The True Hardest Peaks: Ranked by Summit Failure Rate

Everest sees 66% summit success. Annapurna sits at under 20%.
One mountain stands 800 meters taller.
The other rejects climbers at more than three times the rate.

We ranked the world's most difficult mountains not by height, not by deaths, but by the one metric that matters most: failed summit percentage.

The results redefine everything you thought you knew about mountaineering difficulty.

From accessible peaks that kill more than remote giants, to technical nightmares where even the world's best climbers turn back, discover which mountains truly say no to human ambition.

What You'll Learn

Why the world's tallest mountain isn't the world's hardest
The shocking failure rates of mountains you've never heard of
How accessibility creates danger in unexpected ways
The difference between death rate and rejection rate
Which peaks reject 80%+ of climbers who attempt them
Why Annapurna is the ultimate test of human limits
The role of acclimatization, weather, and technical skill in summit failure
How commercialization changed Everest's difficulty
The mountains where even legends have failed
What failure rates reveal about true mountaineering challenge

Keywords

Mountain climbing difficulty
Summit failure rates
Annapurna
K2
Mount Everest
Mountaineering statistics
High-altitude climbing
Eight-thousanders
Hardest mountains to climb
Mountain climbing documentary
Adventure
Extreme sports