Older climbers face uphill battle on Mou...(cts there are two possible reasons why f...)

"By the time you are 50 or 60, you've probably been banged up once or twice. You know it hurts, and you've seen consequences of losing fingers or toes to frostbite," Huey said. "So older climbers are probably more cautious, but I can't determine whether it's greater caution, reduced fitness or a combination of the two that explains the lower success rate for older climbers."

The research, funded by the National Science Foundation, consisted of a statistical analysis of climbers since 1990, looking at the influence of age and gender on success and death rates. Much of the data come from Elizabeth Hawley, who chronicled climbing expeditions in the Himalayas and for four decades conducted interviews that provided a large historical archive of mountaineering information.

The analysis found virtually no difference between men and women on Everest there are many fewer women climbers, but their rates of reaching the summit and of dying are very similar to those for men.

But age differences were stark. Those at least 60 years old who started up the mountain had a death rate at least three times higher than younger climbers. For those who actually reached the summit, 25 percent died before completing the descent, compared with 2.2 percent for younger climbers. However, because the sample of older climbers is relatively small, the actual difference could be exaggerated or understated, Huey said.

Many more people in general are trying to climb Everest than, say, 30 years ago there are reports that just this spring more than 600 people reached the summit. The first two climbers to scale Everest, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, were 33 and 39 when they succeeded in 1953. For ma
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