Ernst Schmied was born in Bern, Switzerland in 1924. He loved climbing mountains and went on climbing trips often. He scaled several mountains in Europe and Asia. On one of his expeditions, he met a girl named Dora whom he later married. Her brother would accompany them later, on their Everest expedition.
In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary (from New Zealand) and Tenzing Norgay (from Nepal) became the first men to set foot of the peak of Mount Everest (the highest mountain in the world) in 1953.
Three years later, a group of Swiss people set out on their own journey to Everest. Schmied and his wife were among them. (They were in charge of food for the team). The group spent a couple months setting up various base camps and ascending a little bit at a time (to avoid altitude sickness).
Then, on May 23, 1956, Ernst Schmied became the third person to reach the peak of Mount Everest. He was accompanied by another Swiss man, Juerg Marmet. The following day, two more of the men in his expedition also made the journey.
Though Schmied was part of the second Everest expedition, there is not much information about him, especially compared to the abundance of articles, websites, books, etc about Edmund Hillary.
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