20 Refreshing Facts About Mountains You Didn’t Know

There is a mountain range named Gamburtsev Mountains on Antarctica, similar to the size of the Alps, that no one has ever seen because it’s completely covered by ice.

The Soviet Union’s tallest mountain was Ismoil Somoni Peak, formerly named Communism Peak. It was renamed after first being called Stalin Peak. The second tallest mountain was called Lenin Peak.

Mount Kosciuszko was thought to be the highest mountain in Australia until Mount Townsend was found to be slightly taller. Rather than re-educating the public that Townsend was the new highest mountain, the New South Wales Lands Department simply switched their names.

The original height of Mount Everest "was calculated to be exactly 29,000 feet (8,839.2 meters) high, but was publicly declared to be 29,002 feet (8,839.8 meters) in order to avoid the impression that an exact height of 29,000 feet (8,839.2 meters) was nothing more than a rounded estimate."

Kangchenjunga, the 3rd highest mountain in the world, is also the deadliest, having a fatality rate of more than 20% since the 1990s. Most climbers turn back short of the summit out of respect for a local Sikkim Religious tradition to keep the summit untouched.

The first attempt to summit the peak of Gangkhar Puensum in Bhutan failed because the team could not find the mountain.

It took 40 years to officially rename Mount McKinley to Mount Denali because Ohio kept blocking the change in Congress.

On the first known ascent of the Mont Blanc mountain in 1787, a researcher named De Saussure chopped off the top. It ended up in the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, the Netherlands. So one could state that the highest point in Europe is in Haarlem.

The official height of New Zealand's Aoraki-Mount Cook had to be reduced by 10 meters in 1991 after its top fell off.

Mount Kailash is sacred to four religions and has never been climbed as a result.