One of the youngest women to summit Mount Everest explains the 'unwritten rule' of leaving corpses on the mountain

Almost every year since records began more than a century ago, Mount Everest has claimed the lives of climbers daring to tackle the world's tallest mountain.

While records vary on just how many people have died attempting to summit the 29,032ft (8,849m) peak, which is roughly 20 times the height of the Empire State Building, the Himalayan database has it at 335, while Wikipedia has recorded 341.

There is believed to be around 200 corpses that remain on the mountainside - despite recent efforts by the Nepalese government bidding to clean-up Everest, which included removing frozen bodies of climbers.

In May 2010, Bonita Norris became the youngest British woman to summit Mount Everest (Instagram/bonitanorris)

But while preparing to scale a mountain of such magnitude, you don't necessarily prepare yourself for the challenge of coming across those that have fallen victim to the climb - which UK adventurer Bonita Norris discovered.

In 2010, at the age of 22 years and seven months, Norris became the youngest British woman to reach the top of Mount Everest - a claim she held for two years before 19-year-old Leanna Shuttleworth summited it.

Even though she no longer holds the record, her story is incredible - having never shown an interest in climbing until less than two years before flying to Nepal.

"I was 20 years old, and one evening, I went to a lecture about climbing, and I listened as two mountaineers basically described how they got to the top of Everest," the now-37-year-old told UNILAD.

"When they got to the top they looked down and they could see the curvature of the earth beneath them, and I was sold, like I knew at that moment I was going to climb that mountain.

"I turned my life upside down. Started climbing, and two years later, I was on the summit of Everest."

Norris was just 22-years-old when she tackled Mount Everest (Instagram/bonitanorris)

Her preparations saw her travel to North Wales to tackle Mount Snowdon, which is dwarfed in comparison to Everest, at just 3,560ft (1,085m).

Having made it to the top of the Himalayan mountain, she actually likened what she saw to Wales, there was no curvature of the Earth - the reason she set out on the challenge as she summited on a cloudy day.

Since then, the mom-of-two has summited a number of mountains, and she spoke of the unwritten rule, or unspoken code as she called it, that mountaineers have between themselves.

"While mountaineering, you do occasionally, tragically, come across people who lost their lives on the mountain, and it's something that I have seen very much up close on multiple occasions, on multiple different mountains," she told UNILAD.

"Because, quite simply, when you are doing what I do, which is going up to the into the death zone, it's incredibly difficult to recover someone who's up there, because you're just putting more people's lives at risk."

Climbers who ascend higher than 26,000ft enter something known as the 'death zone', where there is so little oxygen that your body struggles to keep up and cells can quickly deteriorate, leading to a higher risk of heart attack, stroke, or sickness.

Jeremy Windsor, a doctor who climbed Everest in 2007, told Everest blogger, Mark Horrell, that the climbers of the death zone would be surviving on just one-quarter of the oxygen you would need at sea level.

Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the world at 29,032ft (Getty stock)

"And as mountaineers, we do sort of have an unspoken code that you don't want to risk anyone else's life. So I have, I have seen it," Norris added.

She continued: "When you wake up every morning on the mountain, everything is so heightened - every day is, is life and death. When you do see the sad side of mountaineering, it really makes you aware of what you're doing. It gives you that presence of mind.

"It makes you sort of, you know, recalibrate your expectations of what you want to achieve. The most important thing is actually not the top, it's coming home safe to my family. So, in some ways it's a great reminder of what's important when we're there.

"At the same time, it's not something that I like to remember really, because it's sad."

Norris' comments come as research carried out by Dacia found that we lose our sense of adventure from the age of 36 due to physical and mental fatigue, financial pressure, being stuck in their routine and increased responsibilities.

Norris explained what it was like to come across fatalities on the mountainside (Dacia)

The car manufacturer is now calling on the world to try an everyday adventure in 2025.

Speaking about the stats that revealed the age we typically lose our sense of adventure, Norris said: "For Gen Z, it's like the age of 13, they're saying they're [survey respondents] losing their sense of adventure. So my advice would be, start small."

Adding: "There's a whole adventure guide on Dacia's website just encouraging people to do small everyday, like really easy, completely free adventures - whether that's going stargazing one night or building a den in the garden. You know, there's just really simple stuff."

To re-ignite your sense of adventure, car brand Dacia has launched an Everyday Adventure Guide, free via www.dacia.co.uk/everyday-adventure.