Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas is the third-highest peak in the world at 28,169 feet, according to Summit magazine. The first attempt at reaching the top of this monster was made in 1905 by the famous occultist Aleister Crowley. National Geographic reports that Crowley, aside from being an accused Satanist, was an extremophile who also made the first recorded attempt to climb to the top of K2 in 1902. During his attempt on Kanchenjunga, several members of his party were killed in an avalanche. Summit reports that one of the men with him told Crowley, “The demon of Kangchenjunga was propitiated with the sacrifice.” Crowley, despite his occultistic bent, decided it might be best to leave the Demon Mountain alone. He retreated.

A 1937 expedition led by the mountaineers C.R. Cooke and Sir John Hunt also ended in failure. Cooke wrote, “There is no doubt that those who first climb Kangchenjunga will achieve the greatest feat in mountaineering, for it is a mountain which combines in its defences not only the severe handicaps of wind, weather, and very high altitude, but technical climbing problems and objective dangers of an order even higher than those we encountered on Everest.”

The Demon Mountain wasn’t exorcized until 1955, when the British climbers Joe Brown and George Band successfully reached the summit on May 25 despite the mountain’s frequent avalanches.

In Pakistan, in the Karakoram range, there is a 23,901-foot mountain that, according to Climbing magazine, is named Baintha Brakk but is better known as the “Ogre.” On July 13, 1977, British climbers Doug Scott and Chris Bonington completed the ascent after over a month of exploring various ways up to its peak. The enjoyment at the top was short-lived, since on the first rappel down the mountain, Scott slid on ice and swung hard into a rock face, breaking both of his legs 9,000 feet above base camp. Bonington and Scott made camp without provisions and spent a cold night on the Ogre’s spine. They continued to gingerly make their way down the mountain until they encountered two others on their team. Using snow caves for shelter, the four men sat out storms until they could continue on the journey. Scott was severely limited in movement and had to crawl and creep down the mountain. After another night in another ice cave, Bonington fell 20 feet and shattered two ribs.

Somehow, the mountaineers returned to their base camp, but then they were met with storms. They found that their team had left because of the conditions. After five days, porters arrived and brought Scott on a handmade litter to a lower camp. After a helicopter came to rescue Scott, it crash-landed. (Scott survived.) Bonington was stuck for another week before he finally escaped the Ogre. No climber would try to ascend it again for 24 years.

Every climber dreams of conquering all 14 of the 8,000er mountains. The first person to perform this remarkable feat is Italian climber Reinhold Messner. According to GQ, he began his adventures in the ultra-high mountains in 1970, when he and his brother, Günther, started on Nanga Parbat. His brother died on the expedition, with some believing that Reinhold abandoned him — Messner has vociferously denied this allegation. Messner wrote, as quoted by GQ, “It is where everything ended and everything begins.”

Messner went on to perform astounding mountaineering feats. In 1978, he and a companion scaled Everest without oxygen. He did the same thing again solo two years later. He racked up each one of the 8,000ers until he finished his last one in 1986. According to National Geographic, in the 1990s, he performed difficult overland crossings of the Gobi Desert, Greenland, and Antarctica. The famed mountaineer Doug Scott, who broke his legs on the Ogre, commented to GQ that Messner is “most inspirational Himalayan climber of all time.”

With all 14 of the 8,000ers conquered, what is there to do? Messner has an idea, as quoted in National Geographic: “There are millions of unclimbed mountains — I have seen in the Eastern part of Tibet, mountains 6,000–6,500 meters high […] but nobody is going there, because they aren’t 8,000-meter peaks.”

Mountaineers face challenging circumstances when trying to summit an unreached peak, but when that mountain in the most remote portion of the planet you’re just asking for trouble. 

Mount Vinson is part of a massive subzero massif in Antarctica and is the continent’s highest peak. National Geographic measures it at 16,050 feet, and it was first spotted by plane in 1935. This unique challenge interested the American Antarctic Mountaineering Expedition and the National Geographic Society, who mounted a ten-man expedition led by Nicholas Clinch in December 1966. Clinch, an unlikely hero, was reported by The New York Times to be an asthmatic, lanky attorney. However, he was a veteran climber of some the highest peaks on several continents. 

The climb up Vinson itself is not considered technically difficult, but it featured 24 hours of sunlight and temperatures of around -29°F. The normal way up is a ten-day hike over the Branscomb Glacier. When Clinch reached the peak on December 20, The New York Times reported that the team pitched the flags of 12 nations.

The snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro is a stunning contrast to the equatorial region upon which it stands. According to National Geographic, Kilimanjaro is comprised of three peaks: Kibo, Mawenzi, and Shira, with Kibo the highest at 19,340 feet. The first recorded ascent to its peak was by German geographer Hans Meyer and Austrian mountain climber Ludwig Purtscheller. Meyer, in fact, was making his second attempt at reaching the summit. According to his memoir, Across East African Glaciers, he had tried in 1887 and failed. In 1889, he tried again, this time laying in supply caches en route. He was also, according to Lonely Planet, guided by 18-year-old Tanzanian Yohani Kinyala Lauwo. The last part of the trek required them to scale a glacier. When Meyer arrived on October 6, 1889, at the highest point on Kibo, called “Uhuru,” the Swahili word for “freedom,” he confirmed what he suspected to be Kilimanjaro’s secret — that it was a volcano.

The mountain’s three peaks are volcanic cones. Mawenzi and Shira are extinct, and Kibo is dormant. Scientists believe that the last time it erupted was about 360,000 years ago. Today, thousands of people ascend Kilaminjaro since the climb does not require specialized gear. Still, many climbers suffer altitude sickness, with one Kilimanjaro climbing site, Ultimate Kilimanjaro, stating that about 1,000 are evacuated from the mountain per year, and about ten a year die, with more deaths suspected to be going unreported.