Climbers ascending to today's Camp below the West face of the Lhotse

You get a chance for rest now further down the valley at the Lobuje Rest-Camp after establishing the site for Camp IV, although you follow the others' progress with an envious eye. Another team takes over as trail breaker, to establish a route up the Lhotse Face. They are testing out the radical new closed circuit oxygen set in these higher altitudes.

The attack on the Lhotse face is considered a key to the summit, and it is hard not to be part of the action, although you know it is wise to rest and acclimatize further as you are in the team that has been chosen for the final push to the summit. Eventually you find a good reason to climb back up to Advanced Base Camp, where you find the Lhotse Face team has met many difficulties on these steep slopes. Some of the climbers are unwell and have to return to Base Camp, and the task is left to your New Zealand friend George Lowe and Ang Nyima. The weather conditions are terrible, as these two cut endless steps on the steep ice slopes, put in fixed ropes on the more dangerous stretches, trying to transform the route into one that a heavily laden climber can follow.

There is virtually no natural resting place for a tent, but from the hard experience of the Swiss you all know that there must be some resting places in the hard journey up the Lhotse Face to the South Col.

Finally they have climbed the first steep rise above the foot of the Lhotse Face and traces are found of the Swiss Camp V. The weather turns very bad and knowing that Camp V is located, they turn back down again.

Written from the descriptions in the books:
Hillary, E. (1999) View from the Summit. Doubleday: Great Britain.
Hillary, E. (1955) High Adventure. Hodder and Stoughton Ltd: London.
Hunt, J. (1954) Our Everest Adventure: The pictorial history from Kathmandu to the summit. Brockhampton Press: Leicester.