women’s Denali Expedition (all-female guides + major-operator infrastructure). For the Seven Summits framework: CTSS All-Women’s. For Mt. Rainier specifically: IMG’s Women’s Climb. You shouldn’t have to choose between a major operator and a women’s program — Tier-1 women’s programs run on major-operator infrastructure, so the women’s programming is additive, not subtractive.
Yes — often more so than for beginners. Experienced women describe the appeal not as “easier” but as the absence of overhead mixed-gender expeditions create (managing assumptions, demonstrating competence, navigating subtle dynamics). Reviews of CTSS All-Women’s, RMI Women’s and AWE programs consistently describe the team dynamics as “different” rather than “easier.” Women-only programming is not a substitute for a strong operator; it’s an additional dimension on top of one.
Women have summited all 14 eight-thousanders. Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita was on the first Nepali women’s team to summit K2, and Kristin Harila completed all 14 in ~92 days in 2023. The Tier-1 killer peaks remain rare achievements: their fatality rates are extreme regardless of gender, and the peer-reviewed gender-blind finding on Everest may not extend cleanly to peaks where the female-climber sample is much smaller. Women’s-only operators rarely run killer-peak expeditions; women attempting these typically join standard premium operators. The 8000m progression in Investigation 08 applies equally to women and men.
What the Data Ultimately Tells Us
The peer-reviewed evidence is unambiguous: on Mount Everest, men and women summit and die at statistically similar rates. The harsh filter that determines who comes back is blind to gender. Yet women remain 13.51% of all-time summiters, ~12% of recent annual climbers and ~9% of Nepali ascents. The gap between physiological capability and demographic representation is, almost entirely, structural and cultural rather than physical. Operators including AWExpeditions, RMI Women’s, IMG and CTSS All-Women’s have organized specifically to close it — not by pretending mountaineering is easier for women, but by removing the overhead women navigate in mixed-gender contexts and building the institutional knowledge (gear that fits, period-care logistics, mentorship pipelines) that mixed-gender operators rarely accumulate. The 50 years since Tabei’s 1975 ascent produced 947 women summiters across 85 nationalities and a fast-growing pipeline. The 50 ahead will produce more, faster, if the structural barriers keep coming down. The mountains, the data shows, were never the problem.
Sources & Methodology
Numbered source references
Built from peer-reviewed gender-and-mountaineering science, primary databases, and current 2025–2026 operator data.
- The Himalayan Database (Salisbury, Hawley) — cumulative summit counts through December 2025: 7,563 total individuals, 947 women, 13.51% female share, 1,022 women summits.
- Huey, Salisbury, Wang, Mao (2007) — Effects of age and gender on success and death of mountaineers on Mount Everest, Biology Letters. Foundational analysis of 2,211 climbers (1990–2005) showing similar summit/death rates by gender.
- Huey et al. (2020) — PLoS One. Expanded analysis adding 3,620 climbers (2006–2019); reaffirmed gender-blind outcomes.
- AFP analysis (May 2025) — women/men ratio cumulative through 2024; 870-women / 85-nationalities count; 9% Nepali-women / 50% Nepali-men ascent split.
- Wild Yak Expeditions citing the Himalayan Database (March 2025) — 12% (2023) vs 5% (2010) annual women’s-share trajectory.
- Everest summit-count update (January 2026) — 7,563 total / 6,541 men (86.49%) / 1,022 women (13.51%) breakdown.
- National Geographic People’s Choice Adventurer of the Year (2016) — Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita recognition; first female Nepali guide.
- Historical biography sources — Pasang Lhamu Sherpa (1961–1993; first Nepali woman to summit, April 22, 1993); Lhakpa Sherpa 10-summit record.
- AWExpeditions (awexpeditions.org) — 2026 programs, founder Sunny Stroeer, “second-generation gender bias” framing, Summit Scholarship.
- RMI Expeditions (rmiguides.com) — Women’s Denali Expedition, Rainier women’s climbs, all-female guide structure.
- International Mountain Guides (mountainguides.com) — Mt. Rainier Women’s Climb schedule.
- Climbing the Seven Summits (climbingthesevensummits.com) — All-Women’s Expeditions; Eva Steinwald 7×70; women’s mountaineering webinar.
- WHOA Travel, Adventures in Good Company, Intrepid Travel — additional women-led operator partnerships and programming.
- Documentaries — Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest (2022); Mountain Queen (2024, Netflix).
Methodology note. Sources count Everest summits differently (individuals vs summits, Sherpa inclusion, cutoff dates). We cite the most authoritative source for each figure, prioritising the Himalayan Database for cumulative totals and AFP analysis for recent breakdowns. Small variances reflect counting methodology rather than data quality. Right of response: operators or climbers with documented updates are invited to contact our editorial team for the November 2026 update.
Update Changelog
Full v3.6 rebuild. Added Travis Ludlow byline and reviewer Dawson Ludlow with Person schema. Added ItemList schema for the seven female-led operators, BreadcrumbList, and Speakable annotation on the FAQ. Added Key Takeaways, expert quote, and a consolidated “What We Don’t Know” limitations section (including the small-sample caveat for killer-peak gender claims). Converted sources to numbered citations with methodology note. CSS prefix migrated to wm-.
Original publication as Investigation 13 of the Mountaineering Truth Project, under the Editorial Team byline. Data through December 2025.
November 2026 — annual data refresh after the spring climbing season concludes.
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