Lhotse is the fourth highest mountain in the Himalayas. Its long east-west crest is located immediately south of Mount Everest, and the summits of the two mountains are connected by the South Col, a vertical ridge that never drops below 8,000m.
Sometimes mistakenly Lhotse has been identified as the south peak of the Everest massif. No serious attention was turned to climbing Lhotse until Everest had finally been ascended. Lhotse first climbed in 25 May 1956 by Ernst Reiss of Switzerland via West Face.