When Western mountaineers first set their sights on the world's highest peak, they found in the Sherpas a people ideally suited to the rigors of high-altitude climbing; unfailingly positive, stout at altitude, and seemingly resistant to cold. Full story and photo gallery

The latest dispatch from the National Geographic 50th Everest Anniversary Expedition: The team is making final preparations for the ascent of the world's highest mountain.

The margin of safety is razor-thin for climbers challenging Mount Everest. Some hazards—thundering avalanches, freak storms, hidden crevasses—are obvious. The slow mental and physical deterioration caused by thinning air at altitudes above 8,000 feet (2,400 meters) can be just as deadly. Full story and photo gallery

The National Geographic 50th Everest Anniversary Expedition is expected to make its attempt to climb to the top of the world within the next two days. Peter Hillary and Brent Bishop, sons of legendary Everest mountaineers Sir Edmund Hillary and Barry Bishop, are approaching the summit via different routes. Jamling Norgay, son of Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, who summitted Everest with Sir Edmund in 1953, is also part of the expedition, but will remain at Base Camp to coordinate communications.

A team of climbers and filmmakers commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first successful climbing of Mount Everest hopes to reach the summit Saturday morning (Friday night EST). The National Geographic 50th Anniversary Everest Expedition has faced illness, crowds, and high winds that have delayed its climb. This is the last attempt this group will make to get to the top of the mountain.

Waging a "little war against a big mountain," the National Geographic Society-sponsored 1963 American Mount Everest Expedition placed the first Americans atop the world's highest peak and pioneered a new route to the summit.

More than 20 expeditions are expected to be climbing on Everest in this 50th summer after the world's highest peak was first successfully scaled. Amongst them is a team that was selected from more than 30,000 amateurs from across India. Mission Everest, sponsored by National Geographic Channel India, will be accompanied by an elite team of climbers from the Indian and Nepalese armies.

During the long, cold winter the wilderness of Alaska and the Yukon is not what one would think of as bicycle country. Yet as the northern spring approaches, the "Bikes on Ice" adventure is re-enacting two amazing cycling feats from the region's hectic gold rush past.

This month Conrad Anker returns to Everest, but not for a summit attempt. Rather, the elite mountaineer will provide color commentary for Global Extremes: Mt. Everest, the latest—and perhaps inevitable—reality television program that aims to send five amateur climbers to the summit.

When Hillary summited Mount Everest on May 29, 1953, he surveyed an utterly pristine place. Nearly 50 years later, the scene surrounding the world's tallest peak is starkly different: traffic jams, high-paying clients, piles of trash, and plans for the world's highest cybercafé.

This week, the world's highest medical clinic opened at Mount Everest Base Camp. The tent-based clinic seeks to treat climbers and porters for high altitude sickness, frost bite, and other ailments during the April and May climbing season. National Geographic Adventure magazine recently spoke with Luane Freer, the American doctor behind the operation.

Sure, most people know Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were first to stand atop the world's tallest mountain. But can you name the first woman to summit or the first snowboarder to descend?

Watching her husband Galen's career as a world-trotting adventure photographer from the sidelines, Barbara Cushman Rowell yearned for adventure of her own. She found it by learning to fly. In Flying South: A Pilot's Inner Journey Rowell chronicled her inspiring and, at times, dangerous 25,000-mile (40,000-kilometer) flight through Latin America.

National Geographic has ended an expedition to find the General Belgrano, sunk by Britain's Royal Navy during the 1982 Malvinas/Falklands war. After nearly two weeks at sea, in extreme Southern Ocean weather conditions, the expedition was unable to find the ship.

Game For It, a reality television series on the National Geographic Channels International, broadcasts video diaries of amateur filmmakers on extraordinary adventures. The series is produced by the same people who brought Big Brother to European and U.S. television screens. National Geographic News recently spoke with Stephen Marsh, the series producer, about the program.