SHERPA TENZING NORGAY FIRST TO SUMMIT EVEREST

(ALSO SOME FOREIGNER)

May 29, 1953, 11:30 A.M.

Tibet

 

Local Sherpa Tenzing Norgay climbed to the top of Chomolungma (which outsiders call Mount Everest) today. With him was an Australian named Edmund Hillary.

Norgay is an experienced mountaineer, having attempted to gain the summit seven times. No wonder the foreigner chose him to lead him up the mountain.

Everyone in the village of Namche Bazar, as well as the entire country of Nepal, is proud of Tenzing, the latest in a long line of heroes from our community.

Every foreigner acknowledges that Sherpas are better climbers, better at carrying heavy packs at high altitudes, and better at handling the altitude, than the outsiders. And we’re more cheerful. But the foreigners have the money to mount an expedition, so we’re happy to do all the work and let them take all the credit.

There are rumors that this Hillary fellow claimed he was the first one to the summit, but of course that can’t be true.

No one would believe him.

 

But seriously…

 

June 30^st, 2022

Sir Edmund Hillary is known as the first man to summit Mount Everest, but on May 29^th, 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay stood together at the top of the world.

And Tenzing stood alone in the history of mountaineering.

Tenzing Norgay was a man who straddled two worlds. Growing up in the Himalayas, while tending his family’s yaks he would gaze up at the mountain they called Chomolungma (Goddess Mother of the World or Goddess Mother of the Wind), known affectionately as The Mountain So High No Bird Can Fly Over it. As a Sherpa he would get the chance to make a living on the mountain as a porter.

But he also occupied a place unique among Sherpas: on the 1953 expedition, he was one of the climbers, not a porter. He earned a place as a full member of the expedition, not part of the support staff.

 

Sherpas

The term Sherpa has become synonymous with a guide on Everest, but the Sherpas are an ethnic group who reside in a quiet 12,000-foot-high enclave in Nepal called Solu-Khumbu, which happened to be in the shadow of the highest point on earth. Traditionally they were farmers, and very poor, but beginning in 1907, they found work on expeditions mounted by westerners, carrying supplies up the mountain.

They excelled at it. In Nepal and Tibet there are hanging plank bridges spanning rivers at the bottom of every valley, bridges too treacherous for large animals, so over the centuries the Nepalese have carried heavy loads up and down mountains on their backs.

Their sahibs (as they called their western patrons) would marvel that they could tote tremendous loads in spite of their small frames, and still cheerfully prepare food after a grueling day of work.

But the Sherpas quickly distinguished themselves from the Tibetans and the other Nepalis, and leaders of expeditions tapped the Sherpas as high-altitude porters, to such an extent that this ethnic group became associated with this job.

 

What set them apart? They were seen as more disciplined, more willing, and less superstitious than their neighbors. They were not encumbered by the dietary restrictions of the Hindus, Moslems, and orthodox Buddhists. Being willing to eat any food the westerners brought meant there was no need to pack special rations.

They also defied stereotypes. A simple people with no written language, Sherpas showed a cosmopolitan ability to learn the many languages of their patrons. (Tenzing landed one climbing job because he spoke Tibetan, Hindustani, Nepali, and English in addition to Sherpa.) Tenzing was a world-class mountaineer and a cigarette smoker.

They also had a complex religious orientation, incorporating old beliefs and new ways, devotion and practicality.

Tenzing’s mother believed there was a golden sparrow and a turquoise lion with a golden mane living on top of Everest. He also heard the warnings from the monks in the monasteries not to trample on the sacred mountain. The climbing Sherpas held, in their own way, a reverence for the mountain, but it didn’t stop them from climbing.

Sherpas were more than poor backward farmers- something their employers quickly recognized.

From Chris Bonington:

“Living close to the passes into Tibet, the Sherpas have always been traders as well as farmers. As a result they have a shrewd business sense and entrepreneurial spirit…. They understand the worth of money.”

Rene Dittert:

“I would not have thought it possible to be more obliging and less servile.”

And Eric Shipton found them

“tremendously loyal and yet they never kowtow to people.”

Tenzing Norgay himself summed up their attitude:

“We consider it our duty to take care of our sahibs. We cook for them, bring them their tea, look after their equipment, and see that they are comfortable in their tents. And we do these things not because we have to, but because we want to; not in the spirit of servants but of good companions.”

 

Ambition

But there was something else: they were also extremely competitive. Their word “Tatok” summed it up. It can mean jealousy, wishing your competitor ill, or not being able to see another get ahead of you. This competitiveness drove the Sherpas to become the world’s greatest high-altitude porters.

But young Tenzing, tending yaks under Chomolunga, had a higher ambition. As he gazed up at the mountain, giving off its perpetual plume of snow, he dreamed of making it to the top. He would be more than a porter; he would be a climber. So he moved to Darjeeling, India, where he was put in touch with those who put together mountaineering expeditions. He signed up for every climb he could, including a trip to the central Himalayas in India.

He climbed Everest seven times, finally getting to the top on the seventh try.

He learned that by serving as sirdar he was able to make himself valuable to an expedition, and eventually earn a place as a climber.

The sirdar was the leader of the Sherpas, responsible for hiring the porters, keeping them organized, and looking after their wellbeing. It also involved persuading reluctant Sherpas to continue- sometimes through threats or even physical blows- because lives were at stake.

Usually the reason for wanting to turn back was sickness, or pretended sickness, but on one occasion a Sherpa claimed he saw a Yeti (variously described as man, ape, ape-man, or abominable snowman).

He was indefatigable on the mountain. His fellow climbers recognized this (they claimed he had three lungs), and by 1952, climbing with the Swiss expedition, he was named to the two-man assault team, which meant that he would make the final push to the top. His partner was Raymond Lambert, whose toes had been amputated because of frostbite from a previous climb.

They almost made it, stopping at 28,250 feet (the summit is 29,029 feet).

Without saying a word they both knew it was time to turn back- that going on would have meant death. Tenzing described the effects of altitude and exertion, just under the peak, as “that hell that was so close to heaven.”

 

Teamwork

It was a year and a day later that Tenzing finally got to the top, with a British expedition.

Everyone remembers Sir Edmund Hillary, but it was a team enterprise. It started with a seventeen-day-trip on foot from Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, to Thangboche Monastery, at the base of Everest, where they set up their Base Camp in a grassy paddock amid grazing yaks. From there, forty porters packed tons of supplies over ice flows, glaciers, and crevasses that needed to be spanned by sure-footed Sherpas over wooden logs and improvised rope bridges.

A select few formed the team that made the final push to the top possible. Their names have been forgotten, but Hillary wouldn’t be world famous without them.

On May 26^th, Tom Bourdillon and Dr. Charles Evans made the first attempt at the top, getting as far as the South Summit at 28,720 feet. They left two oxygen bottles, which would be crucially important three days later.

Colonel John Hunt, the leader of the expedition, and Da Namgyal, carried supplies to 27,350 feet, including their oxygen tanks, coming down without oxygen. Da Namgyal’s hands were frostbitten.

On May 28^th, George Lowe, Ang Nyima, and Alf Gregory carried more supplies, with George laboriously cutting steps in the snow and ice to make the climb easier for Tenzing and Hillary, allowing them to conserve their strength. George set up camp at 27,900 feet, where Tenzing and Hillary slept that night.

Everything is harder at extreme altitudes. They lost their appetites, so they drank copious amounts of warmed-up drinks, mostly tea and lemonade. Simple tasks took hours. One mountaineer described their work at this stage as “grim, dead-brained toil.” It took Tenzing and Hillary three hours to prepare to leave their tent the morning of the 29^th; Hillary’s boots had frozen and they had to heat them over their small stove, and knead them until they thawed. Then, roped together, they took turns leading, Tenzing tracking that plume of snow coming off the peak, an eternal flame at the frozen tip of the sacred mountain.

At 11:30 they summitted, Hillary first and Tenzing right behind.

They stayed at the top for fifteen minutes.

Hillary snapped three photos of Tenzing holding his ice pick displaying four flags: the United Nations, Great Britain, Nepal, and India.

Tenzing offered to take Hillary’s picture, but he declined, because Tenzing didn’t know how to operate a camera, and Hillary figured that the top of Everest wasn’t a good place for a photography lesson.

Tenzing said a prayer,

“Thuki Chhey, Chomolungma.”

meaning, “we are grateful, Everest”, and left a red and blue pencil, that his daughter had given him for the occasion, in the snow. Hillary left a crucifix, and something else: he had to urinate, from all the lemonade he had consumed.

Tenzing took one souvenir off the mountain: an empty oxygen cannister, which he gave to the Rongbuk Monastery in Tibet. They hung it in the courtyard and used it as a gong.

 

Heroes

It was a British expedition that conquered Everest, and Tenzing was invited to England to be honored along with his British colleagues, in a whirlwind series of celebrations wherein Britain essentially claimed credit, overlooking the fact that the two men who actually summitted were not English.

Tenzing was given a more personal hero’s welcome in Kathmandu. Paraded through the streets in a horse-drawn royal coach, his fellow Nepalese screamed in adoration and crowded in on him.

Two banners displayed their attitude toward their local hero. One read,

“Hail Tenzing, Star of the World”

The other read,

“Welcome Tenzing, First Man to Conquer Everest”

 

The years since 1953 have seen mega-expeditions, with celebrity cricket matches, bakeries, and whiskey-tasting tents at Base Camps; and helicopters, carpeted tents, and traffic jams high on the mountain. They’ve brought with them a jockeying for position, climbers vying to be the first one of their party to the top.

In contrast, the 1953 trip was a model of unselfish teamwork.

Tenzing expressed this sentiment in this way:

“There is no ‘first’ or ‘second,’ but only Everest.”

 

Sources

Tiger of the Snows: the Autobiography of Tenzing of Everest, Tenzing Norgay, with James Ramsey Ullman

Life and death on Mt. Everest: Sherpas and Himalayan Mountaineering, Sherry Ortner

The Sherpas of Nepal, Buddhist Highlanders, Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf

The Conquest of Everest, George Lowe and Huw Lewis-Jones