The History of Mount Everest: From First Survey to 1953 Summit

Mount Everest, at 8,848.86 m (29,031.7 ft) per the 2020 China-Nepal joint resurvey, was not climbed until 1953, nearly a century after surveyors first identified it as the world's highest point in 1852. This guide covers the full arc: the mathematical discovery that predated any expedition by decades, the disputed 1924 attempt that still divides historians, the 1953 first ascent, and the milestones since, first woman, first without supplemental oxygen, first commercial era, that shaped the mountain as it exists for today's Everest Base Camp trekkers.

Mount Everest is the highest mountain above sea level on Earth, straddling the border between Nepal's Sagarmatha National Park and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, known locally as Sagarmatha in Nepali and Chomolungma ("Goddess Mother of the World") in Tibetan long before it carried any English name at all.

How surveyors found the highest point on Earth without seeing it up close

In 1852, a Bengali mathematician named Radhanath Sikdar, working for the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, calculated from theodolite readings taken roughly 200 km away in the Indian plains that a peak then designated only "Peak XV" was the highest point on the planet. Foreign travel into Nepal and Tibet was closed at the time, so no surveyor ever stood near the mountain itself to confirm the finding; the entire calculation rested on trigonometric triangulation from a safe distance. It took several more years of cross-checking before the Survey formally announced the height in 1856 at 8,840 m (29,002 ft), a figure just 9 m short of the modern satellite-verified measurement.

Why it's called Everest at all

Andrew Waugh, the Survey's incoming surveyor general, proposed naming Peak XV after his predecessor, Sir George Everest, in an 1856 letter to the Royal Geographical Society, reasoning the mountain had "no local name that we can discover." George Everest himself objected to the honour, on the grounds that he had no direct role in identifying the peak and that his name didn't transliterate cleanly into Hindi. The Society adopted the name anyway in 1865, overriding his objection, a decision that still draws occasional criticism given that both Sagarmatha and Chomolungma were long-established local names the surveyors simply hadn't yet learned.

The Tibetan approach era, 1921 to 1938

Nepal remained closed to foreign travel until 1949, so every early attempt on Everest approached from the Tibetan north side. The British Reconnaissance Expedition of 1921 mapped the North Col route for the first time; the 1922 expedition made the first serious summit push, reaching roughly 8,320 m before turning back. The most famous and most disputed attempt came in 1924, when George Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine were last seen alive roughly 245 m below the summit on 8 June before disappearing into cloud. Mallory's body was found in 1999 at 8,156 m; a boot and sock believed to be Irvine's turned up on the Rongbuk Glacier in 2024, a full century later. Neither discovery has settled whether the pair reached the top before dying, and the question remains one of mountaineering's enduring mysteries. Mallory is remembered today for a different reason too: asked by a reporter why he wanted to climb Everest, he reportedly answered simply, "Because it's there."

1949 to 1953: the southern approach opens

When Nepal opened its borders to foreigners in 1949, expeditions shifted to the southern approach through the Khumbu Valley, the same route the Everest Base Camp Trek follows today, through the Khumbu Icefall toward the South Col. A 1950 reconnaissance and a 1951 British expedition, which included a young New Zealander named Edmund Hillary, scouted the new line, and a 1952 Swiss expedition came startlingly close, reaching roughly 8,595 m before supply and weather problems forced a retreat.

On 29 May 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, climbing as part of the British expedition led by John Hunt, became the first climbers confirmed to reach the 8,848.86 m summit, via the same South Col corridor visible from Kala Patthar (5,644 m) today.

After 1953: the records that followed

On 16 May 1975, Junko Tabei of Japan, climbing with the Japanese Women's Everest Expedition, became the first woman to reach the summit, the 36th person to do so overall. On 8 May 1978, Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler became the first climbers to summit without supplemental oxygen, a feat some doctors of the era believed physiologically impossible above 8,000 m; Messner returned in 1980 to solo the mountain, also without oxygen.

Commercial guided climbing began in earnest in 1985, when Dick Bass, a 55-year-old Texas businessman with limited technical climbing experience, reached the summit with professional guides, demonstrating that paying clients with enough training and support could realistically attempt Everest. That commercialisation reached its most scrutinised moment on 10 to 11 May 1996, when a sudden storm caught multiple guided groups high on the mountain, killing eight climbers in a single 24-hour span and prompting a lasting industry-wide reckoning over guiding standards, client vetting, and summit-day decision-making that still shapes how operators run expeditions today.

Why this history still matters on the trail

Trekkers walking to Everest Base Camp today pass through the same villages, Lukla, Namche Bazaar, Tengboche, Dingboche, that supplied and hosted nearly every expedition since the 1950s. The Khumbu Icefall, the single most dangerous stretch on the climbing route above Base Camp, is the same feature every South Col expedition since 1951 has had to cross. Understanding this history adds real context to landmarks passed on the standard 14-day itinerary, including the memorial cairns near Thukla honouring climbers who died on the mountain and Tengboche Monastery, historically blessed by expeditions before their summit attempts.