June 23, 1953: Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary pose for a portrait after being honored by King Tribhuvan of Nepal. Edmund Hillary returned to Britain with the other climbers and was knighted by the queen. The triumph of a British-led expedition combined with the inauguration of the young queen did much to restore the confidence of a nation weary from long years of wartime hardship and postwar shortages. It was then that Edmund HIllary delivered his immortal summary of their achievement: “Well, George, we knocked the bastard off.” George Lowe went on to direct a documentary of the expedition, The Conquest of Everest, which was nominated for an Academy Award.īy coincidence, the conquest of Everest was announced to the British public on the eve of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. During their descent to the South Col, Hillary and Tenzing were met by Lowe. The following day, May 29, Hillary and Tenzing successfully reached the summit of Mount Everest. Their summit camp was established at 27,900 feet, then Lowe, Gregory and Ang Nyima descended to the South Col camp. On May 28, 1953, Lowe, Alfred Gregory and Sherpa Ang Nyima set out with Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay as the support party for their historic summit attempt. In 1953, Lowe was a member of the British Mount Everest expedition led by John Hunt. 1953: Sir Edmund Hillary with Lord Willoughby Norrie, the Governor-General of New Zealand, and George Lowe, a New Zealand-born mountaineer and film director, at Government House, Wellington. At 11:30 on the morning of May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit, 29,028 feet above sea level, the highest spot on Earth.
At last, Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, a native Nepalese climber who had participated in five previous Everest trips, were the only members of the party able to make the final assault on the summit. The expedition reached the South Peak on May, but all but two of the climbers who had come this far were forced to turn back by exhaustion at the high altitude. (Image Credit: Aerial Photography and Terrain Model by SWISSPHOTO AG and National Geographic Maps) A five-hour climb brought Hillary and Norgay to the top of the world. At 7,920 m (26,000 ft), the South Col is typically the last camp on an Everest ascent, but Hillary and Norgay made their final camp an additional 610 meters (2,000 feet) above this point. The Western Cwm leads to the south face of Lhotse and the South Col, a saddle between the pyramid-like peaks of Everest and Lhotse. The glacial valley is smooth in this image, lacking the relief shown by the steep ridges around it. After successfully crossing the Khumbu Icefall, the team walked up the Western Cwm. The dark lines that cut across the icefall resemble waves, hinting at the constant movement that opens deep crevasses and sends large chunks of ice tumbling freely down the mountain. The team made their first camp below the Khumbu Ice Fall, a steep, rugged, and fast-moving section of the Khumbu Glacier. The two climbers, Hillary from New Zealand and Norgay from Nepal, were part of a British climbing team. 15 Ways to the Top of Mount Everest: 1953 British Expedition, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, via the Western Cwm and the South Col, May 29. These exploits brought Hillary to the attention of Sir John Hunt, leader of an expedition sponsored by the Joint Himalayan Committee of the Alpine Club of Great Britain and the Royal Geographic Society to make the assault on Everest in 1953. The ascent is acclaimed as the pinnacle of 20th-century athletic achievement.Įdmund Hillary joined in Mount Everest reconnaissance expeditions in 1951 and again in 1952. May 29, 1953: Edmund Hillary took this photograph of Tenzing Norgay as they set foot on the summit of Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. In 1952, a team of Swiss climbers had been forced to turn back after reaching the south peak, only 1,000 feet from the summit. In 1924, the famous mountaineer George Leigh-Mallory had perished in the attempt. Between 19, seven major expeditions had failed to reach the summit. Mount Everest, Nuptse and the Khumbu Icefall at sunset in the Nepalese Himalayas.
By this time, Hillary was ready to confront the world’s highest mountain. Although he made his living as a beekeeper, he climbed mountains in New Zealand, then in the Alps, and finally in the Himalayas, where he climbed 11 different peaks of over 20,000 feet. It was in New Zealand that he became interested in mountain climbing. Sir Edmund Hillary was born in 1919 and grew up in Auckland, New Zealand.
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