Timeline of climbing Mount Everest

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Main article: Mount Everest

[edit] Timeline

[edit] 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, Brian Donahue, Guy Bullock and Edward Oliver Wheeler. It was primarily for mapping and reconnaissance to discover whether a route to the summit of Mount Everest could be found from the north (Tibetan) side. As the health of Raeburn broke down, Mallory assumed responsibility for most of the exploration to the north and east of the mountain, and became the first human to put foot on the Everest massif. They reached the North Col of Everest at 7,066 m (23,000 ft) before being forced back. Still to Mallory's experienced eye, the route ahead from there to the summit looked long, but feasible for a fresher party.

[edit] 1922: First attempt

The second British expedition, under General Charles Granville Bruce and climbing leader Lt-Col. Edward Lisle Strutt, and containing George Mallory, returned for a full-scale attempt on the mountain. On May 22nd, they climbed to 8,170 m (26,800 ft) on the North Ridge before retreating. 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. On June 7, George Mallory led a third attempt but set off an avalanche, killing seven Sherpa climbers, these becoming the first reported deaths on Everest.

[edit] 1924: Mallory and Irvine

The third British expedition were again led by Charles Granville Bruce, who became indisposed as a result of a flare-up of malaria, relinquishing leadership of the expedition to Lt. Col Edward Norton, with George 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 4, Norton and Somervell attempted an oxygenless summit; Somervell was forced to abandon the climb at about 28,000 feet while Norton continued on alone, reaching a height of 8,573 m (28,126 ft), just 275 m (900 ft) short of the summit.

On June 8, Mallory and Irvine attempted the summit, this time using Irvine's modified oxygen apparatus. It was a climb from which they never returned. 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. 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 to reach the top; if the Second, they would have had about one hour of oxygen each and the summit was about three hours away. It is conceivable (though unlikely) that Mallory would then have taken Irvine's remaining oxygen and attempted to reach the top.

In 1979 climber Wang Hong-bao of China revealed to the Japanese Climbing Leader that in 1975 he had discovered "an English dead" at 8100m, roughly below the site of Irvine's ice ax 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, the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition found Mallory's body in the predicted search area near the old Chinese camp. Controversy has raged in the mountaineering community as to whether the duo may have summited 29 years before the first confirmed ascent (and of course, safe descent) of Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953. The general consensus among climbers has been that they did not. Though there is no physical evidence of either man above the Second Step, rampant speculation continues that if Mallory had surmounted the Second Step, he could possibly have summited, as there are no difficult technical climbs further up. The leading theory amongst those supporting the summit theory has Mallory overcoming the difficulty of the sheer face of the Second Step by standing on Irvine's shoulders. Armed with Irvine's spare oxygen tanks he could conceivably have summited late in the day, but this meant Irvine would have had to descend by himself. However, rope-jerk injuries around Mallory's waist strongly suggest the two were roped when they fell. 1960's Chinese Everest climber Xu Jing told ERic Simonson and Joch Hemmleb in 2001 that he recalled spotting a corpse in the Yellow Band at roughly 8250m. Despite numerous searches of the North Face, no sign of Irvine has turned up.

A summary of the most recent scenario can be found at http://www.velocitypress.com/mallory_irvine.shtml, along with instructions for developing the Kodak film, should either of the two cameras be found the climbers were known to have taken.

[edit] 1933

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 due to the incorrect but lingering belief that it was of little benefit to a properly acclimatised climber. After delays caused by poor weather and illness of team members, a much higher assault camp was placed. On the first summit attempt, Lawrence Wager and Percy Wyn-Harris intended to follow the North-East ridge, but were unable to regain it, having dropped down to bypass (rather than climb over) the First Step. They were thus forced to follow the lower traverse pioneered by Norton in 1924. Observing the Second Step from below it, Harris declared it "unclimbable." They turned back shortly after crossing the Great Couloir due to poor snow conditions and the lateness of the hour. A subsequent attempt by Eric Shipton and Frank Smythe followed the same route but got no higher.^[1]

Lady Houston, a British millionaire ex-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 deploy the British Union Jack flag at the top.

[edit] 1934

Maurice Wilson, a British eccentric, stated his intention to summit Everest by himself. Extraordinarily, after only a few flying lessons, Wilson flew illegally from Britain to India, hiking through Darjeeling and into Tibet and with the help of a couple 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 Ronbuk monastery of his success with a shaving mirror. It is not believed he attained the North Col (7000m). Maurice Wilson's body and his diary were found wrapped in a tent one year later, in 1935, by another British expedition.

[edit] 1935

Eric Shipton leads 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 worked as a porter.^[2]

[edit] 1936

Ruttledge's second expedition.

[edit] 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 west ridge. They reached over 27,000 ft (8,200 m) without supplemental oxygen before being forced down due to bad weather and sickness.

[edit] 1947

In March 1947, a Canadian engineer named Earl Denman, Tenzing Norgay & Ang Dawa Sherpa entered Tibet illegally to attempt the mountain; the attempt ended when a strong storm at 22,000 ft pounded them. Denman admitted defeat and all three turned around and safely returned.

[edit] 1950

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

[edit] 1951

A British expedition led by Eric Shipton and including Edmund Hillary, travelled into Nepal to survey a new route via the southern face. First ascent of the Ice Fall.

[edit] 1952

A Swiss expedition attempted to climb via the southern face, but the assault team of Raymond Lambert and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay turned back 200 meters short of the summit. The Swiss attempted another expedition in the autumn of 1952; this time a team including Lambert and Tenzing turned back at an earlier stage in the climb.
Late in 1952, The Times and several Western climbing journals reported that the Soviet Union had launched an attempt from Tibet in October of that year, with the aim of reaching the summit before the following year's British expedition. The alleged expedition, apparently lead 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, and no physical evidence has ever been found to confirm its existence.^[3]

[edit] 1953: Tenzing and Hillary

In 1953, a ninth British expedition, led by John Hunt, and organized and financed by the Joint Himalayan Committee, returned to Nepal. Hunt selected two climbing pairs to attempt to reach the summit. The first pair, Evans & Bourdillon, using closed-circuit oxygen[1], achieved the first ascent of the South Summit, but went no further due to oxygen equipment problems and lack of time.^[4] Two days later, the expedition made its second and final assault on the summit with its fittest and most determined climbing pair. Using conventional open-circuit oxygen, the summit was eventually reached at 11:30 a.m. local time on May 29, 1953 by the New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay from Nepal climbing the South Col Route. At the time, both acknowledged it as a team effort by the whole expedition, but Tenzing revealed a few years later that Hillary had put his foot on the summit first. They paused at the summit to take photographs and buried a few sweets and a small cross in the snow before descending. News of the expedition's success reached London on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation. Returning to Kathmandu a few days later, Hillary and Hunt discovered that they had been promptly knighted for their effort.

[edit] 1960: The North Ridge

On May 25, a Chinese team consisting of Wang Fuzhou, Qu Yinhua and a Tibetan, Gingbu (Konbu) claimed to have made the first summit via the North Ridge. The claim is without substantiation. The Chinese claimed to have reached the summit at night. The highest photograph was taken somewhere above the Second Step, beyond which there are no technically challenging climbs, but nowhere near the summit. It is generally accepted that the climb was successful, however.

[edit] 1962

Woodrow Wilson Sayer and 3 colleagues made an illegal incursion into China from Nepal and reached about 25,000-ft on the North Ridge of Mt. Everest, before turning back from exhaustion. The ensuing book "Four Against Everest" has become a classic exemplar of small expeditions with close friends.

[edit] 1963

First ascent by an American: Jim Whittaker; first ascent of the West Ridge on May 22 by Americans Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld.
First summit ridge traverse by a United States expedition, starting from the west and descending over the south-west.

[edit] 1965

On May 20, Nawang Gombu became the first person to reach the summit of Everest twice, once with American and then with Indian expedition.
21-man Indian expedition, led by Lieutenant Commander M.S. Kohli, succeeded in putting nine men on the summit of Everest. Nawang Gombu, belonged to the same expedition.

[edit] 1975

On May 16, Junko Tabei of Japan became the first woman on the crest.
On May 27, a Tibetan woman, Phantog, became the first woman to reach the summit from the Tibetan side.
On September 24, first ascent of the South West Face by a British expedition led by Chris Bonington. Also first ascent of Everest by a British citizen.^[5] The SW Face had defeated five previous expeditions between 1969 and 1973 due to a band of cliffs known as the Rock Band. On September 20, Nick Estcourt & Paul Braithwaite achieved the first ascent of the Rock Band. The summit was reached by two teams: first on September 24 by Doug Scott & Dougal Haston, who survived the highest ever bivouac on the South Summit when they were benighted during their descent. On September 26 four more climbers attempted a second ascent. Peter Boardman & Sirdar Pertemba Sherpa were successful, but BBC cameraman Mick Burke, climbing solo after Martin Boysen turned back, failed to return from the summit.^[6]

[edit] 1978

Reinhold Messner (Italy) and Peter Habeler (Austria) reached the summit without oxygen tanks.^[7]

[edit] 1979

Yugoslav West Ridge expedition, New route on West Ridge. Summit reached by two teams made up by Andrej Stremfelj and Nejc Zaplotnik (May 13th, 1979), and then two days later by Stipe Bozic, Stane Belak and Ang Phu. Stane Belak, Ang Phu and Stipe Bozic bivouac at 8300 meters. The next day, Ang Phu tragically fell on the way down and died.

[edit] 1980

First winter ascent by a team from Poland (Leszek Cichy, Krzysztof Wielicki) on an expedition led by Andrzej Zawada.
New climbing path by a team from Poland (Andrzej Czok and Jerzy Kukuczka) by southern face.
Reinhold Messner (Italy), first man to climb Everest alone and without oxygen tanks.^[7]

[edit] 1982

The first (acknowledged) Soviet expedition climbed a new route on the South West Face, to the left of the Central Gully.^[8] A total of eleven climbers reached the summit, and the route was recognised as technically the hardest route yet climbed on Everest.^[9]

[edit] 1983

Lou Reichardt, Kim Momb, and Carlos Buhler became the first to summit the East Face.

[edit] 1984

Bachendri Pal reached the summit of Everest on May 23 1984 via the standard south east ridge route. She was the first woman from India to reach the summit.

[edit] 1988

Jean-Marc Boivin of France starts with a paraglider from the mountaintop.
Marc Batard completed the southeast route ascent without supplementary oxygen in the record time of 22h 30min from Base Camp to summit.^[10]
On May 5, joint team of China, Japan and Nepal reached the top from both the north and the south simultaneously and crossed over to descent from the opposite sides. This event was broadcast live worldwide.^[11]

[edit] 1989

Another Yugoslav expedition. South East Ridge. Stipe Bozic, Viki Groselj, Dimitar Ilijevski, and Sherpas Sonam and Agiva all reached the summit of the Everest. Dimitar Ilijevski failed to return.

[edit] 1990

First son of a summiter reached the summit of Everest: Peter Hillary

[edit] 1993

With ninety alpinists in the autumn alone, the commercial climbing of Everest started.
Ramon Blanco of Spain became the oldest person to reach the summit aged 60 years, 160 days.

[edit] 1995

Alison Hargreaves became the first woman to climb Everest alone and without oxygen tanks.
Tommy Heinrich became the first person from Argentina to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Along with Brad Bull from the USA, Apa Sherpa, Nima Rita, Arita and Lobsang Jangbu Sherpa, from Nepal they were the only six people to reach the summit of Mt. Everest through the South Col route during the entire year.
Constantin Lăcătuşu became the first Romanian to reach the summit.

[edit] 1996: Disaster Year

During the 1996 climbing season, fifteen people died trying to reach the summit, making it the deadliest single year in Everest history. That year, on May 10 a storm stranded several climbers between the summit and the safety of Camp IV, killing five on the south side (Rob Hall, Scott Fischer, Yasuko Namba, Doug Hansen and guide Andy Harris) and three Indian (Ladakhi) climbers on the north (Tsewang Paljor, Dorje Morup, Tsewang Smanla). Hall and Fischer were both highly experienced climbers who were leading paid expeditions to the summit. The disaster gained wide publicity and raised questions about the commercialisation of Everest.

Journalist Jon Krakauer, on assignment from Outside magazine, was also in Hall's party, and afterwards published the bestseller Into Thin Air which related his experience. Anatoli Boukreev, a guide who felt impugned by Krakauer's book, co-authored a rebuttal book called The Climb. The dispute sparked a large debate within the climbing community. In May 2004, Kent Moore, a physicist, and John L. Semple, a surgeon, both researchers from the University of Toronto, told New Scientist magazine that an analysis of weather conditions on that day suggested that freak weather caused oxygen levels to plunge approximately 14%.^[12]^[13]

During the same season, climber and filmmaker David Breashears and his team filmed the IMAX feature Everest on the mountain (some climbing scenes were later recreated for the film in British Columbia, Canada). The 70 mm IMAX camera was specially modified to be lightweight enough to carry up the mountain, and to function in the extreme cold with the use of particular greases on the mechanical parts, plastic bearings and special batteries. Production was halted as Breashears and his team assisted the survivors of the May 10 disaster, but the team eventually reached the top on May 23 and filmed the first large format footage of the summit. On Breashears' team was Jamling Tenzing Norgay, the son of Tenzing Norgay, following in his father's footsteps for the first time. Also on his team was Ed Viesturs of Seattle, WA, who summited without the use of supplemental oxygen, and Araceli Seqarra, who became the first woman from Spain to summit Everest.

The storm's impact on climbers on the mountain's other side, the North Ridge, where several climbers also died, was detailed in a first hand account by British filmmaker and writer Matt Dickinson in his book The Other Side of Everest.

Hans Kammerlander (Italy) climbed the mountain from the north side in the record ascent time of 17 hours from ABC to the summit. He climbed alone and without supplementary oxygen and skied down from 7800m.^[10]

Göran Kropp of Sweden became the first person to ride his bicycle all the way from his home in Sweden to the mountain, scale it alone without the use of oxygen tanks, and bicycle all the way back.

[edit] 1999

Sherpa Babu Chiri Sherpa of Nepal stayed for 21 hours on the mountaintop.
Cathy O'Dowd became first woman to reach summit from northern and southern routes.
Mohammad Oraz became the first Iranian climber to conquer Mount Everest.
Conrad Anker discovered the body of George Mallory^[14] at 8160m on the North Face, below the site of an ice ax found on the NE Ridge by Wyn Harris in 1933.

[edit] 2000

On May 17 Nazir Sabir from Pakistan became the first Pakistani to climb Everest. He climbed from the Nepali side at 7:32 a.m local time.
On October 7 Davo Karničar from Slovenia accomplished an uninterrupted ski descent from the top to the base camp in five hours.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] 2001

On May 23, at the age of 16 years and 14 days old, Temba Tsheri Sherpa became the youngest person to reach the summit of Everest.

On May 24 22 year old Marco Siffredi of France made snowboarding history and Mt. Everest history by becoming the first person to ever descend Mt. Everest on a snowboard. [2]

On May 25, 32 year old Erik Weihenmayer, of Boulder, Colorado, became the first blind person to reach the summit.

On the same day 64 year old Sherman Bull, of New Canaan, Connecticut, becomes the oldest person to reach the summit.

Also on the same day, 19 people made it to the summit, surpassing the previous record of 10 people. Everyone survived.

[edit] 2003 - 50th Anniversary

Dick Bass - the first person to climb the seven summits, and who first stood atop Everest in 1985 at 55 years old (making him the oldest person at that time to do so) returned to attempt to reclaim his title at age 73, but he made it to ABC only. Dick's team mates included the renowned American climbers Jim Wickwire and John Roskelley.

Outdoor Life Network Expendition - OLN staged a high profile survivor style show where the winners got the chance to climb Everest. Conrad Anker and David Breashears were commentators on this expedition.

Adventure Peaks Expedition - Walid Abuhaidar and Philip James attempted to become the youngest American and British climbers to climb the North Face, but their expeditions were cut short when Conan Harrod, one of their team mates, fell and broke his leg on the summit ridge at a height of approximately 8,600 m. The ensuing rescue was claimed to be the highest altitude rescue. A documentary is currently being produced on this expedition.

Yuichiro Miura became the oldest person to reach the summit of Everest at age 70 years and 222 days(on May 22).

Twenty-five year old Nepalese Sherpa, Pemba Dorjie, made the world's fastest ascent in 12 hours 45 minutes on May 23.

Only three days later, Sherpa Lakpa Gelu broke this record with 10 hours 56 minutes. After a short dispute with Dorjie, the tourism ministry confirmed Gelu's record in July [3].

Zed Al Refai became the First Arab to reach on the summit of Everest.

[edit] 2004

Pemba Dorjie returned to break Sherpa Lakpa Gelu's record, this time ascending the mountain in 8 hours 10 minutes on May 21 [4].

On May 16, Nawang Sherpa became the first person to climb Mount Everest with a prosthetic leg. He is also the first amputee to reach the summit of Mount Everest on his first attempt. In 2004 he was invited to climb Mount Everest with his friend Tom McMillan of the San Francisco area as part of the 2004 Friendship Beyond Borders Expedition.

[edit] 2005

Chinese government-sponsored survey team with 24 members reached the peak on May 22 to anchor surveying equipment for the remeasurement of summit height. GPS, ground radar equipment, as well as traditional surveying methods were used to assess snow and ice thickness for the new measurement, and to compare it with historical data [5]. However, the equipment failed on January 19, 2006 due to faulty wiring.

On May 14, a Eurocopter helicopter flew and landed on summit for the first time, repeating the feat the next day. This record has been confirmed by Fédération Aéronautique Internationale FAI [6].
Moni Mulepati and Pemba Dorjee (not Pemba Dorjie, the Everest speed record holder) got married on top of the mountain. Pemba Dorjee was a high altitude porter for the 2004 EVEREST: Friendship Beyond Borders Expedition[7], and first reached the summit of Mount Everest on May 16, 2004 with that team, which included amputee/Everest record-holder Nawang Sherpa and his friend Tom McMillan of California.

[edit] 2006

On May 15, the New Zealander Mark Inglis became the first person ever to summit with two artificial legs.

On May 16, the Norwegian Tormod Granheim became the first person ever to ski the North Face. Granheim and Tomas Olsson skied the Norton Couloir from the summit to the North Col. During the descent Olsson fell an estimated 1700 metres to his death.^{[citation needed]}

On May 17, the 70-year old Japanese man Takao Arayama reached the peak, thus becoming the oldest man to summit Everest, breaking by three days the previous world record of 70 years, seven months and 13 days.

Also on 19 May, Appa Sherpa of Thame summited for the 16th time, breaking the world record that he also held.

[edit] 2007

On May 16, Appa Sherpa climbed Everest for the 17th time, breaking his own record.
On May 22, Katsusuke Yanagisawa became the oldest person to reach the summit. He was aged 71 years and 61 days at that time.^[15]

On May 16, Carrie Gibson celebrates the centenary of Scouting by becoming the fifth Scottish woman to summit, and the first to summit as part of the Scouts Seven Summits Project

On 24 May, Kenton Cool stood on the summit of Everest for the second time in a week.

On 25 May, Christian Stangl completed the ascent over the northeast ridge route from ABC to the summit in the new record time of 16h 42min. He climbed alone and without supplementary oxygen.^[10]

[edit] Timeline of regional, national, and ethnic records