Climbers Are Obsessed With These 14 Eight-Thousander Peaks

Eight thousand is a perfectly arbitrary number. Yet, no other number looms larger for mountain climbers. Fourteen mountain peaks stand taller than 8,000 meters (26,247 feet). There could have been many more of these “eight-thousanders” if the French commission that established the length of the meter (in 1793) had made it just a bit shorter; there would be hardly any if they had made the meter longer. The decision to make a meter equivalent to one ten-millionth of the distance between the eq...