When was everest climbed for the first time

Messner and Habeler had agreed on carrying two oxygen cylinders to Camp IV, in case of an emergency, and had also made a pact to turn back if either person lost his coordination or speech. The next day, it took them only three and a half hours to reach the South Col meters , where they camped for the afternoon and evening. Habeler complained of a headache and double vision on the climb up, but felt better after resting, even though both men frequently woke up from their naps gasping for air.

They forced themselves to drink tea, hoping rehydration would lessen the effect of the thin air. At 3 am on May 8, the two woke and began preparing for the day's attempt on the summit. Simply getting dressed took them two hours. The weather was questionable, but they decided to break camp. Since every breath was now precious, the pair began using hand signals to communicate.

Progress was slow. Trekking through the deep snow was exhausting, so they were forced to climb the more challenging rock ridges. It took them four hours to reach Camp V meters , where they rested for thirty minutes.

Even though the weather was still threatening, they decided to continue—at least to the South Summit, which was vertical meters away. Messner and Habeler now faced exhaustion unlike any they'd encountered before. Every few steps, they leaned on their ice axes and gasped for breath. Messner described feeling as though he were going to "burst apart. Upon reaching the South Summit, the pair roped themselves together and pressed on.

The wind battered them about, but they saw a break in the sky and were hopeful that the weather would improve. They had Messner described a feeling of apathy mingled with defiance. They reached the Hillary step and continued, alternating leads and resting three or four times. At meters they were no longer roped together, but were so affected by the lack of oxygen that they collapsed every 10 to 15 feet and lay in the snow.

It is the ultimate symbol of human endeavor where many mountaineers have gone to fulfill their dreams, resulting in both triumph and tragedy. Attempts to climb Mount Everest, however, could not begin until , when the forbidden kingdom of Tibet first opened its borders to outsiders. The first people to officially climb Mount Everest began their attempts in Two British Expedition team attempts in and failed to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

In , two members of a British expedition team, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine were seen just feet from the summit. They then vanished. The mystery remains unsolved. Ten more expeditions over a period of thirty years failed to summit, with 13 people losing their lives. Also along for the trip was a filmmaker to document their progress and a writer for The Times and very importantly, a physiologist. After months of planning and organizing, the expedition began to climb.

On their way up, the team established nine camps, some of which are still used by climbers today. Out of the eleven climbers on the expedition, only four would get a chance to make an attempt to reach the summit. Hunt, the team leader, selected two teams of climbers. The first team left on May 26, , to attempt to reach the summit. Although the two men made it up to about ft shy, the highest any human had yet reached, they were forced to turn back after bad weather set in as well as a fall and problems with their oxygen tanks.

Hillary discovered that his boots had frozen and spent two hours defrosting them. The two men left camp at a. During their climb, they came upon one particularly difficult rock face, but Hillary found a way to climb it. At a. As everybody knows, he left an offering—a chocolate bar, biscuits, and candy—on the summit. Recently, however, he has been inclined to explain, making no reference to the Deity, that he had wanted to master Everest since his boyhood, when he caught glimpses of climbing parties and heard stories about them from older Sherpas.

There seems room for both motives, but the difference is there, and it reflects a general de-emphasis of the Buddhist faith in his affairs since last year. One reason for this, it seems, is that many natives have become touchy about their religion; some Westerners laugh at it, so Asians keep silent. The Moslems broke off into Pakistan, some Sikhs would like to break off into their own Punjab, and the Himalayan Buddhists might get a similar idea.

When Tenzing was a boy, his heart was set on going to Darjeeling, but his father insisted that he stay home and herd yaks. He obeyed until he was nineteen, and then, in , he and a few other young Sherpas fled to Darjeeling.

For a couple of years, he made his way by renting out his pony and doing odd jobs, and in he was hired as a porter for a British Everest party. He went again in and again in , learning the things that Sherpa guides must learn, including how to cook Western meals for sahibs. His cooking is said to be good. The war suspended climbing for a decade, and it was not until that he tried Everest again, with the Swiss.

He has tackled many other peaks as well. He has been through the mill. At times, one hears, he has been very down and very out, but long before his final success he was known as one of the most able Sherpa sirdars of this generation.

Another is Ang Tharkay, who went on the Annapurna expedition with the French and is now helping a group of young Californians scale Mount Makalu, a 27,foot peak not far from Everest. Tenzing and Ang Tharkay began climbing at about the same time, and people often compared them.

A Buddhist might argue that he was incarnated for that end, and it does almost appear that he was destined to climb it. It seems as if barriers opened when Tenzing drew near. Tenzing and Hillary were not the first men in their group to try for the summit; two British climbers, Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans, went ahead of them, but had to stop because their oxygen was running out.

The weather was perfect for Tenzing and Hillary, though there was every reason to expect it would be bad. Because of a siege of malaria, on top of the strain of the two climbs, Tenzing was run-down when he joined Hunt at Katmandu in March, , but between Katmandu and Everest he walked himself into shape.

On the other hand, I have been told that in January, , Tenzing vowed at a dinner that he would climb Everest or die. For the British, this was a rather revolutionary idea—a bit like commissioning a man from the ranks—but the Swiss, who have no colonies, had set a precedent for it by treating Tenzing as a mountaineer in their own class and assigning him, along with Raymond Lambert, an Alpine guide, to make the big try.

They nearly got to the summit. All this was in the background at the time Hunt asked Tenzing to be one of the climbers. When Tenzing and Hillary reached the top, on May 29th, it was the end of the climb and the beginning of the arguments. Issue No. This came from the outside world, from a public conditioned to thinking that there must always be a winner. Mountaineers, especially when they are roped together, as Tenzing and Hillary were, seem to lack the zest for personal triumph.

Soon after Hillary and Tenzing descended, they said they had reached the top together, and that is what they have been saying ever since. The next controversy came when the party rejoined the world, in Katmandu. Nepalese nationalists objected to the news that Hunt and Hillary were to be knighted and that Tenzing was only to receive the George Medal.

Tenzing objected publicly, and became estranged, for a time, from Hunt and the rest of the British in the expedition. Feeling in Katmandu blazed high.

After the party went back to India, the breach was patched up. There has been no objection to the climb, incidentally, from Tibetan or Chinese Communists, even though the border between Tibet and Nepal crosses the summit of Everest, and Tenzing and Hillary might have been accused of trespassing.

The Tenzing affair has worked the other way. But nowadays heroism seems to be a subjective matter and not an objective one; a hero is a man who has caught the public eye, as Tenzing has, and not one who meets an abstract standard. Besides, if there is a standard in this case, it can only be the climbing of Everest itself.

Over the years, the try at the ascent was a test promoted largely by men who believed in white superiority. In the end, Tenzing, a nonwhite, passed it.

Inevitably, this made him a hero to Indian nationalists. Tenzing is a Cinderella who has shown them that they, too, can be belles. Although Tenzing usually manages to keep above the conflict, he is hurt when, as has happened a few times, he hears Westerners say that many another Sherpa, if properly led, could have climbed Everest. I help to you. All same. We both together. To get much further, Tenzing needs an interpreter, and this is one way Rabindranath Mitra assists him.

Mitra is a slight young Indian who grew up in Darjeeling and has a small printing shop here. He got interested in Tenzing in , was struck by his personality, and, in , began to publicize him, writing stories for the Indian press and advancing the legend that Tenzing had three lungs, which caused Mitra to be accused in Himalayan Club circles of money-making sensationalism.

After coming down from Everest, Tenzing experimented with other secretaries, or advisers, but he has apparently settled on Mitra. It is an executive job, for whoever holds it controls access to Tenzing and thereby governs him to a large extent.

Mitra is a warm, idealistic young man who seems to be devoted to Tenzing, but he is also an ardent Indian patriot and a Bengali—Bengalis are traditionally impassioned—and he may contribute tension as well as advice to his employer. His closeness to Tenzing is resented, of course, but Tenzing is evidently unmoved by that. The exhibit room is large and light, with windows looking out over a veranda toward the peaks. The wall opposite holds the main display.

There is a picture of Gandhi at the top center, with Nehru below at one side and Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh at the other. A long table stands under the pictures, and on it are plaques, medals, mugs, and a silver relief map of the Himalayas. On the wall to the right is a smaller exhibit devoted to the climb and consisting of photographs and gear, including the nylon rope Tenzing and Hillary used.

At the top is the well-known shot of Tenzing on the summit. Scattered about the room are dozens of other items—knives, ice axes, primus stoves, climbing boots, and so on. In this room, Tenzing receives the public and tries to keep up his end of whatever conversations he gets into. The other day, I listened in on a chat he had with an American, who started by offering Tenzing a cigarette. Tenzing refused, saying he never smoked. The American began to light one himself, then stopped and asked if it was all right.

There was a pause. The caller looked out the window. The day happened to be clear, and he could see the distant snows. He remarked on how splendid they were, and Tenzing agreed. Tenzing thought this over and said it would. Some people think Mrs. Tenzing, who is less high-strung than he, likes it better. She has expanded her collection of the treasures Sherpa women go in for, and she keeps them in a room that is, according to custom, set apart as a Buddhist shrine.