Tenzing Norgay and the First Ascent of Everest: Sherpa Mountaineer, Edmund Hillary, 1953 Climb to Top World

On the morning of May 29, 1953, two men stood on the summit of Mount Everest, the first human beings ever to do so. One was Edmund Hillary, a beekeeper from New Zealand. The other was Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa from the high valleys of the Himalaya. They had climbed together, roped as one team, to the highest point on Earth, after thirty years of failed attempts had turned back the best climbers of several nations. This is the story of Tenzing Norgay, told with him at its center. For too long he was cast as the loyal porter who helped the climbers to the top. The truth is larger. By 1953, Tenzing had been to Everest more times than almost anyone alive, had climbed higher on it than any human being, and reached the summit as a mountaineer of the first rank, not as a helper. Built from the public record, including the memoirs of Tenzing and Hillary, the official expedition account, and credentialed histories, this book follows the whole arc: the boy drawn to the mountains, the long years of expeditions, the near miss with the Swiss in 1952, the great expedition of 1953, the deadly icefall, the partnership sealed on a rope, the last camp, and the summit itself. It also tells of the news that reached London on coronation morning, the question of who stepped onto the top first, and the legacy of the man who lifted his people into history. The long-debated question of who was first is handled as the two climbers themselves resolved it: they reached the top together, as a team. Where the record is uncertain, this book says so. What emerges is a careful, moving account of the first ascent of Everest, with Tenzing Norgay restored to his rightful place at its heart.