Nearly 100 years after scientists determined Mount Everest was the world’s highest peak, New Zealand climber Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first mountaineers to reach its summit. On May 29, 1953, the two pioneered a route along the mountain’s Southeast Ridge.

"Both Tenzing and I thought that once we'd climbed the mountain, it was unlikely anyone would ever make another attempt," Sir Edmund Hillary once said. "We couldn't have been more wrong."

Since then, scores of intrepid climbers and expedition groups from all over the world have set out to meet their fate on Everest. Some followed in Hillary and Tenzing’s footsteps. Others discovered and created new paths to the top. Too many took their last breaths on Everest, never to return home.