1952 British Cho Oyu expedition

[1] The expedition members were Eric Shipton, Charles Evans, Tom Bourdillon, Ray Colledge, Alfred Gregory and Griffith Pugh (UK); from NZ Ed Hillary, George Lowe and Earle Riddiford, and from Canada Campbell Secord[2] (Michael Ward was not available as he was completing his national military service and sitting a surgery examination[3]).

[13] Worried about being spotted by Chinese troops across the border, Shipton was unwilling to mount a full-scale attempt from Tibet where the climbing seemed easier or to establish a base (or at least one camp) on the Tibetan side (as proposed by Hillary, Lowe, Riddiford, and Secord).

Shipton had been a British consul in Kashgar and then Kunming, China until he was expelled by the new government, and wanted to avoid any clashes with Chinese troops on the Tibetan side in case they were denounced as spies, with the possibility of "derailing" the 1953 expedition.

[14] The exploratory party was led by Ed Hillary, but was hampered by a dangerous ice cliff and a stretched supply chain, which had to turn back at 22,400 feet (6,800 m).

Hillary and Lowe "like a couple of naughty schoolboys" went deep into Chinese territory, down to Rongbuk, and round to the old prewar Camp III beneath the North Col. [17] Crossing the icefalls took six days to cover 6.5 kilometres (4.0 mi) but were said Lowe "the most exciting, exacting and satisfying mountaineering that we had undertaken" and done "with less than I would have had for a weekend tramp in New Zealand" Going into the Barun Glacier between Everest and Makalu and seeing Tibet from the head completed a circuit of Everest over its highest passes.

[19] Hillary and Lowe "rafted" down the Arun River on two air-mattresses joined together; just avoiding a massive whirlpool and cateract by hanging onto a rock and then to a rescue rope lowered by Shipton.

Several members thought Shipton an unsuitable "big party" leader for 1953: Pugh, Riddiford, Secord;[26] and also Hillary privately in his diary although he was "guarded" in public comments.

[27] On October 19, 1954, a small Austrian expedition led by Herbert Tichy - with the Tyrolean Sepp Jöchler and the Sherpa Pasang Dawa Lama - succeeded in climbing the mountain for the first time, without additional oxygen and with only very few equipment (960 kg).