Mountaineering, mountain climbing, or alpinism is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas that have become sports in their own right. Indoor climbing, sport climbing, and bouldering are also considered variants of mountaineering by some, but are part of a wide group of mountain sports.
Cho Oyu is the sixth-highest mountain in the world at 8,188 metres (26,864 ft) above sea level. Cho Oyu means "Turquoise Goddess" in Tibetan. The mountain is the westernmost major peak of the Khumbu sub-section of the Mahalangur Himalaya 20 km west of Mount Everest. The mountain stands on the China–Nepal border, between the Tibet Autonomous Region and Koshi Province.
Sir Christian John Storey Bonington, CVO, CBE, DL is a British mountaineer.
Baruntse is a mountain in the Khumbu region of eastern Nepal, crowned by four peaks and bounded on the south by the Hunku Glacier, on the east by the Barun Glacier, and on the northwest by the Imja Glacier. It is considered as one of the best preparation peaks in the Himalayas for climbers readying themselves for eight-thousanders, however the mountain has a low success rate due to its technical difficulties, steep slopes and unpredictable weather conditions. It is open for beginners, but requires the use of fixed ropes to climb.
George Christopher Band was an English mountaineer. He was the youngest climber on the 1953 British expedition to Mount Everest on which Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first to ascent the mountain. In 1955, he and Joe Brown were the first climbers to ascend Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world.
The Hillary Step is a 40-foot vertical rock face that sits 8,790 metres (28,839 ft) above sea level. It is located near the summit of Mount Everest. Located on the Southeast ridge, halfway between the "South Summit" and the True Summit, the Hillary Step was the most technically difficult part of the typical Nepal-side Everest climb and the last real challenge before reaching the top of the mountain. The rock face was destroyed by an earthquake that struck the region in 2015.
Elizabeth Hawley was an American journalist, author, and chronicler of Himalayan mountaineering expeditions. Hawley's The Himalayan Database became the unofficial record for climbs in the Nepalese Himalaya. She was also the honorary consul in Nepal for New Zealand.
Peter Edmund Hillary is a New Zealand mountaineer and philanthropist. He is the son of Sir Edmund Hillary, who, along with mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, completed the first successful ascent of Mount Everest. When Peter Hillary summited Everest in 1990, he and his father were the first father/son duo to achieve the feat. Hillary has achieved two summits of Everest, an 84-day trek across Antarctica to the South Pole, and an expedition guiding astronaut Neil Armstrong to land a small aircraft at the North Pole. He has climbed many of the world's major peaks, and on 19 June 2008, completed the Seven Summits, reaching the top of the highest mountains on all seven continents, when he summited Denali in Alaska.
The Mount Everest Committee was a body formed by the Alpine Club and the Royal Geographical Society to co-ordinate and finance the 1921 British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition to Mount Everest and all subsequent British expeditions to climb the mountain until 1947. It was then renamed the Joint Himalayan Committee; this latter committee organised and financed the successful first ascent of Mount Everest in 1953.
Cuthbert Wilfrid Francis Noyce was an English mountaineer and author. He was a member of the 1953 British Expedition that made the first ascent of Mount Everest.
Expedition climbing, is a type of mountaineering that uses a series of well-stocked camps on the mountain that lead to the summit, and which are supplied by teams of mountain porters. In addition, expedition climbing can also employ multiple 'climbing teams' to work on the climbing route—not all of whom are expected to make the summit—and allows the use of supports such as fixed ropes, aluminum ladders, supplementary oxygen, and sherpa climbers. By its nature, expedition climbing often requires weeks to complete a given climbing route, and months of pre-planning given the greater scale of people and equipment that need to be coordinated for the climb.
The 1952 Swiss Mount Everest expedition was an attempt to summit Mount Everest. Led by, Edouard Wyss-Dunant, the expedition, which included Tenzing Norgay, reached a height of 8,595 metres (28,199 ft) on the southeast ridge, setting a new climbing altitude record and opening up a new route to Mount Everest and paving the way for further successes by other expeditions. Norgay successfully summited the mountain the following year with Sir Edmund Hillary, the first successful expedition.
Horace Henry Ayres, better known as Harry Herbert Ayres and with his surname sometimes spelled Ayers, was a well-known New Zealand mountaineer and guide.
The 1953 British Mount Everest expedition was the ninth mountaineering expedition to attempt the first ascent of Mount Everest, and the first confirmed to have succeeded when Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary reached the summit on 29 May 1953. Led by Colonel John Hunt, it was organised and financed by the Joint Himalayan Committee. News of the expedition's success reached London in time to be released on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, on 2 June that year.
The 1951 British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition ran between 27 August 1951 and 21 November 1951 with Eric Shipton as leader.
Norman David Hardie was a New Zealand climber who was one of the climbers on the 1955 British Kangchenjunga expedition who first reached the summit of the 8,586-metre (28,169 ft) mountain, the third-highest mountain in the world.
George Henry Lowe III is an American rock climber and alpinist, noted for his alpine style ascents of difficult and infrequently repeated routes, and his development of traditional climbing routes in the Western United States. He pioneered winter ascents in the North American Rockies along with cousins Jeff Lowe (climber), Mike Lowe, and Greg Lowe. He is also known for his technically difficult ascents of mixed climbing faces in the Himalayas including the North Ridge of Latok I and the first ascent of the East Face of Mount Everest, where the "Lowe Buttress" bears his name. Lowe is currently a resident of Colorado.
The 1952 British expedition to Cho Oyu the Turquoise Goddess was organized by the Joint Himalayan Committee. It had been hoped to follow up the 1951 Everest expedition with another British attempt on Everest in 1952, but Nepal had accepted a Swiss application for 1952, to be followed in 1953 with a British attempt. So in 1952, Eric Shipton was to lead an attempt to ascend Cho Oyu, and Griffith Pugh was to trial oxygen equipment and train members for 1953. But the expedition failed both aims; that plus Shipton’s poor leadership and planning resulted in his replacement as a leader for the 1953 expedition.
Rock climbing in New Zealand, as a sport in its own right, emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. While it has been practiced at least since the late 1800s it was largely considered as training for mountaineering. But by 1968 the first dedicated rock climbing guide had been published by the University of Canterbury tramping club, and the following decade saw a rapid improvement in standards and the introduction of new technologies and approaches including the bolting of routes that paved the way for sport climbing to emerge as an alternative to traditional route protection. Pursuit of trad climbing, sport climbing and bouldering all began developing their distinct trajectories separate from each other and from mountaineering.
