page_title: Edmund Hillary
section_title: 1953 Everest expedition
hierarchical_section_title: Edmund Hillary / Expeditions / 1953 Everest expedition
caption_attribution_description: English: 29 May 1953 Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary after successfully completing the first ascent of Mount Everest at 11.30am. Deutsch: Am 29. Mai 1953 gelang Tenzing Norgay zusammen mit Edmund Hillary die Erstbesteigung des Mount Everest. Русский: Тенцинг Норгей и Эдмунд Хиллари.
context_page_description: Sir Edmund Percival Hillary KG ONZ KBE was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest. They were part of the ninth British expedition to Everest, led by John Hunt. From 1985 to 1988 he served as New Zealand's High Commissioner to India and Bangladesh and concurrently as Ambassador to Nepal.
  Hillary became interested in mountaineering while in secondary school. He made his first major climb in 1939, reaching the summit of Mount Ollivier. He served in the Royal New Zealand Air Force as a navigator during World War II and was wounded in an accident. Prior to the Everest expedition, Hillary had been part of the British reconnaissance expedition to the mountain in 1951 as well as an unsuccessful attempt to climb Cho Oyu in 1952. As part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition he reached the South Pole overland in 1958. He subsequently reached the North Pole, making him the first person to reach both poles and summit Everest.
context_section_description: In 1949, the long-standing climbing route to the summit of Everest was closed by Chinese-controlled Tibet. For the next several years, Nepal allowed only one or two expeditions per year. A Swiss expedition (in which Tenzing took part) attempted to reach the summit in 1952, but was forced back by bad weather and problems with oxygen sets 800 feet (240 m) below the summit. In 1952,
  Hillary learned that he and Lowe had been invited by the Joint Himalayan Committee for the 1953 British attempt and immediately accepted. Shipton had been named as leader but was replaced by Hunt. Hillary objected but was immediately impressed by Hunt's energy and determination. Hunt asked Charles Evans and Hillary to form with him a small three-man planning group on the expedition. Hunt wrote that:
  Hillary's testing in the Himalayas had shown that he would be a very strong contender, not only for Everest, but for an eventual summit party. When I met Shipton last autumn I well remember his prophesying this – and how right he was. Quite exceptionally strong and abounding  in a restless energy, possessed of a thrusting mind which swept away all unproven obstacles, Ed Hillary's personality had made an imprint on my mind, through his Cho Oyu and Reconnaissance friends and through his letters to me.
  Hillary had hoped to climb with Lowe, but Hunt named two teams for the ascent: Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans; and Hillary and Tenzing. Hillary, therefore, made a concerted effort to forge a working friendship with Tenzing. Hillary wrote, "Tenzing had substantially greater personal ambition than any Sherpa I had met."
  The Hunt expedition totalled over 400 people, including 362 porters, 20 Sherpa guides, and 10,000 pounds (4,500 kg) of baggage. Lowe supervised the preparation of the Lhotse Face, a huge and steep ice face, for climbing. Hillary forged a route through the treacherous Khumbu Icefall.
  Cameraman Tom Stobart was Hillary's room-mate in Kathmandu. He described Hillary as:
  a skeleton as tall as I was … a hatchet-thin face, and seemed tied together with steel … I had just got a rubber torch to pieces and couldn’t get it together again. This human machine took charge. ‘Let’s give it ago’ he said, using an expression we came to know so well in the following months. It may have meant that he would try to fix it, but did not. Actually it meant he would fix it, a subtle but important difference so far as Ed and his fellow countryman George Lowe, were concerned.
  The expedition set up base camp in March 1953 and, working slowly, set up its final camp at the South Col at 25,900 feet (7,890 m). On 26 May, Bourdillon and Evans attempted the climb but turned back when Evans' oxygen system failed. The pair had reached the South Summit, coming within 300 vertical feet (91 m) of the summit. Hunt then directed Hillary and Tenzing to attempt the summit.
  Snow and wind delayed them at the South Col for two days. They set out on 28 May with the support of Lowe, Alfred Gregory, and Ang Nyima. The two pitched a tent at 27,900 feet (8,500 m) on 28 May, while their support group returned down the mountain. On the following morning Hillary discovered that his boots had frozen solid outside the tent. He spent two hours warming them over a stove before he and Tenzing, wearing 30-pound (14 kg) packs, attempted the final ascent. The final obstacle was the 40-foot (12 m) rock face now called "Hillary Step"; Hillary later wrote:
  I noticed a crack between the rock and the snow sticking to the East Face. I crawled inside and wriggled and jammed my way to the top ... Tenzing slowly joined me and we moved on. I chopped steps over bump after bump, wondering a little desperately where the top could be. Then I saw the ridge ahead dropped away to the north and above me on the right was a rounded snow dome. A few more whacks with my ice-axe and Tenzing and I stood on top of Everest.
  Tenzing in his 1955 autobiography wrote that Hillary took the first step onto the summit and he followed. They reached Everest's 29,028 ft (8,848 m) summit – the highest point on earth – at 11:30 am.
  They s
caption: Hillary and Tenzing on return from the summit of Everest
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