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Hillary and Tenzing arrived at summit together, say sons

Nepal

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were of one mind on the question of who first reached the summit of Mt Everest.

The men, tethered to one another by rope and a bond of trust, arrived together in a team effort. That, to them, was all that mattered.

It was only after they returned from the mountain that it became a controversy that threatened to overshadow their achievement.

Their feelings about their feat, at 11.30am on May 29, 1953, are recorded in a handwritten note that had been thought lost but which has reemerged in time for the 70th anniversary of their historic climb.

Jamling Tenzing Norgay, 58, Tenzing’s son, discovered the document while going through his father’s boxes, and intends to make it available to the public in a museum in Darjeeling, northern India.

‘‘While climbing to the summit of Everest on May 29, 1953, sometimes I and sometimes Hillary was in the lead,’’ Tenzing dictated on June 20, 22 days after his ascent.

‘‘We reached the summit almost together in the final ascent, and I planted the flags of Nepal, Britain, India and the United Nations on the summit, while Hillary took photos.’’

The same document features Hillary’s handwritten declaration, dated June 22, which stated that ‘‘as we climbed upwards to the South Summit, first one and then the other would take a turn at leading’’.

He continued: ‘‘We crossed over the South Summit and moved along the summit ridge. We reached the summit almost together.’’

Although the climbers hoped that this would be the end of the matter, both were dogged by questions as to which of them first placed their boot on the topmost point, until Tenzing lost patience. In 1955 he told his biographer that he saw it as ‘‘a foolish question [whose] answer means nothing’’ but he wished to put an end to the matter’’.

‘‘The rope that joined us was 30 feet (9m) long, but I held most of it in loops in my hand, so that there was only about six feet (1.8m) between us. I was not thinking of ‘first’ and ‘second’. I did not say to myself, ‘There is a golden apple up there. I will push Hillary aside and run for it’. We went on

‘‘They were an outstanding team to [reach] the top of the world.’’

Peter Hillary

slowly, steadily. And then we were there. Hillary stepped on top first. And I stepped up after him.’’

Hillary later confirmed that he had been ahead in the final moment of ascent. ‘‘It is so unimportant that we never think of it,’’ he wrote to his fiancee, Louise Rose.

He bemoaned that the matter had become political, with agitators in Nepal, India and China urging Tenzing to say he had reached the summit first and had dragged the exhausted New Zealander up to join him.

‘‘Actually,’’ Hillary wrote, ‘‘I did all the leading for the last couple of hours and did in actual fact

reach the summit a rope length ahead of Tenzing.’’

The sons of both men told The Times that they believed their fathers arrived simultaneously.

Jamling Tenzing, speaking from Everest’s Base Camp, 3485m below the summit, said the summit was large enough for several people to arrive at once.

‘‘There’s no one point on the summit where there’s a line [marking the top]. Nine people can hold hands and walk together. My father got fed up. He wanted to get it over with. He said, ‘Hillary did it. Now leave me alone’. But they did it together. They were on one rope.’’

Peter Hillary, 68, said there was no doubt in his mind. ‘‘They did it together. That had been their agreement. They were an outstanding team to [reach] the top of the world.’’

‘‘There was a lot of pressure on them after the climb. Some aspects of it were a little unpleasant because they were a team who had all worked together. The conjecture tarnished the experience.’’

Both sons are taking part in Everest 70, a programme of events involving charities including the Himalayan Trust and the Tenzing Norgay Sherpa Foundation. They will take part in events including the opening of the Sir Edmund Hillary Visitor Centre in Khumjung, and the opening of the Tenzing Norgay Sherpa Heritage Centre in Namche Bazaar.

Jamling Tenzing said Sherpas had not considered climbing the mountain, known locally as Chomolungma, until the arrival of British mountaineers, but his father was different.

‘‘Since he was a child, he had this dream, looking up at the mountain. He used to take care of his family’s yaks. He would lie down and wonder, ‘What is this mountain so high that no birds can fly over?’. Something kept drawing him towards the mountain.’’

Although early British climbers often saw themselves through an imperial lens, Jamling Tenzing said his father was treated as an equal.

‘‘Some of those feelings that people had – India was under the British, so British are the sahibs . . . my father didn’t feel any of that, and Hillary didn’t either. John Hunt, the expedition leader, invited my father not to be a porter but as a member of the team.’’

He added that the legacy of the expedition was overwhelmingly positive, with 60,000 tourists arriving each year.

‘‘Sherpas are doing well economically. There are Western influences, but we continue to maintain our culture.’’

He warned, however, that visitors must respect the hostility of the mountain.

‘‘If you’re not fit enough, you die, or get sick. It takes seven Sherpas to bring that person down. You’re not just risking your own life.’’

WORLD

en-nz

2023-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/282677576665558

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