Taking a mountain’s measure

Mount Everest looms a little taller now, at least to mapmakers. Climbers and scientists this spring remeasured its peak at 29,035 feet—7 feet higher than its official elevation.

The mountaineers, working with Bradford Washburn of the Boston Museum of Science, carried receivers that pick up signals from Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. The men measured the height of the snow-covered peak but not of the rock below the snow.