Mt. Lhotse better known as south peak” and part of the Everest massif is the fourth highest mountain peak in the earth with an altitude of 8516m. Lhotse has 3 summits, main summit at 8,516m, Lhotse Middle (East) at 8,414m, and Lhotse Shar at 8,383m. Lhotse is best known for its proximity to Mt. Everest and the fact that climbers ascending the standard route on that peak spend some time on its northwest face. It is the smallest prominence, only 610m, of all 8000m peaks. Lhotse is however famous for its tremendous and dramatic south face. The south face of Lhotse raises 3.2km within 2.25km horizontal distance making it the steepest face of this size in the world. It is extremely difficult to climb and rarely attempted. The South Face of Lhotse is one of the largest mountain faces in the world.
The primary route on Mt. Lhotse is via Everest’s South Col. but by 1955, despite the activity on Mt. Everest, Lhotse was the highest unclimbed peak in the world. It was first climbed by the Swiss duo of F. Luchsinger and E.Reiss in 1956 on the West Face. The South Face of Mt. Lhotse though attempted many times was successfully climbed only in 1984 by a Czech. On May 12, 1979, the Lhotse Shar summit was reached and the middle summit was climbed only on May 23, 2001.
