Timeline of climbing Mount Everest

Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at 8,849 metres (29,031.7 ft) above sea level. It is situated in the Himalayan range of Solukhumbu district (Province 1 in present days), Nepal.

Timeline

1921: Reconnaissance expedition

The first British expedition—organized and financed by the newly formed Mount Everest Committee—came under the leadership of Colonel Charles Howard-Bury, with Harold Raeburn as mountaineering leader, and included George Mallory, Guy Bullock, and Edward Oliver Wheeler. It was primarily for mapping and reconnaissance to discover whether a route to the summit could be found from the north side. As the health of Raeburn broke down, Mallory assumed responsibility for most of the exploration to the north and east of the mountain. He wrote to his wife: "We are about to walk off the map..." After five months of arduous climbing around the base of the mountain, Wheeler explored the hidden East Rongbuk Glacier and its route to the base of the North Col. On September 23, Mallory, Bullock, and Wheeler reached the North Col at before being forced back by strong winds. To Mallory's experienced eye, the route up the North ridge intersecting the NE Ridge and from there to the summit looked long, but feasible for a fresher party.

1922: First attempt

The second British expedition, under General Charles Granville Bruce and climbing leader Lt-Col. Edward Lisle Strutt, and containing Mallory, returned for a full-scale attempt on the mountain. On May 22, they climbed to 8,170 m (26,800 ft) on the North Ridge before retreating. They were the first humans to climb above on a mountain. The scope of this accomplishment is reflected by the fact that there are only 14 mountains on earth—the eight-thousanders—that reach and exceed 8,000 metres. At that moment, Mallory and Strutt had exceeded the summit of all but five other mountains on the planet.

A day later, George Finch and Geoffrey Bruce climbed up the North Ridge and Face to 8,320 m (27,300 ft) using oxygen for the first time. They climbed from the North Col to their highest camp at a phenomenal rate of 900 vert-ft/hr., and were the first climbers to sleep using oxygen.

1924: Mallory and Irvine

The third British expedition was led by Brigadier-General Charles Bruce, although becoming indisposed as a result of a flare-up of malaria, he relinquished leadership of the expedition to Lt-Col. Edward Norton, with Mallory promoted to climbing leader. Geoffrey Bruce, Howard Somervell, and John Noel returned from the previous year, along with newcomers Noel Odell and Andrew Irvine.

On June 2, Mallory and Bruce set off from the North Col (C-4) to make the first summit attempt. But extreme wind and cold, exhaustion, and the refusal of the porters to carry farther led Mallory to abandon the attempt and the next day the party returned to the North Col camp.

On June 4, Norton and Somervell attempted an oxygenless summit in perfect weather; throat trouble forced Somervell to abandon the climb at about 28,000 feet (8534 m) while Norton continued on alone, reaching a height of 8,573 m (28,126 ft), just 275 m (900 ft) short of the summit. Exhausted, he turned back and rejoined Somervell for the descent.

On June 8, Mallory and Irvine left their high camp (C-6 at 26,900-ft) to attempt the summit, using Irvine's modified oxygen apparatus. Odell, climbing in support below, wrote in his diary that at 26,000-ft he "saw Mallory & Irvine on the ridge, nearing base of final pyramid" climbing what he thought at the time was the very difficult Second Step at 12:50 p.m. It was the last time the two were seen alive; whether either of them reached the summit remains a question that has reverberated through the decades.

Back in England, the climbing establishment pressured Odell to change his view. After about six months he began to equivocate on which Step it was he saw them—from the Second to possibly the First. If the First, they had no chance of having reached the top; if the Second, they would have had about three hours of oxygen each and the summit was at least three hours away. It is conceivable (though unlikely) that Mallory might have taken Irvine's remaining oxygen and attempted to reach the summit.

A much more probable scenario is that the two reached First Step at about 10:30am. Mallory, seeing the treacherous nature of the traverse to the Second Step, went it alone. He reconnoitered the base of the climbing crux and decided it was not for him that day. He returned, picked up Irvine and the two decided to climb the First Step for a look around and to photograph the complex approach to the Second Step. It was when climbing this small promontory that they were spotted from below by Odell, who assumed that, since they were ascending, they must therefore have been on the Second Step, although it is now difficult to believe that the two would still be climbing from so low down at a time—five hours late—that was considered to be the turn-around hour.
Descending from the First Step, the two continued down when, at 2pm, they were hit by a severe snow squall. Roping up, Mallory, leading, may have slipped, pulling himself and Irvine down. The rope must have caught to inflict severe rope-jerk injury around Mallory's (and presumably, Irvine's) waist. Some researchers believe Irvine was able to stay high and struggle along the crest of the NE Ridge another 100 yards, only to succumb to cold and possible injuries of the fall. Others believe that the two became separated after the fall by the near white-out conditions of the squall. Based on his final location, it would seem that Mallory had continued straight down in search of his partner, while Irvine, also injured, might have continued diagonally down through the Yellow Band.

In 1979, climber Wang Hongbao of China revealed to the climbing leader of a Japanese expedition that in 1975, while taking a stroll from his bivouac he had discovered "an English dead" at 8100 m, roughly below the site of Irvine's ice axe discovered in 1933 near the NE Ridge. Wang was killed in an avalanche the next day before he could provide additional details.

In 1999, however, Conrad Anker of the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition found Mallory's body in the predicted search area near the old Chinese bivouac. There are opposing views within the mountaineering community as to whether the duo may have reached the summit 29 years before the first successful ascent by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953. Despite the existence of many theories, the success of Mallory and Irvine's summit assault must be viewed as remote at best.

The leading theory amongst those supporting the summit push has Mallory overcoming the difficulty of the sheer face of the Second Step by standing on Irvine's shoulders. Armed with Irvine's remaining 3/4-full oxygen tank he could conceivably have reached the summit late in the day, but this would have meant that Irvine would have had to descend by himself. However, rope-jerk injuries around Mallory's waist must mean the two were roped when they fell from below the First Step. 1960s Chinese Everest climber Xu Jing told Eric Simonson and Jochen Hemmleb in 2001 that he recalled spotting a corpse somewhere in the Yellow Band. Despite numerous searches of the north face, no sign of Irvine has turned up so far. One researcher claims to have finally spotted Irvine's body using microscopic examination of aerial photographs. This possible discovery set off a new round of search expeditions in 2010 and 2011.

1933: Ruttledge and Houston

A major expedition, under the leadership of Hugh Ruttledge, set out to climb with the great expectations that this time they would succeed. Oxygen was taken but not used because of the incorrect but lingering belief that it was of little benefit to a properly acclimated climber. After delays caused by poor weather and illness of team members, a much higher assault camp was placed than in 1924. On the first summit attempt, Lawrence Wager and Percy Wyn-Harris intended to follow the Northeastern ridge, but were unable to regain it, having bypassed (rather than climb over) the First Step, which they reached at 7:00am. The direct access to the Second Step from the First involves a treacherous traverse. Instead of taking it, they dropped down to follow the lower, easier traverse pioneered by Norton in 1924. Observing the Second Step from below it, Wyn-Harris declared it "unclimbable." Shortly after crossing the Great Couloir, they turned back for poor snow conditions and the lateness of the hour. A subsequent attempt by Eric Shipton and Frank Smythe followed the same route but Smythe, who pressed on alone when Shipton turned back because of illness, got no higher.

Lucy, Lady Houston, a British millionaire former showgirl, funded the Houston Everest Flight of 1933, which saw a formation of airplanes led by the Marquess of Clydesdale fly over the summit in an effort to photograph the unknown terrain.

1934

* Maurice Wilson, a British eccentric, stated his intention to summit Everest by himself. After only a few flying lessons, Wilson flew illegally from Britain to India, hiking through Darjeeling and into Tibet and with the help of Sherpa guides began his attempt. Wilson was not a climber and had no climbing equipment. He expected to transport himself to the summit with spiritual help and signal the monks at the Rongbuk monastery of his success with a shaving mirror. It is not believed he attained the North Col (7000 m). Maurice Wilson's body and his diary were found wrapped in a tent in 1935 by another British expedition. Although dumped into a crevasse below the North Col, his body has been rediscovered a number of times, including in 1960 by the Chinese expedition. Unlike Mallory's body, Wilson's has decayed because the temperature at the head of the East Rongbuk Glacier does rise above freezing.

1935

* Shipton led a small reconnaissance expedition during the monsoon season in preparation for the following year's expedition. The team climbed smaller peaks in the vicinity of Everest, and examined alternative possible routes on the mountain, including the West Ridge, and entry into the Western Cwm via Lho La. Both were dismissed as impractical, though Shipton did decide that an ascent from the Western Cwm would be possible if entry from the Nepalese side could be made. This would be the route by which the mountain would eventually be climbed in 1953. The expedition is also notable as the first visit to Everest for Tenzing Norgay, who was engaged as one of the 'porters'.

1936

* Ruttledge's second expedition achieved little because of a very early monsoon.

1938

* After taking part in the 1935 reconnaissance expedition, the prolific British mountaineering explorer Bill Tilman was appointed leader of the 1938 Everest expedition which attempted the ascent via the North Col but making an attempt from the west, from the main Rongbuk Glacier, as well as from the East Rongbuk. The North Col was reached from the west for the first time and the team went on to over without supplemental oxygen before being forced down by bad weather and sickness.

1947

* In March 1947, a Canadian engineer named Earl Denman, Norgay, and Ang Dawa Sherpa entered Tibet illegally to attempt the mountain; the attempt ended when a strong storm at pounded them. Denman admitted defeat and all three turned around and safely returned.

1950

* Nepal opened its borders to foreigners. Earlier expeditions had attempted the mountain from Tibet, via the north face. However, this access was closed to western expeditions in 1950, after the Chinese took control over Tibet.

In 1950, Bill Tilman and a small party which included Charles Houston, Oscar Houston, and Betsy Cowles undertook an exploratory expedition to Everest through Nepal along the route which has now become the standard approach to Everest from the south.

1951

* A British expedition led by Shipton, and including Edmund Hillary, Tom Bourdillon, W. H. Murray, and Mike Ward travelled into Nepal to survey a new route via the southern face. On September 30 at on Pumori, Shipton and Hillary saw the whole of the Western Cwm and concluded that ascent was possible from the top of the Cwm to the west face of Lhotse followed by a traverse to the South Col. They spent the next month attempting to reach the Western Cwm through the Khumbu Icefall but were stopped just short of success when an insurmountable crevasse (100–300 ft wide) blocked further progress near the top of the icefall. Murray wrote: "We were defeated".
* Klaus Becker-Larsen along with two Sherpas attempted the North col but turned back because of rockfall. He had no mountaineering experience and minimal equipment. First European to reach Nangpa La.

1952

* A Swiss expedition led by Edouard Wyss-Dunant attempted to climb via the South Col and the southeast ridge. After five days of effort, the team found a route through the icefall; they got past the crevasse that stymied the 1951 expedition by first descending 60 ft into it to a snow bridge and then used a precarious rope bridge to reach the other side. They were the first people to stand in the Western Cwm. On May 27, four climbers (Raymond Lambert, Tenzing Norgay, Rene Aubert, and Leon Flory) started from their tents on the South Col, two teams of Lambert/Tenzing and Aubert/Flory. Lambert/Tenzing reached Camp VII first at followed by Aubert/Flory. The tent was too small for both teams and Aubert/Flory decided to return to the South Col. The team had only undergone the ascent for reconnaissance and so only one tent and a bit of food had been taken. On May 28 in unsettled weather, the final assault team of Lambert and Tenzing turned back 150 metres short of the south summit.
* The Swiss attempted another expedition in the autumn of 1952 under the lead of Gabriel Chevalley. Besides Chevalley, the team included again Lambert and Tenzing from the spring expedition, as well as five new climbers. In late November, the team was stopped by bad weather after reaching an altitude of 8100 metres.
* Several Western climbing journals reported that the Soviet Union had launched an attempt from Tibet in October with the aim of reaching the summit before the following year's British expedition. The alleged expedition, apparently led by Pavel Datschnolian, was said to have been a disaster, resulting in the deaths of Datschnolian and five other men. Both Russian and Chinese authorities have consistently denied that such an attempt took place; no physical evidence has ever been found to confirm its existence, nor is there any record of a person named Pavel Datschnolian.

1953: Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay

* In 1953, a ninth British expedition, led by John Hunt and organized and financed by the Joint Himalayan Committee, returned to Nepal. Hunt planned for three assaults of two climbers each, including "a third and last attempt" if necessary after a delay of some days. After Wilfrid Noyce and Annullu had forced a passage to the South Col, two climbing pairs previously selected by Hunt attempted to reach the summit. The first pair, Charles Evans and Tom Bourdillon, using closed-circuit oxygen sets achieved the first ascent of the South Summit, within as little as of the final summit, but could go no further because of oxygen equipment problems and lack of time. Two days later, the second assault was made with the fittest and most determined climbing pair. Using conventional open-circuit oxygen sets, the summit was eventually reached at 11:30 a.m. local time on May 29, 1953, by the New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, a Nepali, climbing the South Col route. They paused at the summit to take photographs, Hillary saying after ten minutes taking photographs on the summit without his oxygen set on that he "was becoming rather clumsy-fingered and slow-moving". They buried a few sweets and a small cross in the snow before descending. Although they characterized it as the culmination of a team effort by the whole expedition, there was intense public speculation as to which of the pair had set foot on the summit first. In 1955 Tenzing disclosed in his autobiography that it was Hillary. News of the expedition's success reached London on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation. ''Times'' reporter James Morris sent a coded message by runner to Namche Bazaar, where a wireless transmitter was used to relay the message to London. The conquest of Everest was probably the last major news item to be delivered to the world by runner. Returning to Kathmandu a few days later, Hillary and Hunt discovered that they had been knighted for their efforts.

1954 and 1955: French and Swiss Expeditions (proposed)

* The French had permission for a 1954 Everest expedition if the 1953 British expedition did not reach the summit, and the Swiss had permission for a 1955 or 1956 Everest expedition.

1956: Swiss Expedition

* The Swiss expedition of 1956 put the next four climbers on the top of Everest. The expedition made the first ascent of Lhotse (fourth highest) when Ernst Reiss and Fritz Luchsinger reached the top of Lhotse on May 18. The expedition set up camp 6 on the South Col and camp 7 at . On May 23, Ernst Schmied and Jürg Marmet reached the summit of Everest followed by Dölf Reist and Hansruedi von Gunten on May 24.

1960: The North Ridge

* On May 25, a Chinese team consisting of Wang Fuzhou, Qu Yinhua, and a Tibetan, Gongbu (Konbu), claimed to have reached the summit via the North Ridge. Owing to the lack of photographic evidence, the Chinese claim was discounted in mountaineering circles. However, subsequent research and interviews have persuaded many experts that the Chinese did indeed climb Everest from the north in 1960.

1962

* Woodrow Wilson Sayre and three colleagues made an illegal incursion into China from Nepal and reached about on the North Ridge before turning back from exhaustion. The attempt was documented in a book by Sayre entitled ''Four Against Everest.''

1963

* First ascent by an American: Jim Whittaker, accompanied by Nawang Gombu Sherpa who, in 1965, became the first man to climb Everest twice; first ascent via the Hornbein Couloir on May 22 by Americans Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld. Hornbein and Unsoeld descended by the South Col, making the ascent the first traverse of Everest.

1965

* On May 20, a 21-man Indian expedition, led by Lieutenant Commander M.S. Kohli Lieutenant Commander Captain M S Kohli, succeeded in putting nine men on the summit. Nawang Gombu became the first person to reach the summit twice, firstly with an American expedition in 1963.

1969

* Two reconnaissance expeditions were undertaken in preparation for the summit expedition of 1970. Their primary objective was to scout the yet unclimbed southwestern face. On October 31, after establishing several camps on the southwestern face, a maximum elevation of was reached.

1970

* On May 6, Yuichiro Miura skied from the South Col of Everest. The documentary of his feat '' The Man Who Skied Down Everest'' was the first sports film to win an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. (see 2003 and 2008)
* A separate Japanese team attempted but failed to establish a new summit route along the Southwest Face. Six Sherpa members of the team were killed in an avalanche, a porter was killed by a serac icefall, and climber Kiyoshi Narita died from a heart attack.

1971

* International expedition
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1972

* European Expedition
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1973

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* October 26 – First post-monsoon ascent by Hisahi Ishiguro and Yasuo Kato.

1974

* 1974 Tximist expedition
* 1974 French Mount Everest expedition (September, post-monsoon)

1975

* On May 16, Junko Tabei of Japan became the first woman on the summit. Tabei was one of seven Japanese climbers injured in an avalanche at Camp II on May 4. Tabei and her climbing partner, Sherpa Ang Tshering I, were the 38th/39th unique individuals to complete the ascent. In 1992, Tabei became the first woman to complete the Seven Summits.
* On May 27, nine members from a Chinese team reached the summit. The team fixed a ladder at the Second Step, the major obstacle on the North Ridge route, which continued to be in use until 2008. Phanthog became the first woman to ascend from the Tibetan side. In the expedition, the summit's altitude was measured as 8848.13 metres.
* 1975 British Mount Everest Southwest Face expedition - On September 24, a British expedition led by Chris Bonington achieved the first ascent of the Southwest Face. Summiteers Doug Scott and Dougal Haston made the first ascent by British citizens. A band of cliffs on the southwest face, known as the Rock Band, had defeated five previous expeditions between 1969 and 1973. On September 20, Nick Estcourt and Paul Braithwaite achieved the first ascent of the Rock Band. The summit was reached by two teams: first on September 24 by Scott and Haston, who survived the highest ever bivouac when they were benighted on the South Summit during their descent. On September 26 four more climbers attempted a second ascent. Peter Boardman and Sirdar Pertemba Sherpa were successful, but BBC
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