Mount Everest is situated in the Himalayan Mountains, on the border between Nepal and Tibet. It is the tallest mountain in the world, standing roughly 29,029 feet above sea level. Every year, Everest gets taller by about half an inch. This is due to movements in the Earth's crust and two tectonic plates, deep beneath the Earth's surface, pushing together.

This week on Car Talk, a curious conundrum of car climbs. Mara in New York is having a marital spat over the best way to reach the top of a hill: straight up the steep climb, or a leisurely drive through the meadows? She wants to know which way uses the least amount of gas, and Tom and Ray come to believe that Mara's lost some of her marbles living at high altitude. Meanwhile, Bill's got two teens itching to get behind the wheel, and three cars up on blocks!

This gripping story of courage, achievement, and heartbreaking loss tells of Bonington's Boys, a band of climbers who reinvented mountaineering during the three decades after Everest's first ascent. Chris Bonington's inner circle included a dozen of the most renowned climbers, who took increasingly terrible risks on now legendary expeditions to the world's most fearsome peaks, and paid an enormous price. Most of them died in the mountains, leaving behind the hardest question of all: was it worth it?

In this adventure, Chris and Amy learn the importance of teamwork and determination through the epic story of Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, the first people to reach the top of Mt. Everst!

Earlier this year, two mountain climbers, Joe Hughes and Liz Pace, attempted to summit Mount Everest. During their journey, they filed regular audio dispatches to Audible which kept us up to date on their journey from the Monkey Temple in Kathmandu to the Everest third base camp. Now, Joe and Liz have returned to Audible's studio for a follow up discussion about their journey and what their lives have been like since their return.

It's been a while since we've heard from Joe Hughes and today you'll hear why. Shortly after he sent his last dispatch ("Patience"), Joe became very ill with HAPE or High Altitude Pulmonary Edema. It happened after he and his guide JJ has established the 3rd camp. They were making their way down to camp two, when Joe noticed he was having a harder, and harder time breathing. They pressed on, trying to make it down to the lower altitude of base camp. On the way, Joe passed out due to extreme lack of oxygen.

For for days, Joe waited out bad weather in the Khumbu Icefall. There was an avalanche in the icefield, and there was just now way around it. Joe and his guide, JJ, played cards and listened to music. Joe was very anxious to keep moving. Finally, when they got a good weather window, they scrambled from base camp (17,500ft) to camp one (19,500ft). And, then, when Joe didn't think he could push himself any farther, they made it to camp two.

Liz Pace has arrived safe and sound at home in New Jersey. Now, Joe is climbing with his guide, JJ (Jeff Justman). In this dispatch, Joe talks about a rough time he had climbing through the Khumbu Icefall. Here, the glaciers are as big as trucks, and the climb between base camp (17,500 ft) and camp one (19,200 ft) is treacherous. After one of their first trips to establish camp one, Joe realized he was short on water. He became very dehydrated and struggled to make it back to base camp.

Joe reports some sad news from Everest in today's dispatch. Due to a family emergency, Liz has had to leave the mountain. A helicopter came to take her off the mountain today. She'll go back to Kathmandu and then catch a plane back to the United States. Joe wanted to go with Liz, but she encouraged him to stay and pursue this dream that they have been training for and dreaming about for so long. For the school children who are listening, Joe wants you to write about the tough decisions they had to make.

One of the traditions of climbing Everest is the puja blessings at base camp. This is a Buddhist ceremony to ask the gods for protection and permission to climb. Sherpas will not climb the mountain without this blessing. Liz, Joe, and their sherpas had their puja blessing today, complete with the traditional incense, chang (a rice beer), and sampa (roasted barley).They and all of their hiking implements, as well as the many gifts they are taking to the summit, received the blessing.