I should point out that climbing Everest at this point is pretty trivial compared to what it was when the old masters set out to do it. A friend of mine did it and said it wasn't as difficult as he'd expected. The path is well trodden and known. Forecasts are much better than they used to be. Gear is very light and durable. You often have a team of helpers to carry your gear, guide you, make your food etc. Whereas back then, which is the way we know / think it to be, it was a gamble on your life at best.
Many more than that number come back down being carried by their friends, with lungs full of fluid, brain damage, black fingers/toes/hands/feet/noses which need to be amputated, or other serious injuries.
A fantastic read is "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer, which covers a really bad year for climbing on Everest.
The article above links to the page for Annapurna, one of the deadliest mountains on earth (40% fatality rate for climbers), which said this:
The second summit team, Alison Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz and Vera Watson, died during this climb. (Vera Watson was survived by her husband, the computer scientist John McCarthy.)[5]
Dangerous doesn't mean hard and easy doesn't mean safe. As long you are among the lucky group who don't run into problems then it's quite an easy climb (relatively speaking)
"Into thin Air" showed how easy it can be if everything goes well. He talks about people who were out of shape making it. But if one or two things go wrong, you're dead.
My only knowledge of Everest is watching some programs on Discovery, but one thing I notice in everyone of them is the sheer traffic at the top. It appears to have prevented several people from summiting even though they are just a couple hundred yards away. That is one thing the masters probably didn't have to deal with.
People still die climbing the Everest. Just last year there was a team where at least two teammembers died, and one made it back with a severe case of frostbite who now has to live without his toes.
[edit]My bad, that was not Mt. Everest, that was an expedition on K2.[/edit]
