You’ve seen the photos. A colorful string of puffy-suited climbers standing on a knife-edge ridge, oxygen masks on, waiting for their turn to stand on the literal top of the world. It looks like a long day at an amusement park, doesn't it? But here’s the thing about the average time to climb Mount Everest: it isn’t measured in hours. It isn't even really measured in days.
Most people think you just fly to Nepal, hike up a hill, and come home.
Actually, the whole process takes about two months. Two months of coughing, freezing, and waiting for the wind to stop screaming. If you're looking for a quick stat to tell your friends at dinner, the standard expedition duration is roughly 60 days from the moment you land in Kathmandu to the moment you fly out. But the actual "climb"—the physical act of moving your feet from Base Camp to the summit—is a much more complex, stop-and-go puzzle.
It’s basically a game of biological chess. Your body is the board, and the high-altitude air is trying to checkmate your lungs.
Why it takes two months to climb one mountain
If you tried to climb Everest in a week, you would die. It’s that simple.
The human body is amazing, but it's also stubborn. At 29,032 feet, there is about one-third of the oxygen available at sea level. Your blood needs time to produce more red cells to carry what little oxygen exists. This process, called acclimatization, is the primary reason the average time to climb Mount Everest is so long.
A typical schedule looks something like this: You spend about 10 days just trekking to Base Camp (17,600 feet). This isn't even the climb yet; it's the commute. Once you're at Base Camp, you don't just head up. You live there for weeks. You perform "rotations." You climb to Camp 1, stay a night, and come back down. Then you climb to Camp 2, stay two nights, and come back down. It feels like two steps forward and one step back, because it literally is.
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Elite mountaineer Adrian Ballinger of Alpenglow Expeditions has pioneered "rapid ascent" climbs using hypoxic tents at home to pre-acclimatize, which can cut the time down to 35 days. But for 95% of climbers using traditional methods, you're looking at a two-month commitment.
The grueling breakdown of your 60 days
- Arrival and Trek (Days 1–14): Landing in Kathmandu, gear checks, and the legendary trek through the Khumbu Valley.
- The First Rotations (Days 15–35): This is where the mental grind starts. You’ll go through the Khumbu Icefall—a moving river of ice—multiple times. Each trip builds your "altitude ceiling."
- The Waiting Game (Days 36–50): This is the part no one talks about. You sit in a yellow tent. You eat canned Pringles. You wait for the "Weather Window."
- The Summit Push (Days 51–56): When the jet stream moves away, everyone bolts for the top. This final push from Base Camp to the summit and back takes about 5 to 7 days of non-stop effort.
- The Exit (Days 57–60): A quick helicopter out or a long, sore-legged hike back to Lukla.
The summit push: A 100-hour blur
When people ask about the average time to climb Mount Everest, they’re often actually asking about the final sprint.
The summit push is a brutal, multi-day ordeal. You leave Base Camp and move through Camp 2 and Camp 3, eventually reaching Camp 4 on the South Col. This is the "Death Zone." At 26,000 feet, your body is effectively dying. You can't digest food. You can't sleep well. Every minute you spend there is a minute closer to total exhaustion.
Usually, you leave Camp 4 around 9:00 PM or 10:00 PM. Why? Because you want to hit the summit at sunrise and get back down before the afternoon storms roll in. That final climb from the South Col to the summit takes anywhere from 7 to 12 hours. The descent takes another 4 to 6. You are on your feet, moving on supplemental oxygen, for nearly 20 hours straight.
It's exhausting. Honestly, it's soul-crushing.
Factors that ruin your timeline
You can have the best fitness in the world and still get stuck. Mother Nature doesn't care about your flight back to New York.
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The Jet Stream
The biggest factor is the wind. Everest sits so high it actually pokes into the jet stream. Winds can exceed 100 mph. You need a "window" where the winds drop below 20 mph. Sometimes that window lasts five days; sometimes it lasts two. If 200 people are trying to use a two-day window, you get the infamous "Everest traffic jams" at the Hillary Step.
The Khumbu Icefall
The route from Base Camp to Camp 1 goes through a glacier that moves up to four feet a day. The "Icefall Doctors"—a specialized team of Sherpas—maintain the ladders and ropes. If a massive serac (ice tower) collapses and wipes out the route, the average time to climb Mount Everest for that season increases instantly while the team rebuilds the path.
Health and the "Khumbu Cough"
The air is so dry and cold it shreds your throat. Most climbers develop a persistent, hacking cough. If it turns into HAPE (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema) or HACE (High Altitude Cerebral Edema), your expedition is over. You’re going down in a helicopter. No summit, no matter how many weeks you’ve put in.
Is the north side faster?
Everest has two main routes: the South Side (Nepal) and the North Side (Tibet/China).
The North Side is often considered slightly more efficient because you can drive a Jeep almost directly to Base Camp. You skip the 10-day trek. However, the North Side is colder and windier. The average time to climb Mount Everest from the North is still roughly 50 to 60 days because the biology of acclimatization doesn't change just because you arrived in a Toyota Land Cruiser. You still have to sit there and wait for your blood to thicken.
The hidden cost of time
Time is money on Everest. A 60-day expedition requires a massive amount of support. You aren't just paying for a permit (which is about $11,000 USD in Nepal as of recent hikes). You’re paying for two months of food, Sherpa support, oxygen bottles, and Base Camp staff.
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The longer you stay, the more resources you consume. Most high-end expeditions cost between $45,000 and $100,000. If you’re there for 65 days instead of 55 because of bad weather, the logistics of keeping a camp running at 17,000 feet become incredibly complex and expensive.
Realities of the 2026 season
Climbing is changing. Technology is making things faster, but the mountain is getting more crowded. In 2026, we’re seeing more emphasis on "flash expeditions." Some companies claim they can get you to the summit in 3 weeks by using double the oxygen and pre-acclimatization.
But honestly? That’s not the "average" experience. It’s a high-risk, high-cost shortcut. For the vast majority of mountaineers, the mountain demands a massive sacrifice of time. You have to be okay with being bored. You have to be okay with sitting in a tent while it snows for four days straight.
What to do if you're actually planning this
If you're looking at that average time to climb Mount Everest and thinking about booking a trip, you need to prepare for the "empty time."
- Build a 2-year training plan. Don't even look at Everest until you've climbed 6,000m and 7,000m peaks. Your body needs to know how it reacts to thin air before you commit 60 days of your life.
- Master the art of patience. The most successful Everest climbers aren't the strongest athletes; they're the people who can handle the mental toll of waiting.
- Vet your logistics team. Choose an operator based on their success rate and Sherpa-to-client ratio, not just the price or the "speed" of their itinerary.
- Budget for the "extra" week. Weather is unpredictable. If your return flight is on Day 61 and the weather window opens on Day 60, you're going to have a very expensive flight change.
Climbing Everest is a marathon of waiting, punctuated by a few days of absolute, lung-burning intensity. It is not a vacation. It is a siege. Understanding the timeline is the first step in surviving it.