Charles Evans (mountaineer) in Liverpool until 1957. Evans was John Hunt's deputy leader on the 1953 British Mount Everest Expedition which made the first ascent of Everest in 1953. With Tom Bourdillon, he made the first ascent of the South Summit, coming within three hundred feet of the main summit of Everest on 26 May 1953, but was forced to turn back. Everest was summited by their teammates Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay three days later, on 29 May 1953. Evans was the leader of the expedition which first climbed Kangchenjunga, the world's third highest peak, in 1955. The following year he was
Mount Everest Col-North Ridge-Northeast Ridge route from which they never returned. On 1 May 1999, the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition found Mallory's body on the North Face in a snow basin below and to the west of the traditional site of Camp VI. Controversy has raged in the mountaineering community whether one or both of them reached the summit 29 years before the confirmed ascent and safe descent of Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953. In 1933, Lady Houston, a British millionairess, funded the "Houston Everest Flight of 1933", which saw a formation of aircraft led by