Attempted Everest six times over eighteen years before the climb that worked. On 29 May 1953, with Hillary, he stood where no one ever had. Born in the Khumbu, he became the most celebrated Sherpa in history and founded a climbing school in Darjeeling.

The New Zealand beekeeper who shared the first ascent, then spent his life repaying it: schools, hospitals and the Lukla airstrip for the villages below. He later reached both poles, the only person of his time to stand at all three.

Led three of the earliest attempts and gave mountaineering its most famous answer when asked why. He vanished near the summit in 1924. His body was found in 1999, but whether he reached the top first remains the mountain’s oldest question.

The 22-year-old Oxford engineer who kept the temperamental oxygen sets alive. He disappeared beside Mallory high on the ridge. The camera they carried, still unfound, is the mountain’s great missing witness.

Ran the 1953 expedition like a military operation and chose the pair who went to the top. He carried loads to 8,350 metres himself, then turned back so they could finish. Britain made him a lord for it.

Found the southern route through the Khumbu Icefall in 1951, the line almost everyone has climbed since. He was passed over as leader of the 1953 expedition for being too much the wandering explorer, too little the organiser.

Proved with Peter Habeler that the summit could be reached on lungs alone. Two years later he returned and climbed it again entirely solo, still without oxygen. He would become the first to climb all fourteen 8,000-metre peaks.

Led the first all women expedition to the mountain. An avalanche buried her camp twelve days before the summit; she was dug out unconscious, recovered, and finished the climb. She went on to summit the highest peak on every continent.

Climbed beside Messner on the day bottled oxygen became optional, then descended from the summit to the South Col in barely an hour, terrified his mind was slipping away without it.

Summited on 17 February 1980 with Leszek Cichy, in jet-stream cold no one had endured before. He went on to climb all fourteen 8,000ers, several of them in winter, a season he made his own.

Blind since his early teens, he reached the summit following the sound of a bell tied to the climber ahead. He later went on to complete the Seven Summits.

A guide from Thame with more ascents than anyone alive. Most were working climbs, fixing the ropes and breaking trail ahead of paying clients. He first summited in 1994 and still returns to the mountain every spring.

The former Gurkha and special-forces soldier whose photograph of 200 climbers queued on the summit ridge became the defining image of the crowds. That same year he climbed all fourteen 8,000-metre peaks in six months, shattering a mark that had previously taken nearly eight years.

Held the record across two decades of guiding. He now campaigns on climate from Utah, telling audiences that the snow-and-ice route he first knew is turning to bare rock and meltwater.

The Snow Leopard summited ten times without ever once using bottled gas, including the first winter ascent made without oxygen. No climber has matched that tally on lungs alone.

Skied down from the South Col in 1970 with a parachute for a brake, a stunt filmed for an Oscar-winning documentary. In 2013, after heart surgery, he came back and reached the summit at the age of 80.

Refused to leave a failing client near the summit as the 1996 storm closed in. He survived a night in the open at 8,750 metres and spoke by radio to his pregnant wife in New Zealand before the cold took him.

The charismatic Seattle guide who ran the rival expedition and died in the same storm as Rob Hall, high on the mountain, after seeing his clients down. His story anchored the book Into Thin Air.

Walked back out into the whiteout three times in a single night and pulled three climbers from the snow, an act of endurance the American Alpine Club later honoured. Annapurna took him just over a year later.

Spent a night on the summit without oxygen, a feat never repeated, and once climbed from Base Camp to the top in under seventeen hours. A crevasse near Camp II took him in 2001, on his eleventh expedition.

Reached the summit on her fourth attempt, defying expectation in her own country, and died on the descent. Nepal made her a national heroine, put her face on a stamp and named a peak and a highway for her.

The fastest alpinist of his era, famous for speed-soloing the great alpine north faces. He was acclimatising for an Everest to Lhotse traverse without oxygen when he fell on neighbouring Nuptse in 2017.