1952 Swiss Everest Expedition: The 8,595m Breakthrough

The Gateway Through Nepal

Prior to 1950, all attempts on Mount Everest approached from the north through Tibet. When China closed Tibet to foreign travelers and Nepal opened its borders, international mountaineers faced an unsolved puzzle: could Mount Everest be climbed from the south?

In the spring of 1952, the Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research sent an elite team of Genevan climbers led by Edouard Wyss-Dunant. For their sirdar and lead high-altitude climber, they chose Tenzing Norgay—already a veteran of six Everest expeditions.

Forging the Khumbu and Lhotse Face

Tenzing led the route-finding through the chaotic towers of the Khumbu Icefall, discovering the precarious snow bridge into the Western Cwm. Working in close partnership with Swiss guide Raymond Lambert, Tenzing pushed the route up the steep blue ice of the Lhotse Face and established the first camp on the wind-blasted South Col (7,900m).

On May 27, 1952, Tenzing and Lambert set out with an emergency three-man tent and primitive, malfunctioning open-circuit oxygen sets. Clinging to the Southeast Ridge above 8,400 meters, they endured an agonizing, freezing night without sleeping bags or stoves, melting snow over a candle flame to wet their parched lips.

The Record at 8,595 Meters

On the morning of May 28, despite oxygen starvation and dragging limbs, Tenzing and Lambert pushed upward step by step along the knife-edge ridge. They reached an altitude of 8,595 meters (28,210 ft)—higher than any human had ever stood on Earth.

Turned back only by total physical exhaustion and malfunctioning oxygen gear, their descent was a masterpiece of survival. The Swiss expedition proved definitively that the South Col route was viable, directly laying down the blueprint that Hillary and Tenzing would successfully follow to the summit twelve months later.