page_title: World altitude record (mountaineering)
section_title: British Everest expeditions
hierarchical_section_title: World altitude record (mountaineering) / British Everest expeditions
caption_attribution_description: Mount Everest north face from Ronguk monastery in Tibet.
context_page_description: In the history of mountaineering, the world altitude record referred to the highest point on the Earth's surface which had been reached, regardless of whether that point was an actual summit. The world summit record referred to the highest mountain to have been successfully climbed. The terms are most commonly used in relation to the history of mountaineering in the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges, though modern evidence suggests that it was not until the 20th century that mountaineers in the Himalaya exceeded the heights which had been reached in the Andes. The altitude and summit records rose steadily during the early 20th century until 1953, when the ascent of Mount Everest made the concept obsolete.
context_section_description: The world altitude record was not broken again until the British expeditions to Mount Everest, and would then become the exclusive preserve of climbers on the world's highest mountain. On the 1922 expedition the record was broken twice. On 20 May, George Mallory, Howard Somervell and Edward Norton reached 8,170 m (26,800 ft) on the mountain's North Ridge, without using supplemental oxygen. Three days later George Finch and Geoffrey Bruce, using supplemental oxygen, followed the same route and went even higher—turning around at about 8,320 m (27,300 ft) when Bruce's oxygen apparatus failed.
  In 1924 the British made another attempt on Everest, and the world altitude record was again broken. On 4 June, Edward Norton, without supplemental oxygen, reached a point on the mountain's Great Couloir 8,570 m (28,120 ft) high, his companion Howard Somervell having turned around a short distance before. This was an altitude record which would not be broken, with certainty, until the 1950s, or without supplemental oxygen until 1978. Three days later George Mallory and Andrew Irvine disappeared while making their own attempt on the summit. There has been much debate over whether they reached a greater height than Norton, or even the summit, but as there is no direct proof they are not generally credited with a record.
  The British made several further expeditions to Mount Everest in the 1930s. Twice in 1933 climbing parties reached approximately the same point as Norton; first Lawrence Wager and Percy Wyn-Harris, and later Frank Smythe, but there was no advance on Norton's record.
caption: The North Face of Mount Everest, scene of the British expeditions of the 1920s and 30s
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