Ernst Reiss

Ernst Reiss (right) and Dölf Reist, at the summit of Fleischbank mountain in the Summer of 1951

Ernst Reiss (24 February 1920, Davos – 3 August 2010, Basel) was a Swiss mountaineer, who together with Fritz Luchsinger was the first to climb the 4th highest mountain on earth in 1956.

On 18 May 1956, Reiss and Luchsinger successfully climbed the 8,516-metre (27,940 ft) Lhotse, the 4th highest mountain on earth.[1] Lhotse is connected to Mount Everest via the South Col on the border of Tibet and Nepal.

Reiss was a member of the 1956 Swiss Everest–Lhotse expedition. At the end of April and start of May, the expedition erected some high camps. From the last high camp at the "Geneva Spur" on 18 May, Luchsinger and Reiss climbed the summit of Lhotse. Their colleagues Ernst Schmied and Jürg Marmet were successful on 23 May and one day later Dölf Reist and Hansruedi von Gunten made the second and third climb on Mount Everest.[2]

Reiss died in Basel, Switzerland, on 3 August 2010, aged 90.[3]

Books

• Mein Weg als Bergsteiger. Frauenfeld: Huber 1959

References

1. Marmet, JÜRG (1957). "Everest — Lhotse, 1956". American Alpine Journal. 10 (2). Translated from the German by H. Adams Carter: 121. Retrieved 10 April 2016.
2. Aargauer Zeitung, 25 April 2006
3. "Als Erster auf dem Lhotse", obituary in Neue Zürcher Zeitung (13 August 2010). Retrieved 14 August 2010