The Top of the World

At four in the morning, in a tiny tent on a narrow ledge of snow, two men woke up in the bitter cold.

They were higher than any human being had ever slept, more than 8,400 metres above the sea. Outside, the sky was clear and still. One of them, Edmund Hillary, found that his boots had frozen solid in the night. He spent an hour holding them over a small stove, thawing them out, before they could even begin.

The other, Tenzing Norgay, looked out of the tent. Far below, in the first light, he could see the valleys of Nepal and Tibet, and the monastery of Thyangboche, where he had spent time as a boy.

It was 29 May 1953. Above them rose the last ridge of Mount Everest.

The mountain

Everest is the highest mountain on Earth, almost 8,850 metres tall, on the border of Nepal and Tibet. In Nepal it is called Sagarmatha, and in Tibet Chomolungma. For more than thirty years, climbers had tried to reach its summit. Some had died trying. None had succeeded.

Tenzing Norgay had been on more Everest expeditions than anyone. He was a Sherpa, one of the mountain people of the Himalaya, and he had grown up near Everest before moving to Darjeeling, in India, to find work with climbing expeditions. He had started as a porter, carrying loads. By 1953 he was one of the most respected climbers in the world. The year before, with a Swiss team, he had come within about 250 metres of the top.

Edmund Hillary was a tall, quiet beekeeper from New Zealand who spent his free time climbing mountains.

The expedition

They were part of a large British expedition led by John Hunt, an army officer. It included more than a dozen climbers, scientists and support staff, and hundreds of porters, who carried tonnes of food, tents and oxygen bottles to the foot of the mountain. Many Sherpas carried loads high up the slopes, again and again.

Hunt's plan was to set up a chain of camps, each one higher than the last, so that two climbers at a time could try for the summit.

The first pair, Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans, set off on 26 May. They reached the South Summit, only about a hundred metres below the top. But their oxygen was running low, they were exhausted, and it was late in the day. They wisely turned back.

Now it was the turn of Hillary and Tenzing.

The last ridge

They left their tent at about half past six in the morning, carrying heavy oxygen sets on their backs. The ridge ahead was narrow, with a sheer drop on one side and overhanging cornices of snow on the other. They took turns to lead, cutting steps in the ice with their axes.

Near the top, they came to a great step of rock, about twelve metres high. It looked impossible. Hillary found a crack between the rock and the ice beside it, and wriggled and pushed his way up. Then he brought Tenzing up behind him on the rope. That rock is still called the Hillary Step.

After that, the ridge kept rising, hump after hump. They wondered how much further it could go. And then, quite suddenly, there was nowhere higher to climb.

At about 11.30 in the morning, they were standing on the top of the world.

Fifteen minutes on the summit

They shook hands. Then Tenzing threw his arms around Hillary, and they thumped each other on the back.

Hillary took a photograph of Tenzing holding up his ice axe, with four small flags tied to it: those of the United Nations, Britain, Nepal and India. There is no photograph of Hillary on the summit. As far as Hillary knew, Tenzing had never used a camera, and he later said the summit was no place to start teaching him.

Tenzing, a Buddhist, made a small hole in the snow and left an offering of sweets and biscuits for the gods of the mountain. Hillary left a small cross that John Hunt had given him.

They stayed for only about fifteen minutes. Their oxygen was limited, and the climb down was dangerous. They reached their companions safely.

Who was first?

Afterwards, people all over the world asked the same question: which of the two had actually stepped onto the summit first? For years, both men refused to say. They had climbed as a team, they said, and reached the top as a team.

Only in his autobiography, published in 1955, did Tenzing say that Hillary had been a few steps ahead. He added that it did not matter.

The news reached London on 2 June 1953, the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation. Hillary and Hunt were knighted, and Tenzing received the George Medal. He went on to train young climbers at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling. Hillary spent much of the rest of his life building schools and hospitals for the Sherpa people.

Want to read more?

John Hunt's The Ascent of Everest is the official account of the expedition. Tiger of the Snows, Tenzing's own story, and Hillary's View from the Summit tell the climb from each man's side of the rope.