If Mount Everest was 100,000 feet instead of 29,028 feet above sea level would anyone reach the summit?

Banana Bread wrote:

With all the discussions about hobby hikers climbing Everest, I was literally thinking, what if Everest was way higher. Would any of these people reach the summit, or how high would they reach? What is the highest anyone would reach? How high could Bekele go or do you think you would go? There would probably be many more deaths from people trying to go as high as possible. I wonder what the highest anyone could go without oxygen. I guess if you had a space person's suit you would do it because if we walked on the moon than humans could also walk on a really high Everest, although this would be cheating, so let's ignore this scenario. Discus.

Since no one legitimately answered your question, yes it can be done. You would need an oxygen system to last the duration. The extremes of being that high up would require innovations in clothing, perhaps a special climbing suit combining a way to stay warm and keep oxygen flowing? If we had the mountain it would be possible.

So in other words, a space suit.

There's a good reason why no mountain is higher than Everest. The laws of physics. Gravity sets a limit. To find a mountain a 100,00 feet high you'd have to go to a planet with super-low gravity. It would be easier there to walk to the top, provided you were in a suit that stopped you being fried, frozen or suffocated.

Perhaps BB's answer can be had here...

Armstronglivs wrote:

https://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/mountains-taller-everest/

There's a good reason why no mountain is higher than Everest. The laws of physics. Gravity sets a limit. To find a mountain a 100,00 feet high you'd have to go to a planet with super-low gravity. It would be easier there to walk to the top, provided you were in a suit that stopped you being fried, frozen or suffocated.

That's nonsense. Mt Everest is the highest mountain in the world because some must be, by definition.

Mauna Kea rises 10,100 meters from the bottom of the ocean and gravity, including the weight of water (one ton per cubic meter) doesn't stop it from getting any taller.

We assume climbing without a pressurised suit. Here are a few fundamental limits:

1. Oxygenwise. Everest is very close to the highest a well-trained and talented mountaineer can climb without supplemental oxygen, where the partial oxygen pressure is about 60 hPa (20% of 300 hPa for total air pressure). Breathing pure oxygen, she could then try to reach a place where the total pressure is 60 hPa (6% of sea level). That's something like 18,000 metres, roughly twice as high as Everest.

2. Pressurewise. At some point, the water in the mouth, eyes, and lungs would start boiling at their normal temperature. That's called the Armstrong limit and it also occurs at a pressure of 60 hPa (18,000 m).

3. Temperaturewise. It's surprisingly not a strong limitation. Temperature stops dropping off close to the tropopause at 9,000-17,000 m, where it averages about -50 C.

Scaling a 30,000 metres high mountain is not possible without a pressurised suit. Even for short stays at these altitudes (e.g. balloon stunts), people use them.

malmo wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

https://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/mountains-taller-everest/

There's a good reason why no mountain is higher than Everest. The laws of physics. Gravity sets a limit. To find a mountain a 100,00 feet high you'd have to go to a planet with super-low gravity. It would be easier there to walk to the top, provided you were in a suit that stopped you being fried, frozen or suffocated.

That's nonsense. Mt Everest is the highest mountain in the world because some must be, by definition.

Mauna Kea rises 10,100 meters from the bottom of the ocean and gravity, including the weight of water (one ton per cubic meter) doesn't stop it from getting any taller.

So you didn't read the article and are unfamiliar with the laws of physics. Quelle surprise.

Armstronglivs wrote:

malmo wrote:

That's nonsense. Mt Everest is the highest mountain in the world because some must be, by definition.

Mauna Kea rises 10,100 meters from the bottom of the ocean and gravity, including the weight of water (one ton per cubic meter) doesn't stop it from getting any taller.

So you didn't read the article and are unfamiliar with the laws of physics. Quelle surprise.

I did read the article and I am familiar with physics. The article isn't scientific, it's childlike stupid. Your infantile "physics" has nothing to do with it. The crust below Everest goes 150 miles deep and "bricks being piled on top of your head" isn't liquifying the rocks below. The limiting factor in mountain building is the ratio of the rate of the mountain being pushed up vs the rate of erosion.

Everest will continue to rise for millions of years, the only thing that will stop the summit from going higher is the rate of erosion, not the bricks on your pointy head.

So the answer is yes.

You could climb to the top of a 100,000 foot tall mountain.

If you had something like a space suit that provided you with oxygen, heat, and an atmospheric pressure inside the suit.

And maybe food, water and toilet capabilities.

And now that it's been established that it could be done with a space suit, and 10,000 meters could be done with a parachute to descend immediately back to 8000 meters, here's the better question.

If you could fling yourself from the regular Everest with a wingsuit and fly all the way down to sea level in just a few minutes, what would happen from returning to regular air pressure so quickly?

Bad Wigins wrote:

And now that it's been established that it could be done with a space suit, and 10,000 meters could be done with a parachute to descend immediately back to 8000 meters, here's the better question.

If you could fling yourself from the regular Everest with a wingsuit and fly all the way down to sea level in just a few minutes, what would happen from returning to regular air pressure so quickly?

As a kid I always wanted to ride my bike down Mount Everest, is that possible?

Bad Wigins wrote:

If you could fling yourself from the regular Everest with a wingsuit and fly all the way down to sea level in just a few minutes, what would happen from returning to regular air pressure so quickly?

Nothing. It is the other direction that is more problematic. Rapidly reaching sea level would only risk your eardrums if you failed to clear your ear.

malmo wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

So you didn't read the article and are unfamiliar with the laws of physics. Quelle surprise.

I did read the article and I am familiar with physics. The article isn't scientific, it's childlike stupid. Your infantile "physics" has nothing to do with it. The crust below Everest goes 150 miles deep and "bricks being piled on top of your head" isn't liquifying the rocks below. The limiting factor in mountain building is the ratio of the rate of the mountain being pushed up vs the rate of erosion.

Everest will continue to rise for millions of years, the only thing that will stop the summit from going higher is the rate of erosion, not the bricks on your pointy head.

The "childlike" article was written for your level of intelligence. But still too high. The limiting factor has been and remains gravity.

Armstronglivs wrote:

malmo wrote:

I did read the article and I am familiar with physics. The article isn't scientific, it's childlike stupid. Your infantile "physics" has nothing to do with it. The crust below Everest goes 150 miles deep and "bricks being piled on top of your head" isn't liquifying the rocks below. The limiting factor in mountain building is the ratio of the rate of the mountain being pushed up vs the rate of erosion.

Everest will continue to rise for millions of years, the only thing that will stop the summit from going higher is the rate of erosion, not the bricks on your pointy head.

The "childlike" article was written for your level of intelligence. But still too high. The limiting factor has been and remains gravity.

Gravity is a myth.

Drainthefecesswamp wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

If you could fling yourself from the regular Everest with a wingsuit and fly all the way down to sea level in just a few minutes, what would happen from returning to regular air pressure so quickly?

Nothing. It is the other direction that is more problematic. Rapidly reaching sea level would only risk your eardrums if you failed to clear your ear.

I dare you to fling yourself off the top of Everest with a wingsuit, if you're so sure.

This article, although it means well, doesn't do a fantastic job of explaining what is going on. The maximum height of a mountain on earth is a function of the crustal thrust pressure (how strongly two continental plates are colliding) which pushes up and gravity which pushes down. When heated to a moderate temperature (e.g. the deep crust) and subjected to a significant, sustained stress, rocks undergo plastic deformation and they flow. They are still solid, with a very high viscosity, and so this deformation is imperceptibly slow. But it does happen over geological timescales.

And so back to a taller 'Everest'. Lets say that this mountain is 100,000 ft above sea level. This would exert an outrageously large compressive stress on the base at sea level. While the bulk of the rock above sea level would be too cold to undergo creep deformation, at some depth in the crust directly beneath the mountain the geotherm will be at a temperature where this can happen. The mountain would sink, forcing crustal rock to flow sideways as if you made a stack of chocolate bars on a hot oven tray.

In reality the maximum mountain height on Earth is approximately where Everest is now. The volume movement from crustal creep is approximately equal to the rate of upthrust. It can't physically grow that much taller.

Fascinating stuff!

Also, one of the reasons that Everest is so busy is that for an 8000m peak it is not that difficult in a technical sense. I'm not denying that it is a tough few days out on the hill, even more so for the clearly non-climbers who seem to be queueing up to make the summit, but the climbing is relatively easy. If the highest peak in the world was, say, Annapurna, Nanga Parbat or K2 then we would have a very different scenario. Almost certainly far fewer attempts with a much higher mortality rate than is currently seen on Everest.

collie wrote:

Also, one of the reasons that Everest is so busy is that for an 8000m peak it is not that difficult in a technical sense. I'm not denying that it is a tough few days out on the hill, even more so for the clearly non-climbers who seem to be queueing up to make the summit, but the climbing is relatively easy. If the highest peak in the world was, say, Annapurna, Nanga Parbat or K2 then we would have a very different scenario. Almost certainly far fewer attempts with a much higher mortality rate than is currently seen on Everest.

I was just thinking about this. You often hear mountaineers say Everest isn't the hardest climb. So I just googled the toughest climb and this list gave a few you just listed.

Is that a accurate list? I don't know nothing about mountain climbing.

Maybe if we allow the people building the hotels to wear the space suits but don't let the actual climbers wear a space suit and see how high they can go. I know it would take a long time to get the building materials up and many millions too. I never said it was easy. People have mentioned hotels been made on the moon or Mars so if we can do something that extreme then surely building them on a big mountain on Earth should be possible. To all the people giving serious answers thank you for your kind support. I'm glad the thread has raised interesting discussions. To all the people calling me stupid, look in the mirror. You are the most important tribe on letsrun.