The history of Mount Everest runs from an 1852 calculation in a Survey of India office to more than 13,700 summits today. British expeditions probed the Tibetan side from 1921 to 1938, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made the first ascent on 29 May 1953, and since the 1990s commercial guiding has turned Everest into a mountain that hundreds climb each spring.
This timeline covers the key moments in order, the people behind them and the disasters that changed how the mountain is climbed. It finishes with how climbing gear has evolved, from tweed jackets and experimental oxygen sets to modern down suits and drones. For the numbers (height, records, deaths, permit fees), see our companion guide to Mount Everest facts.
Mount Everest history at a glance
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1852 | Radhanath Sikdar’s calculations show Peak XV is the highest known mountain |
| 1856 | Survey of India announces a height of 29,002 ft |
| 1865 | Royal Geographical Society adopts the name “Mount Everest” |
| 1921 | British reconnaissance finds the North Col route from Tibet |
| 1922 | First summit attempts; first use of bottled oxygen; first recorded deaths on the mountain |
| 1924 | Mallory and Irvine disappear high on the northeast ridge |
| 1933 | First flight over the summit; Irvine’s ice axe found |
| 1950–51 | Nepal opens; the Khumbu Icefall and Western Cwm route is scouted |
| 1952 | Swiss climbers Raymond Lambert and Tenzing Norgay reach about 8,600 m |
| 1953 | First ascent by Hillary and Tenzing, 29 May |
| 1960 | Chinese team makes the first ascent from the north |
| 1963 | First American ascent; first traverse via the West Ridge |
| 1975 | Junko Tabei becomes the first woman to summit; Southwest Face climbed |
| 1978 | Messner and Habeler climb without bottled oxygen |
| 1980 | First winter ascent; Messner’s solo ascent |
| 1996 | Eight climbers die in a storm on 10–11 May |
| 1999 | Mallory’s body found on the north face |
| 2014 | Icefall avalanche kills 16 Nepali workers |
| 2015 | Earthquake-triggered avalanche devastates Base Camp |
| 2020 | Nepal and China announce the new height of 8,848.86 m |
| 2024 | Remains believed to be Andrew Irvine’s found below the north face |
| 2025 | Nepal raises the spring permit fee to US$15,000 |
| 2026 | Kami Rita Sherpa makes a record 32nd ascent; around 1,000 summits reported |
1802–1865: measuring and naming the highest mountain
The story starts with the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, launched in 1802 to map the subcontinent with precise triangulation. Surveyors could not enter Nepal, which was closed to foreigners, so they took sightings of the Himalaya from stations on the plains more than 150 km away.
In 1852 Radhanath Sikdar, a mathematician working in the survey’s computing office in Calcutta, processed the observations of a peak then catalogued as Peak XV and concluded it was higher than Kangchenjunga, until then thought to be the world’s highest. After years of rechecking, Surveyor General Andrew Waugh announced the result in 1856: 29,002 ft.
Waugh proposed naming the peak after his predecessor, Sir George Everest, and the Royal Geographical Society adopted “Mount Everest” in 1865. Everest himself had doubts, because the convention was to use local names. The Tibetan name Chomolungma was already centuries old, and Nepal later adopted Sagarmatha as its official name in the 1960s.
1921–1938: the British expeditions from Tibet
With Nepal closed, British climbers could only approach from Tibet, which allowed them in after diplomatic negotiation in 1920. The Mount Everest Committee, a joint body of the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club, organised a series of expeditions that defined the mountain’s early history.
1921: the reconnaissance
Led by Charles Howard-Bury, the 1921 expedition walked for weeks across the Tibetan plateau from Darjeeling. Alexander Kellas, the most experienced Himalayan climber in the team, died on the approach march. George Mallory and Guy Bullock explored the Rongbuk glaciers, and surveyor Edward Oliver Wheeler identified the East Rongbuk Glacier as the key to reaching the North Col. On 24 September 1921 Mallory, Bullock and Wheeler reached the col at about 7,020 m and saw a feasible line up the North Ridge. Our full account of the 1921 Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition covers the team and route in detail.
1922: the first attempts and first deaths
The 1922 expedition, led by General Charles Bruce, made the first real attempts on the summit. Mallory, Edward Norton and Howard Somervell climbed above 8,000 m without bottled oxygen. George Finch and Geoffrey Bruce then used experimental oxygen sets to reach about 8,320 m, the highest anyone had climbed at that time. On a third attempt in June, an avalanche below the North Col killed seven porters, the first recorded deaths on the mountain itself.
1924: Norton’s high point and the Mallory and Irvine mystery
On 4 June 1924 Edward Norton climbed alone to about 8,570 m without supplementary oxygen, a height not bettered without oxygen until 1978. Four days later, on 8 June, Mallory and 22-year-old Andrew “Sandy” Irvine set out for the summit with oxygen. Geologist Noel Odell glimpsed them high on the northeast ridge before cloud closed in. They never returned.
Whether they reached the summit is one of mountaineering’s great unanswered questions. Mallory’s body was found at about 8,155 m on 1 May 1999 by an expedition searching for the pair; the camera they are believed to have carried, which might settle the matter, has never been found.
1933–1938: flights, near misses and a lone dreamer
- 1933: On 3 April the Houston–Mount Everest expedition flew two biplanes over the summit, taking the first aerial photographs. On the ground, Hugh Ruttledge’s expedition saw Lawrence Wager and Percy Wyn-Harris reach roughly the same height as Norton; they also found an ice axe, later identified as Irvine’s.
- 1934: Maurice Wilson, a British former soldier with no climbing experience, tried to climb Everest alone and died below the North Col; his body and diary were found in 1935.
- 1935–1938: Eric Shipton’s 1935 reconnaissance gave a young Tenzing Norgay his first job on Everest as a porter. Expeditions in 1936 and 1938, the latter led by Bill Tilman, were turned back by monsoon snow.
1950–1953: Nepal opens and the first ascent
The Second World War halted expeditions, and after 1950 China’s control of Tibet closed the northern approach to western climbers. At the same time Nepal began admitting foreign expeditions. In 1950 Tilman and the American Charles Houston walked into the Khumbu, and in 1951 Eric Shipton led a reconnaissance, including a young New Zealander named Edmund Hillary, that pushed through the Khumbu Icefall and showed the Western Cwm could lead to the South Col.
1952: the Swiss come close
Nepal granted the 1952 permit to Switzerland. In the spring, Raymond Lambert and Tenzing Norgay climbed the Southeast Ridge to about 8,600 m before turning back, a new height record. Tenzing had been on Everest expeditions since 1935, and this experience made him central to the British plans for 1953.
29 May 1953: Hillary and Tenzing reach the top
The 1953 British expedition, led by Colonel John Hunt, was a large, carefully planned siege, with a dedicated oxygen programme and hundreds of porters. On 26 May Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans reached the South Summit with closed-circuit oxygen sets but had to turn back. Three days later, Hillary and Tenzing, using open-circuit sets, climbed from a high camp at about 8,500 m, overcame the rock step now called the Hillary Step and stood on the summit at about 11.30am on 29 May.
The news reached London on the morning of 2 June 1953, the day of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. Hillary was knighted, and Tenzing received the George Medal. Read our full biography of Tenzing Norgay, who went on to found the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling.
1956–1980: new routes and new kinds of firsts
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 23–24 May 1956 | Swiss expedition makes the second and third ascents, days after the first ascent of neighbouring Lhotse |
| 25 May 1960 | Chinese climbers Wang Fuzhou, Gonpo and Qu Yinhua report the first ascent via the North Ridge; doubted at first, it is now widely accepted |
| 1 May 1963 | Jim Whittaker becomes the first American on the summit, with Nawang Gombu Sherpa |
| 22 May 1963 | Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld climb the West Ridge and descend the Southeast Ridge, the first traverse |
| 16 May 1975 | Junko Tabei of Japan becomes the first woman to summit; Tibetan climber Phanthog follows from the north on 27 May |
| 24 September 1975 | Dougal Haston and Doug Scott climb the Southwest Face on Chris Bonington’s expedition |
| 8 May 1978 | Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler summit without bottled oxygen |
| 17 February 1980 | Poles Krzysztof Wielicki and Leszek Cichy make the first winter ascent |
| 20 August 1980 | Messner makes the first solo ascent, without oxygen, from the north during the monsoon |
| 8 October 1983 | An American team climbs the East (Kangshung) Face, the last of the three great faces |
Messner and Habeler’s 1978 climb was a turning point. Many physiologists had doubted that a human could survive at the summit without supplementary oxygen. Their ascent opened the way to lighter, faster styles of climbing, and in the 1980s and 1990s Sherpa climbers such as Ang Rita Sherpa made repeated ascents without bottled oxygen.
1985–1996: the commercial era begins
In 1985 the American businessman Dick Bass, guided by David Breashears, reached the summit and completed the first of the “Seven Summits”. His success showed that a fit amateur, with expert support, could climb Everest. In the early 1990s, New Zealanders Rob Hall and Gary Ball’s Adventure Consultants and other companies began selling guided places, and by the mid-1990s commercial teams were a fixture on both sides of the mountain.
Commercial expeditions brought fixed ropes from Base Camp to the summit, stocked high camps with oxygen and relied heavily on Sherpa and other Nepali climbing staff. Summit numbers climbed fast, and so did concerns about inexperience, crowding and waste.
The 1996 disaster
On 10 May 1996 several commercial and national teams were caught high on the mountain by a fierce storm after late summits. Eight climbers died on 10–11 May, including expedition leaders Rob Hall and Scott Fischer on the Nepal side and three Indo-Tibetan Border Police climbers on the north side. The season’s total reached around 15 deaths. Jon Krakauer’s book Into Thin Air and later the 2015 film Everest made the disaster world-famous, and it led to stricter turnaround times and better weather forecasting.
1999–2013: answers, records and a busier mountain
- 1999: Mallory’s body is found on the north face. The same year a US team using GPS measures the height as 8,850 m.
- 2000–2001: Davo Karničar makes the first complete ski descent from the summit (2000); Erik Weihenmayer becomes the first blind person to summit (2001).
- 2003: Fiftieth anniversary of the first ascent; Lakpa Gelu Sherpa climbs from Base Camp to the summit in 10 h 56 min, now the officially recognised speed record.
- 2010: Thirteen-year-old Jordan Romero summits from Tibet, the youngest person to do so.
- 2013: Yuichiro Miura, aged 80, becomes the oldest person to summit.
Guides such as Dave Hahn, who made 15 ascents, and Sherpa guides with dozens of summits became the backbone of the industry. Meanwhile Kami Rita Sherpa, who first summited in 1994, began the run that would make him the record holder.
2014–2015: two disasters in two years
On 18 April 2014 a serac collapsed in the Khumbu Icefall and the resulting avalanche killed 16 Nepali climbing workers carrying loads to Camp 1, at the time the deadliest single accident on the mountain. Many Sherpas left the mountain in protest over compensation and insurance, and the Nepal-side season effectively ended.
A year later, on 25 April 2015, the magnitude 7.8 Gorkha earthquake shook Nepal, killing nearly 9,000 people across the country. On Everest it triggered an avalanche from Pumori’s ridge that swept through Base Camp, killing around 22 people, the deadliest day in the mountain’s history. Climbing was abandoned on both sides that spring.
2016–2026: crowds, records and new rules
- 2016: Melissa Arnot Reid becomes the first American woman to summit without bottled oxygen and return safely.
- 2017: Nepal’s Supreme Court annuls Pemba Dorje Sherpa’s claimed 8 h 10 min speed record, confirming Lakpa Gelu Sherpa as holder.
- 2019: A photograph of a long queue on the summit ridge on 22 May goes viral during a season with 11 deaths, sparking a global debate about overcrowding.
- 2020: Nepal and China close the mountain to foreign climbers because of Covid-19. A Chinese survey team summits in May, and on 8 December the two countries announce the new height of 8,848.86 m.
- 2023: Nepal issues a record number of permits, and 18 people die, one of the deadliest seasons on record.
- 2024: Nepal makes human-waste bags compulsory above Base Camp. In September a National Geographic team finds a boot, sock and foot on the Central Rongbuk Glacier believed to be Andrew Irvine’s, 100 years after he vanished.
- 2025: Nepal raises the spring royalty from US$11,000 to US$15,000 per foreign climber from 1 September, the first rise since 2015.
- 2026: On 17 May Kami Rita Sherpa makes a record 32nd ascent and Lhakpa Sherpa an 11th, the most by any woman. Preliminary counts suggest around 1,000 summits, which would be the busiest season yet once confirmed by the Himalayan Database.
Today, most Everest expeditions take six to nine weeks, including acclimatisation rotations between Base Camp and the higher camps.
How Everest climbing gear has evolved
The equipment story is as remarkable as the climbs. The pioneers of the 1920s reached above 8,500 m in clothing that would look more at home on a Scottish hill walk, while today’s climbers wear purpose-built down suits and breathe bottled oxygen through light, efficient masks.
| Gear | 1920s | 1953 | Today |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clothing | Layers of silk, wool, cotton and gabardine; Finch’s experimental down-filled jacket in 1922 | Down jackets and trousers, windproof cotton-nylon outer layers | One-piece down summit suits, synthetic base layers, waterproof-breathable shells |
| Boots | Leather boots with hobnails | Specially designed insulated high-altitude boots | Insulated double or triple boots with integrated gaiters, sometimes with heated insoles |
| Crampons and axes | Crampons often avoided; long wooden-shafted axes | Steel crampons; wooden ice axes | Light steel or aluminium crampons; short axes with metal shafts |
| Ropes | Natural-fibre (manila or hemp) ropes | Nylon ropes appearing after the war | Fixed lines from Base Camp to summit; climbers clip in with harnesses, ascenders and carabiners |
| Oxygen | Heavy, unreliable experimental sets (first used in 1922) | Open- and closed-circuit sets designed for the expedition | Lighter composite cylinders and improved masks and regulators |
| Weather and communications | None beyond observation; runners carried messages | Radio bulletins; news sent by runner and coded telegram | Specialist forecasts, satellite phones and messengers, mobile coverage at Base Camp |
Oxygen: from controversy to standard practice
Bottled oxygen divided the early climbers. Some thought it unsporting; others, like George Finch, argued it was essential, and his 1922 high point suggested he was right. By 1953 the British treated oxygen as a scientific problem to solve, and it played a decisive part in the first ascent. Today about 98% of summits are made with bottled oxygen, while ascents without it remain rare and are recognised as a distinct achievement.
Ladders, fixed ropes and drones
The modern Nepal route depends on the “Icefall Doctors”, a specialist Sherpa team managed by the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, who place aluminium ladders and ropes through the Khumbu Icefall each season. Fixed lines then run all the way to the summit. Since 2024, heavy-lift drones have been trialled to carry ropes, ladders and rubbish between Base Camp and Camp 1, reducing the number of dangerous trips porters make through the Icefall.
If you are thinking about trekking rather than climbing, the kit is far simpler. Our Everest Base Camp packing list covers what trekkers actually need.
Walk in the footsteps of the 1953 expedition
The 1953 team walked in from Kathmandu through the Solukhumbu, past Tengboche monastery, to set up Base Camp on the Khumbu Glacier. Today trekkers fly to Lukla and follow the same valley to Everest Base Camp and Kala Patthar. Our Everest Base Camp trek (16 days, from £1,295, land only) is run with licensed Nepali partners and includes time to acclimatise properly. For other routes in Nepal, start with plan your trip.
Frequently asked questions
Who was the first person to climb Mount Everest?
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit together at about 11.30am on 29 May 1953, as members of John Hunt’s British expedition. Tenzing always said they arrived as a team.
Did Mallory and Irvine reach the summit in 1924?
Nobody knows. They were last seen high on the northeast ridge on 8 June 1924. Mallory’s body was found in 1999 and remains believed to be Irvine’s in 2024, but no camera or other proof of a summit has been found.
Who discovered Mount Everest was the highest mountain?
Radhanath Sikdar, a mathematician with the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, is credited with calculating in 1852 that Peak XV was the highest known mountain. Surveyor General Andrew Waugh announced it in 1856, and the name Mount Everest was adopted in 1865.
Why was Everest first attempted from Tibet?
Nepal was closed to foreigners until around 1950, so the British expeditions of 1921 to 1938 travelled through Tibet with permission from its government. After China took control of Tibet in 1950 and Nepal opened its borders, climbers switched to the southern route through the Khumbu.
Who was the first woman to climb Everest?
Junko Tabei of Japan reached the summit on 16 May 1975, about 12 days after being buried by an avalanche at Camp 2. Tibetan climber Phanthog became the first woman to summit from the north side on 27 May 1975.
What happened in the 1996 Everest disaster?
A storm on 10 to 11 May 1996 caught several teams high on the mountain after late summits. Eight climbers died, including guides Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, and the season ended with around 15 deaths. It led to stricter turnaround times and more cautious guiding.
When did people first climb Everest without oxygen?
Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler made the first ascent without bottled oxygen on 8 May 1978. Messner then climbed it solo, also without oxygen, on 20 August 1980.
How did the 1953 expedition reach Everest?
The team walked for around two to three weeks from near Kathmandu through the Solukhumbu to the Khumbu Glacier, carrying supplies with hundreds of porters. Modern trekkers fly to Lukla and reach Everest Base Camp in about eight days of walking.
