mount everest from nepal in september 2019

How do you measure Everest? It's complicated by frostbite—and politics.

Nepal has remeasured Mount Everest. Now China has to weigh in.

The summit of Mount Everest shrouded in monsoon clouds during the 2019 climbing season. Surveyors have been attempting to measure the mountain's precise elevation since the 1850s.

Photograph by Frank Bienewald, LightRocket, Getty Images

On the peak’s highest crest of snow, Gautam, aided by another Nepali surveyor and three Sherpa guides, set up a GPS antenna, which began recording its precise position from a network of satellites. Next, the men deployed ground-penetrating radar to measure the depth of the snow beneath their crampons. The two dark, frigid hours they worked on the world’s highest mountain were not without personal sacrifice: Gautam would later lose a toe to frostbite.

Now more than 15 months later, the results of their efforts—a new official height for Mount Everest—are eagerly anticipated. The project, spearheaded by Nepal’s Survey Department, was intended to pinpoint the summit elevation as accurately as possible with state-of-the-art instruments and techniques but also to make a

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