Nearly every year for over a century, climbers have fallen victim to the perilous ascent up Mount Everest, the tallest mountain on Earth.
The number of fatalities varies by source, with the Himalayan database recording 335 deaths and Wikipedia listing 341, for those attempting the 29,032ft (8,849m) peak, which stands around 20 times taller than the Empire State Building.
It is estimated that about 200 bodies remain on the mountain, despite efforts from the Nepalese government to remove them as part of a clean-up initiative.
Confronting such grim realities was not something UK adventurer Bonita Norris initially anticipated when she set out to climb Everest.
In 2010, at just 22 years and seven months old, Norris became the youngest British woman to reach Everest’s summit—a record she held until 19-year-old Leanna Shuttleworth surpassed it two years later.
Despite no longer holding the record, Norris’s journey is remarkable, especially considering she had no interest in climbing less than two years before her expedition to Nepal.
“I was 20 years old, and one evening, I went to a lecture about climbing, and I listened as two mountaineers basically described how they got to the top of Everest,” Norris, now 37, recounted to UNILAD.
“When they got to the top they looked down and they could see the curvature of the earth beneath them, and I was sold, like I knew at that moment I was going to climb that mountain.
“I turned my life upside down. Started climbing, and two years later, I was on the summit of Everest.”
Her journey led her first to North Wales, where she climbed Mount Snowdon, a mere 3,560ft (1,085m) compared to Everest.
Upon reaching Everest’s summit, she was surprised to find her view obscured by clouds, denying her the curvature of the Earth she had hoped to see, reminiscent of Wales.
Since her Everest climb, the mother of two has scaled various mountains and spoke about the unspoken code among mountaineers.
“While mountaineering, you do occasionally, tragically, come across people who lost their lives on the mountain, and it’s something that I have seen very much up close on multiple occasions, on multiple different mountains,” she told UNILAD.
“Because, quite simply, when you are doing what I do, which is going up to the into the death zone, it’s incredibly difficult to recover someone who’s up there, because you’re just putting more people’s lives at risk.”
Those who ascend beyond 26,000ft enter the ‘death zone,’ where the oxygen levels are so low that the body struggles, heightening the risk of medical emergencies such as heart attacks or strokes.
In 2007, Jeremy Windsor, a doctor and Everest climber, told Everest blogger Mark Horrell that climbers in the death zone operate on just one-quarter of the oxygen needed at sea level.
“And as mountaineers, we do sort of have an unspoken code that you don’t want to risk anyone else’s life. So I have, I have seen it,” Norris added.
She elaborated, “When you wake up every morning on the mountain, everything is so heightened – every day is, is life and death. When you do see the sad side of mountaineering, it really makes you aware of what you’re doing. It gives you that presence of mind.
“It makes you sort of, you know, recalibrate your expectations of what you want to achieve. The most important thing is actually not the top, it’s coming home safe to my family. So, in some ways it’s a great reminder of what’s important when we’re there.
“At the same time, it’s not something that I like to remember really, because it’s sad.”
Norris’s insights come amid research by Dacia indicating that people often lose their adventurous spirit by age 36, due to various factors such as fatigue and routine.
The car company is encouraging people to undertake simple adventures in 2025 as a means to reignite their adventurous side.
Referring to the survey findings on loss of adventure, Norris stated, “For Gen Z, it’s like the age of 13, they’re saying they’re [survey respondents] losing their sense of adventure. So my advice would be, start small.”
She suggested, “There’s a whole adventure guide on Dacia’s website just encouraging people to do small everyday, like really easy, completely free adventures – whether that’s going stargazing one night or building a den in the garden. You know, there’s just really simple stuff.”
To help rekindle a sense of adventure, Dacia has launched an Everyday Adventure Guide, available for free at www.dacia.co.uk/everyday-adventure.