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South Col Route
The South Col route on Mt. Everest's south or Nepalese side was first reconned in 1950 by a British expedition led by Eric Shipton. From Camp I,the South Col route enters the Western Cwm, which is also called the "valley of silence". It was first explored by the Swiss expedition of 1952 with Jean-Jacques Asper, Rene Dittert, Ernest Hofstetter, Gabriel Chevalley, Rene Aubert, Leon Flory, Andre Roch and Raymond Lambert all from Geneva. They pioneered most of the route on the upper mountain and came very close to the summit.
Near
the end of the Western Cwn, lies Camp 2, and the Lhotse Face
looms above. Camp 2 at over 21,000-feet or over 6,400-meters,
is the staging
camp for starting up the face formed by the western side of neighbor
mountain Lhotse. This face constitutes a serious challenge, as
over 3,000-feet or
1,000-meters of 35-degree to 45 plus-degree ice must be climbed,
with Camp 3 perched in the middle of this awesomely steep and long face.
The last stop on the way to the summit, is Camp 4 or High Camp at the pass
between Lhotse and Everest known as the South Col. The picture to the right
shows the South Col as seen from the South Summit. The camp is near the
darker circle in the middle of the photograph (source: www.adlers.com.au).
To arrive at this camp requires traversing much steep ground also, and
such
features
as
the "Yellow
Band" (a steep, golden, sandstone cliff which splits part of
the upper Lhotse Face), the "Geneva Spur" (an enormous
buttress or ridge-like feature of rock which must be climbed) must
be overcome with the safety
of fixed ropes. Above High Camp still lies much steep ground before
the summit at 29,035-feet or 8,850-meters is reached. Such features
as the
Triangular Face, The Balcony, the Southeast Ridge, the South Summit,
the Traverse, and the Hillary Step all guard the summit well
and ensure that a climber will work for his or her reward and need
a minimum level of hard earned skills to get there.
Hillary and Norgay
In 1952, Raymond Lambert
and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay pioneered a route up the steep Lhotse face, reaching
the South Col,
28,000 feet up on the southeast
ridge. 
Sir
Edmund Percival Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first climbers to reach
the summit of Mount Everest on May 29, 1953 via the South
Col Route. (see picture / source:
www.leipzig-online.de).
They leave Camp IX at approximately 27,900 feet (8500 meters) by 6:30
AM, and reach the S. Summit by 9 AM. After negotiating the 12 meter
Hillary Step, they are the first to reach the summit of Everest, reaching
the top at 11:30 AM. Hillary and Tenzing spent a total of 15 minutes
on the summit. Hillary took a picture of Norgay (see right / source: RGS).
As Hillary decented and reached his team, he uttered the now
famous phrase. 'Well George, we knocked the bastard off!'.
This achievement was announced in Great Britain on the eve of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Edmund Hillary returned to Britain with the other climbers and was knighted by the Queen.
16mm Stock Footage SIR EDMUND HILLARY MOUNTAIN CLIMBING EXPEDITION TO MOUNT EVEREST
Other Firsts
The second and third successful of Everest were made by a Swiss expedition in 1956 (Jürg Marmet and Ernst Schmied on May 23 and Adolf Reist and Hansrudolf von Gunten on May 24, 1956). They used the South Col Route to the summit of Everest. The team also made the first ascent of Lhotse.
In 1960, a Chinese and Tibetan team of 214 men and women, led by Shih Chan- chun, makes the first summit of Everest via the North Col and Northeast Ridge. Wang Fu-chou, Liu Lien-man, Chu Yin-hua, and the Tibetan Gonbu reach the summit after mastering the second step.
In 1963, But the USA dispatched two teams to the mountain: one up the South East, another up the unclimbed West Ridge. On May 1, Jim Whittaker became the first U.S. American to conquer Mount Everest together with sherpa with Nawang Gombu. Three weeks later, Willi Unsoeld and Dr. Tom Hornbein mastered the third route, the west ridge. From high on the ridge Hornbein and Unsoeld traversed out onto the North Face and along a 60 metre couloir (a deep mountainside gorge). The Horbein Couloir, as it now known, took them to the base of the final hurdle at 8,500m. At 6:15pm on May 22nd, the pair finally made the summit. But the celebrations were to be cut short. Along with their colleagues who had reached the summit earlier on the same day from the South East Ridge, the team were forced to camp at 8,380m.
1978 sees the first ascent without bottled oxygen. Peter Habeler and Reinhold Messner reach the summit on May 8-th 1978 via the South-East Ridge. At the summit, Messner described himself as "nothing more than a single narrow gasping lung."
In 1980, Reinhold Messner summits again without oxygen, this time solo via the North Col to the North Face and the Great Couloir. He climbes for three days from his base camp at 6500 meters and summits on August 20, 1980. This was the first and probably only solo climb of Mount Everest ever and forever. Today the mountain is overcrowded and it's not likely that you will be alone on your route. Reinhold Messner was actually totally alone on the whole mountain during the whole climb.
