This day in history

[tread_tramp]

May 29, 1953; Tenzing Norgay guided the brit Edmund Hillary to the top of Everest.

[larrythellama]

Hillary is/was a Kiwi and we should all note that Tenzing made it to the top first!

[tread_tramp]

uff da! I stand corrected. But your second point is the main thrust of my post.

[catbirdseat]

The two stood together on the summit on this day in 1953 and that is all that matters.

[Ed_Seedhouse]

> we should all note that Tenzing made it to the top first!

 

> The two stood together on the summit on this day in 1953

> and that is all that matters.

 

Well, truth matters too. The fact is that Tenzing himself, in his

autobiography, said directly that Hillary was first on top.

[griz]

[tread_tramp]

...from Tenzing's book Tiger Of The Snows, pp.247-8:

 

I have thought much about what I will say now: of how Hillary and I reached the summit of Everest. Later, when we came down from the mountain, there was much foolish talk about who got there first. Some said it was I some Hillary. Some that only one of us got there--or neither. Still others that one of us had to drag the other up. All this was nonsense. And in Katmandu, to put a stop to such talk, Hillary and I signed a statement in which we said "we reached the summit almost together." We hoped this would be the end of it. But it was not the end. People kept on asking questions and making up stories. They pointed to the "almost" and said, "what does that mean?" Mountaineers understand that there is no sense to such a question; that when two men are on the same rope they are together, and that is all there is to it. But other people did not understand. In India and Nepal, I am sorry to say, there has been great pressure on me to say that I reached the summit before Hillary. And all over the world I am asked, "Who got there first? Who got there first?"

Again I say: it is a foolish question.The answer means nothing. And yet it is a question that has been asked so often-that has caused so much talk and doubt and misunderstanding-that I feel, after long thought, that the answer must be given. As will be clear, It is not for my own sake that I give it. Nor is it for Hillary's. It is for the sake of Everest-the prestige of Everest-and for the generations who will come after us. "Why" they will say "should there be a mystery to this thing? Is there something to be ashamed of? To be hidden? Why can we not know the truth?"...Very well: now they will know the truth. Everest is too great, too precious, for anything but the truth.

A little below the summit Hillary and I stopped. We looked up. Then we went on. The rope that joined us was thirty feet long, but I held most of it in loops in my hand, so that there was only about six feet 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 slowly and steadily. And then we were there. Hillary stepped on top first. And I stepped up after him.

So there it is: the answer to the "great mystery." And if, after all the talk and argument, the answer seems quiet and simple,I can only say that it is as it should be. Many of my own people, I know, will be disappointed at it. They have given a great and false importance to the idea that it must be I who was "first." These people have been good and wonderful to me, and I owe them much. But I owe more to Everest--and to the truth. If it is a discredit to me that I was a step behind Hillary, then I must live with that discredit. But I do not think it was that. Nor do I think that, in the end, it will bring discredit on me that I tell the story. Over and over again I ask mself, "What will future generations think of us if we allow the facts of our achievement to stay shrouded in mystery? Will they not feel ashamed of us--two comrades in life and death--who have something to hide from the world?" And each time I asked it the answer was the same: "Only the truth is good enough for the future. Only the truth is good enough for Everest."

[tread_tramp]

Maybe this quote refutes what I previously said was the main thrust of my 1st post, but it doesn't diminish Tenzing's credit for getting Hillary to the top.

[Ed_Hobbick]

You could say that Hillary got Tenzing to the top and be equally subjective.

[Kraken]

why are you armchair climbers even arguing about this? It's stupid and worthless?

[gyselinck]

Yo Clintoris, whatever happened to that balls to the wall climb you did up one of the hardest mountains in the Chugard or however you spell it.

[Kraken]

Severe avalanche danger pushed it back to mid june. I've been climbing other peaks in the chugach...4 in the last 8 days actually (Suicide, O'Malley, Near, and Wolverine).

 

My partner and I are going to check conditions this next week and possibly give it a go next weekend or the one after that.

[gyselinck]

Right on.

[tread_tramp]

Hey this thread is for us armchair climbers. Deal with your private issues via private messages.

[chris]

I know enzing was essential to Hillaary's success, but couldn't the reverse be said as well? After all, Hillary climbed through the infamous step - a feat that Tenzing was not willing to do. I seems to me that they were trully a team; each contributing their strength to balance out the other's weakness.

[Alpine_Tom]

Without Hillary, Tenzing would have never gotten up there -- the expedition provided both the resources and the motivation, as well as the technical climbing training. Without Tenzing's strength, Hillary wouldn't have got up there.

 

imho, this is a perfect armchair climber question -- ultimately meaningless but full of potential for disagreement, nitpicking, and difference-splitting.

 

To me, a bigger issue is what Hillary did AFTER Everest. Instead of going home to rest on his laurels, or continuing to forge a reputation as a hard-man climber, he went back to Nepal and dedicated his life to bettering the lives of the Sherpas, building schools, hospitals, and so on.

[tread_tramp]

I know enzing was essential to Hillaary's success, but couldn't the reverse be said as well? After all, Hillary climbed through the infamous step - a feat that Tenzing was not willing to do. I seems to me that they were trully a team; each contributing their strength to balance out the other's weakness.

 

Tenzing says as much in his book. I don't think he was a self promoter but wanted to set the records straight that it was a partnership between he and Hillary; with neither of them having to be hauled up. They swung leads and each contributed to the others success. Tenzing had been high on the mountain the year before with the Swiss. And as sherpa had done a lot of the route preparation.