Alexandra Stewart - Everest: The Remarkable Story of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay

For my parents, Christopher and Donna Stephens A. S.

BLOOMSBURY CHILDRENS BOOKS

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This electronic edition published in 2020 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

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First published in Great Britain 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Text copyright Alexandra Stewart, 2019

Illustrations copyright Joe Todd-Stanton, 2019

Alexandra Stewart and Joe Todd-Stanton have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author and Illustrator of this work

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request

ISBN 978-1-5476-0159-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-5476-0160-8 (e-book)
ISBN 978-1-5476-0161-5 (e-PDF)

Art created digitally

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Coburn, Broughton, Triumph on Everest:A Photobiography of Sir Edmund Hillary (2003)

Douglas, Ed, Tenzing: Hero of Everest (2003)

Hillary, Sir Edmund, View from the Summit (1999)

Hunt, John, The Ascent of Everest (2013)

Norgay, Tenzing and James Ramsey Ullman, Man of Everest:

The Autobiography of Tenzing (1956)

AUTHOR ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My profound thanks to: Saskia Gwinn from Bloomsbury, for giving me the opportunity to write this book, Camilla Knight for her inspiration, and to Ed Douglas and Jake Meyer for their expert advice. My heartfelt appreciation also goes to Elaine Connolly and Claire Jones from Bloomsbury for their hard work and patience; Joe Todd-Stanton for bringing words to life with his stunning illustrations and to Chris Haley, Jen Turpin and Tom Hillary for their help. Above all, I am indebted to my husband, Jonty, and to our children, Flora and Jake, for their love, support and good humour.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

Mount Everest the closest you can get to the Moon by walking...

I was just nine years old when I received the news. Theyd done it. Mr Hillary and his friend Tenzing had reached the top of Everest. And so I decided: I too would become a climber of mountains...

Climbing Everest is no easy feat. Dangling on a never-ending knifes edge, the possibility of plummeting to ones death awaits you at every crevice, crack, avalanche and icefall. More than 50 years later and even with mobile phones and modern science, oxygen regulators can fail you or nature can intervene; an unexpected icy staircase causing your fall. And so it seems only fitting that Hillary is remembered for his legendary tale of triumph on Everest, one half of the first two humans to have reached the top of the worlds tallest mountain.

Born the son of a beekeeper, Edmund Hillary was a modest man. When he finally reached the roof of the world in a death-defying journey, that had killed 13 climbers before him, he wearily reached for his camera to take a snap of his fellow climber and friend Tenzing Norgay; it never occurred to him to ask for a photo of himself. Little is written about Hillarys enduring charity work, the results of which touch the heart of Nepal today, nor is Tenzing the household name that Hillary is the ever-fearless Sherpa whose acts of bravery, determination and friendship side by side with Hillary would change their lives forever.

After two attempts and one successful summit, I know first-hand that the path to Everest is treacherous, with worse than nail-biting moments along the route. This wonderful story tells us not only of Hillary and Tenzings remarkable journey, but also of the courageous team further down the mountain made up of hundreds of Sherpas, correspondents, surgeons and even students, who helped Hillary and Tenzing along their way. It recounts the important stories of the heroic explorers who went before them, their tragic legacies sending life-saving information about Everest storming back to the base below. And it is a tale that speaks of the endurance, creativity and tenacity of those on the ground from fundraisers and medics to scientists and shoe manufacturers most of whom have never even set foot on this gigantic mountain.

You dont have to be a hero to make your mark on the world.

RANULPH FIENNES

INTRODUCTION

At 11.30 in the morning on 29th May 1953, a beekeeper and a former yak herder took a final few weary steps on to a snowy dome.

Exhausted and breathing hard, they could go no further there was nowhere further to go. It was then that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay realised they had done it. They had climbed on to the roof of the world. Satisfied and perhaps a little surprised the pair gazed down on the earth below from a height at which no person had stood before.

The sun shone in the piercing blue sky and a gentle breeze was blowing. The gods of Mount Everest were smiling on them. Their incredible success had come after months of painstaking preparation, years of training and a lifetime of ambition and dreaming. Along the way they had battled perilous physical conditions, illness and intense fear.

This book tells their story the story of two unlikely heroes from humble backgrounds whose grit, determination and modesty captured the hearts and imaginations of the world; two ordinary men who battled against the odds to be the first to achieve an extraordinary feat. But as brave, resourceful and determined as they were, success, when it came, did not belong just to Hillary and Tenzing.

This was a hard-won victory built on the experience, knowledge and efforts of hundreds of people from around the world.

This is their story too.