Mount Everest, or just Everest for short, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, with an elevation of 8,848.86 m. Sir George Everest, after whom the mountain is named, was Surveyor General of India from 1830 to 1843 when the Himalaya foothills were being surveyed, but Mount Everest had not been seen by him or any other westerners at the time. His successor, Andrew Scott Waugh, was the first European to sight the mountain which was confirmed as the world's highest in 1852. It was named after Sir George Everest by the Royal Geographical Society in 1865. The Tibetans have their own name for the mountain - Qomolangma, meaning "Holy Mother" - and in Nepal it is called Sagarmatha, meaning "Head in the Great Blue Sky."

The first recorded efforts to climb Everest were made by British mountaineers in the early 20th century and the first successful summit of the mountain was achieved by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay on 29 May 1953. There are two rudimentary base camps on Mount Everest, one on the southern Nepali side and the other on the northern Chinese side, that are used by climbers in preparation for their ascent. Trekking to the Everest Base Camp on the southern side in Nepal is one of the most popular trekking routes in the Himalayas, even though the trek there and back is about 125 km long and takes 13 days. Having climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in August 2017, the question then arose as what to do for the next big challenge. The Everest Base Camp Trek seemed the obvious answer and was successfully accomplished in October 2023.