Back: Tony Streather, Norman Hardie, George Band and John Clegg
Front: Neil Mather, John Jackson, Charles Evans and Joe Brown
The 1955 British Kangchenjunga expedition succeeded in climbing the 28,168-foot (8,586 m) Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world, for the first time. The expedition complied with a request from the Sikkim authorities that the summit should not be trodden on so the climbers deliberately stopped about five feet below the summit. George Band and Joe Brown reached the top on 25 May 1955, and they were followed the next day by Norman Hardie and Tony Streather. The expedition was led by Charles Evans who had been deputy leader on the 1953 British Mount Everest expedition.
The expedition trekked from Darjeeling in India along the border with Sikkim and then through Nepal to the Yalung Valley. They unsuccessfully attempted a climbing route reconnoitred by a team led by John Kempe the year before but succeeded along a different route up the Yalung Face, one that Aleister Crowley's 1905 Kanchenjunga expedition had first attempted.
In mountaineering circles at the time and more recently, the climb is sometimes regarded as a greater achievement than the ascent of Mount Everest two years earlier.