What In The World Is 'Everesting' And Should You Jump On The Trend?

When British Mountaineer George Mallory was asked in 1924 why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest, he famously answered, "Because it's there." Mallory would die trying, and the mountain wouldn't be conquered until Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary summited it in 1953. But today, there's another form of "Everesting." You'll need just as much stamina, months of training, and a lot of true grit, but you won't need crampons or an ice axe, just running shoes or a bicycle.

The "rules" of Everesting are simple: Pick any elevation-gaining incline of any length and repeat it, on foot or on a bike, over and over and over again, until you have climbed a total of 29,029 feet. That's the elevation gained summiting Mount Everest from Everest Basecamp. The incline can be a natural hill or mountain, or a manmade structure like a set of stairs. There is also a skiing version, where you trudge uphill (it's the trudging that counts) and ski back down, repeatedly. You are allowed rest breaks to sit, eat, and drink. You're allowed to take a shuttle back down between climbs. According to some rules you can't sleep, although by others you can.

Mountaineers who summit the real deal are of course dealing with the rigors of high altitude, while Everesters can complete their feat at or near sea level if they choose. But mountain climbers take an average of a month or more to climb Everest, so the comparison is a bit arbitrary in practice. Everesting first caught on among road cyclists, and even though we humans keep topping ourselves when it comes to feats of strength and daring, we recon it'll be a hot day in Nepal before we see anyone ride a bike to the actual Top of the World.

The hill you choose can be relatively short, like the grueling Manitou Incline on the flank of Pike's Peak near Colorado Springs, which you'd need to climb 14.37 times, over a mere 12.93 miles. Before anyone had ever heard of Everesting, Brandon Stapanowitch climbed Manitou 22 times in 24 hours, so it can be done. Alternatively, you can take the longer and less steep Barr Trail up Pike's Peak, aka "America's Mountain," which climbs 7,500 feet over 12.6 miles, with the option of a train ride descent between laps. You'll find fluffy donuts at the visitor center at the top, too, for a toothsome reward. To Everest via the Barr Trail, you'd only need to climb it 3.87 times, racking up 48.76 miles. That's four well-earned summit donuts, by our count. 

Just as there are half-marathons, there are half-Everests, and even quarter-Everests you can tackle. You can register your achievement of any of these with Everesting.com, and receive a badge of acknowledgement in the site's Hall of Fame.

If you'd like camaraderie as you Everest on foot, you can join an organized event called 29,029, which takes over resorts across North America, in winter ski towns like Jackson Hole, Sun Valley, and Whistler, using ski lifts and gondolas to ferry Everesters down between laps. These events have a 36-hour time limit, although you are allowed to sleep. Once you sign up, training plans and coaching calls are part of the lead-up. "The event was awesome!" one Redditor writes. " I was worried I wouldn't do it just due to the lack of hills and elevation where I am from but if you follow the training you should be good."

Many cyclists Everest without ever leaving their living rooms, in a version of the sporting event called virtual Everesting. Using an exercise bike, or better yet a real road bike on an indoor bike trainer connected to a cycling app, you can set a steady climbing gradient that hits your Goldilocks spot between elevation gain and distance, and use a tracking app to document your progress. Italian cyclist Antonello Martucci has Everested 83 times and counting. Some routes he completed in the great outdoors, and some he rode indoors using Rouvy or Zwift, two cycling apps that use AI to program exact replicas of actual cycling routes. Martucci has Everested some routes both virtually and IRL, including the Mortirolo Pass (pictured), considered one of the toughest cycling routes in Europe. In 2022, Jack Thompson Everested once per week for 52 weeks, then rode a little further to reach another milestone of one million vertical feet climbed in a year.

In 2023, ultrarunner Andrea Larson set a women's on-foot Everesting record in relatively flat Wisconsin, climbing a local hill in Rib Mountain State Park 71 times in 15 hours, covering 60 miles in 33 degree weather. Larson trained by climbing 250,000 feet on the same trail system, then in her first-ever Everesting attempt, stole the record away from a former Olympian.

Could you Everest? Should you Everest? That's up to you, but there's no reason not to pick one of the steepest hiking trails in America and start training. Why? Because it's there.