Above 7,000 M
The first pure mountaineers (as opposed to surveyors) to have climbed in the Himalaya were the English barrister William Graham, the Swiss hotelier Emil Boss and the Swiss mountain guide Ulrich Kauffmann, who together climbed extensively in the area in 1883. The previous year Graham had made the first ascent of the Dent du Géant, and Boss and Kauffmann had equally notably very nearly made the first ascent of Aoraki / Mount Cook in New Zealand. Among others, they claimed a near ascent of Dunagiri (reaching about 6,900 m), an ascent of Changabang (6,864 m, 22,520 ft) in July, and an ascent of the east summit of Kabru 7,338 metres (24,075 ft) in October, but most of the ascents are disputed. It is not claimed that they lied about their ascents, rather that the poor quality of maps at the time may have led them to be unsure of which mountain they were actually on, and to make estimates of their height which owed more to wishful thinking than scientific measurements. Their description of Changabang is so at variance with the mountain itself that their claim was doubted almost immediately, and by 1955 was not taken seriously anymore.
The team's ascent over the east face of Kabru is less readily dismissed. Although their report of views of Mount Everest from the top appears convincing, Graham's description of the ascent was also vague, and this, coupled with the speed of their claimed ascent and his failure to report significant effects of altitude sickness, have led many to assume that here they also climbed a lower peak in the same area. Their claim was, however, supported in the following years by climbers such as Douglas Freshfield, Norman Collie, Edmund Garwood, Carl Rubenson, and Tom Longstaff, and more recently Walt Unsworth has argued that as a man who was more interested in climbing than in making observations, the vagueness of his description is to be expected, and that now Everest has been climbed in a single day without oxygen, his claims sound less outlandish than they once did. In 2009, Willy Blaser and Glyn Hughes wrote a spirited defense of the ascent in the Alpine Journal, arguing that Graham and Boss's criticism of the maps of the Garhwal Himalaya had led to bad blood. If Graham, Boss and Kaufmann did climb Kabru it was a remarkable achievement for its time, establishing an altitude record which was not broken for twenty-six years, and a summit record which lasted until 1930.
Nine years later, another claim to the world altitude record was made by Martin Conway in the course of his expedition to the Karakoram in 1892. Together with Matthias Zurbriggen and Charles Granville Bruce, Conway made an attempt on Baltoro Kangri and on 25 August reached a subsidiary summit which he named Pioneer Peak. The barometer showed a height of 22,600 ft (6,900 m) which Conway optimistically rounded up to 23,000 ft (over 7,000 m). However, Pioneer Peak has since been measured at only 6,501 m (21,322 ft).
On 14 January 1897, Matthias Zurbriggen went on to make the first recorded ascent of Aconcagua in the Andes. Aconcagua is 6,962 m (22,841 ft) high and, if the claims of Boss and Graham are discounted, was still the highest point to have been reached at that time.
It was several more years before the 7,000 m barrier would be broken with reasonable certainty. In July 1905 Tom George Longstaff, accompanied by the alpine guides Alexis and Henri Brocherel from Courmayeur and six local porters, made an attempt on Gurla Mandhata. The height they reached is estimated at between 7,000 m (23,000 ft) and 7,300 m (24,000 ft), greater than the height of Aconcagua. In 1907 Longstaff and the Brocherel brothers returned to the Himalayas and led an expedition with the aim of climbing Nanda Devi, but unable to penetrate its "sanctuary" of surrounding peaks turned their attention to Trisul, which they climbed on June 12. At 7,120 m (23,360 ft) Trisul became the highest summit to have been climbed whose height was accurately known and whose ascent was undisputed.
This altitude record, though not the summit record, was broken a few months later, on 20 October 1907, when the Norwegians Carl W. Rubenson and Monrad Aas came within 50 m of ascending the 7338 m east summit of Kabru. It is noteworthy that Carl Rubenson afterwards believed that Graham, Boss and Kaufmann had ascended that summit 24 years before.
An undisputed new altitude record was achieved in 1909 by the Duke of the Abruzzi's expedition to the Karakoram. After failing to make progress on K2 the Duke made an attempt on Chogolisa, where he reached a height of approximately 7,500 m (24,600 ft) before turning around just 150 m below the summit due to bad weather and the risk of falling through a cornice in poor visibility.
Read more about this topic: World Altitude Record (mountaineering)