10 Mountain Climbing Disasters Deadlier Than The Everest Movie

Spoiler Alert: Not everyone makes it out of the new movie Everest alive, not that you should be surprised. It is a movie about a group of people attempting to climb Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain above sea level. 

Scaling Everest is the holy grail for many mountaineers but it means dealing with occasional hurricane-level winds, the ever-present threat of an avalanche and a so-called “death zone” where the human body cannot survive longer than 48 hours without supplemental oxygen. Not surprisingly, over 250 have died on Everest, and there are over 150 unrecovered dead bodies littering the mountainside to this day. Even if you didn’t know any of that, the trailers for Everest, most of which showcase a scene of a blizzard-beaten Rob (Jason Clarke) calling his pregnant wife Jan (Keira Knightley) to exchange a tearful goodbye, aren’t exactly trying to hide the inherent tragedy.

In reality, the 1996 disaster depicted in Everest claimed 8 lives in a single day, thus making it the deadliest day in Everest’s history to that point. Sadly, that record has been supplanted twice in the past two years, which is why all the trailers for Everest conclude with a statement directing viewers to support the ongoing earthquake relief efforts in Nepal by donating to Oxfam America.

Going even further back, history has left us an ample supply of deadly mountain climbing accidents. For as long as humans have contemplated climbing nature has fought back, forcefully replying, "Are you sure you want to do that?"  

The Mountain: Not to be confused with the fictional Nanda Parbat housing the League of Assassins on Arrow, Nanga Parbat is the ninth highest mountain in the world, and one of only fourteen mountains to rise above the eight-thousand meter (26,246 feet) mark. Located in the northernmost region of Pakistan, Nanga Parbat is also known as the “Killer Mountain.”

# of Deaths: 16

The Story: In 1932, Willy Merkl led a German-American team up Nanga Parbat, but they had to turn back due to being woefully unprepared for conditions in the Himalayas. In 1934, Merkl returned, this time fully funded by Nazi Germany, which likely wanted to brag about being the first ones to reach the top of Nanga Parbat. There was nothing to brag about, though, after a nine-day blizzard killed Merkl and eight other members of his crew right as they were prepared to make the final stretch of the climb. Their bodies weren’t actually discovered until 1938 at which point another German expedition found the snow cave which had become their tomb.

That means when the Nazi’s financed another party to scale Nanga Parbat in 1937 they didn’t know for sure what had become of Merkl. They assigned Karl Wien the task of leading the new expedition, and he was under orders to follow the same path Merkl had charted. Battling through heavy snowfall, Wien’s group made it to around Rahkiot Peak, 7,070 meters (23,195 feet) up, and were resting in camp when an avalanche buried them, killing 16, seven Germans, including Wien, along with nine Sherpas.

The Nazis never did make it to the top of Nanga Parbat. The first group to do so was a German-Austrian team organized by Willy Merkl’s half-brother in 1953 by which point Hitler was ever so dead.