On the bucket list of many adventurers is climbing Mount Everest. They want to do this because they want to reach the summit and say they are on top of the world.
They can also add to their CV that they have climbed ‘the highest mountain in the world’ and tell you tall tales of how they nearly died 100 times over.
But technically they haven’t climbed the highest.
We don’t want to burst bubbles but Mount Everest isn’t the tallest – Mauna Kea is the tallest, a dormant volcano on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi.
Sure, Everest is a monster and is the highest above sea level at 29,035 feet but Mauna Kea is the highest from base to summit, at 32,696 feet (6.2 miles) and around the same height commercial planes fly. The thing is 13,796 feet of this colossus is submerged in the Pacific Ocean.