Timeline of Mount Everest expeditions
Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at 8,849 metres (29,031.7 ft) above sea level.
[1] The first British expedition[2]—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.
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 7,020 metres (23,030 ft) before being forced back by strong winds.
[3] 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
One 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.
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.
[5] A major expedition, under the leadership of Hugh Ruttledge, set out to climb with the great expectations that this time they would succeed.
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 7:00 am.
Shortly after crossing the Great Couloir, they turned back for poor snow conditions and the lateness of the hour.
In 1996, fifteen people died trying to reach the summit, making it the deadliest year in Everest history.
On May 10, a storm stranded several climbers between the summit and the safety of Camp IV, killing Rob Hall, Scott Fischer, Yasuko Namba, Doug Hansen, and guide Andy Harris on the south and the Indian (Ladakhi) climbers Tsewang Paljor, Dorje Morup, Tsewang Smanla on the north.
The Nepalese side remained open, with 325 climbing permits issued - a sharp decline from 2022, in spite of attempts to attract more foreign climbers, such as removing COVID testing requirements on arrival in Nepal for vaccinated travellers.
[156] Towards the end of the season, due to a stalled high-pressure system, conditions on Everest were better than usual, being warmer, drier, and less windy, facilitating a higher-than-usual summitting success rate of 70%.
