Nature lovers can journey to the summit of the majestic Mt. Everest right from the comfort of home thanks to a new, interactive HTML5 site called Everest: Rivers of Ice.

The site(Opens in a new window) went live today to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the first successful Everest summit, made by New Zealand adventurer Sir Edmund Hillary. Created by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer team and the developers at Pixel Lab in partnership with renowned climber David Breashears and his nonprofit GlacierWorks, the site features never-before-seen imagery, videos, and comparison photos from Breashears’s multiple summits.

Everest: Rivers of Ice gives armchair travelers an all-access pass to the tallest mountain in the world, and shows how glacial changes have affected the greater Himalayan region. It was built entirely in HTML5, and is especially suited for touch-based devices, letting you get hands on with the mountain.

You can tap your screen to soar across panoramic views of Mt. Everest’s peaks and valleys, or get a closer look by zooming into images of the region. The site also introduces a new gesture called “draw and zoom,” which lets you explore an area by circling it with your finger.

Over the past seven years, GlacierWorks has undertaken 14 expeditions to the Greater Himalaya to document changes in the region’s glaciers.

“The glaciers of the Greater Himalaya contribute to the water supply of billions of people; what happens in this region has a global impact,” Breashears said in a statement. “I am very excited to launch this project and give millions of people the opportunity to understand these important changes and also to explore Everest and the Himalaya.”

The site also showcases “the next generation of storytelling” that’s possible on the Web today, IE Director Roger Capriotti, wrote in a blog post(Opens in a new window) Wednesday. Storytelling has traditionally been a linear experience with a defined beginning and end. Everest: Rivers of Ice, however, is nonlinear, letting you view video content and explore massive, gigapixel images at your own pace.

This is just the latest effort Microsoft has taken on recently to bring the Web forward with HTML5. The computing giant has also tackled HTML5-enhanced video games, music videos and shopping catalogs.

“Today’s launch is an exciting moment showcasing what is possible when cutting edge content from an explorer like David is combined with the power, reach and richness of the modern Web,” Capriotti said.

For more on Everest: Rivers of Ice, check out the site(Opens in a new window) and the video below. Breashears will also be doing a Reddit “Ask me Anything” at 2 p.m. EST Wednesday.