The Second Attempt

On May 26th Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans reached the South Summit of Everest at 28,700 feet, and looked for the first time ever at the final ridge which leads to the top. It must have been bitter disappointment to these two men to come so far and then have to turn back, but they had no time to go further. Theirs was one of the outstanding feats of the expedition. It was no failure to reach the summit—it was the first ascent of the South Summit of Everest. It was what we had always hoped they would do, that they would at least go as far as the South Summit and look at the last stretch of the ridge. In reaching this point they climbed 3,000 feet from the South col in the day, which was an astonishing performance at that altitude.

At this time Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay and their Summit support party of George Lowe, Ang Nima and Alfred Gregory, had reached the final camp in the South Col, an isolated, exposed location at an altitude of 26,000 feet.