On this Day: First Climbers Reach Peak of Mount Everest

Hardly alone in their endeavor, Hillary and Norgay were a part of a sizable effort that included a dozen climbers, 35 Nepalese Sherpas and more than 350 porters carrying some 18 tons of food and supplies, led by Col. John Hunt, Time magazine reported in a July 6, 1953, article on the climb.

“The ascent had been planned with the thoroughness of a commando raid: vast preparation for a brief but crucial hour,” wrote Time.

Dispatched after an initial team was forced to turn back in a paralyzing storm, Hillary and Norgay set out alone for the final ascent to the summit, leaving their support crew and camp shortly after 6 a.m.

According to Time, the pair stopped and battled cold through the night, making camp on a six-foot overhang that slanted 30 degrees downward.

On their final ascent the next day, according to the New York Times, they encountered rocks, ice and powder, which gave way beneath Hillary’s feet, sending him 30 feet down before he could regain hold. Looking down, Hillary said he could see 10,000 feet beneath him.

Working their way through the ice, up a narrow crevice and across a daunting ridge, the team arrived at the peak shortly before noon. Hillary later wrote, “The whole world around us, lay spread like a giant relief map,” according to the Times.

Leaving behind a crucifix on behalf of Col. Hunt and Norgay’s gift of biscuits and chocolate to the gods of the mountain, the two men planted flags on behalf of the United Nations, Nepal and the United Kingdom before eating a mint pie and starting their descent.

According to NOVA, the 1953 exposition was not the first attempt at scaling the world’s highest peak. In 1924 George Mallory, who famously answered a query about why he wanted to climb Everest with the response, “Because it’s there,” died in an unsuccessful ascent alongside Andrew Irvine. The two were eventually found 75 years later, and equipment and parts of their camp have been spotted by several expeditions over the past six decades.

Everest is notorious for fierce storms like the one that turned back Hillary’s first summit-climbing team. PBS Frontline reports on the ethics and risks of climbing and the deadly 1996 snowstorm that trapped three teams during an ascent of Everest, with video and interactive maps. The piece is filmed and reported by David Breashears, who aided in the rescue efforts.

The first conquest of Everest ignited an obsessive cult of followers, mountaineers seeking to replicate the famous ascent, and worldwide fame for the two explorers. While the two men remained friends for years to come, according to the Smithsonian, they reportedly never again spoke of their climb with each other. “I really believed that the story had finished,” Hillary later said.

In the years since the first ascent, more than 3,000 people have made the climb, leading some critics to point out a lost “spirit of adventure” as wealthy teams create small towns on their way up the famous mountain. According to the Guardian, Norgay’s son joined the chorus in 2003, noting that inexperienced climbers often buy their way onto the mountain.

A combination of some of the world’s most challenging terrain and the inexperience of many climbers have made the trip to the peak one of the most dangerous undertakings in the world, resulting in more than 200 deaths since Hillary and Norgay’s first ascent. One of the more tragic of these events ended in the death of eight climbers in 1996; Outside magazine illustrates the ordeal through an excerpt from survivor Jon Krakauer's book “Into Thin Air.”

Tenzing Norgay was an active climber on Everest long before his 1953 effort alongside Hillary. A sherpa reportedly born in Nepalese village of Thame, Norgay was 39 when he finally reached the peak and went on to become a national hero, and lived the rest of his life in Darjeeling. He died in 1986. According to the Darjeeling News, though Norgay never returned to the peak, his son followed in his footsteps and made the ascent in 1996.

Sir Edmund Hillary, who made the accent to Everest at age 33, went on to live a life rich in adventure, becoming the first man to stand on both poles as well as on the world’s highest peaks. According to his New York Times obituary, while Hillary never held public office, he became a prominent government figure in his native New Zealand, advocating on behalf of conservation efforts and public service until his death in January 2008.