Tenzing Norgay (; Sherpa: བསྟན་འཛིན་ནོར་རྒྱས tendzin norgyé; May 1914 – 9 May 1986), born Namgyal Wangdi, and also referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepalese-Indian Sherpa mountaineer. On 29 May 1953, he and Edmund Hillary were the first people confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest, as part of the 1953 British Mount Everest expedition. Time named Norgay one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
There are conflicting accounts of Tenzing's early life. In his autobiography, he wrote that he was a Sherpa born and raised in Tengboche, Khumbu, in northeastern Nepal. In a 1985 interview with All India Radio, he said his parents came from Tibet, but that he was born in Nepal. According to many later accounts, including a book co-written by his son Jamling Tenzin Norgay, he was born in Tibet, at Tse Chu in the Kama Valley, and grew up in Thame, Nepal. He spent his early childhood in Kharta, near the north of the country. Norgay went to Nepal as a child to work for a Sherpa family in Khumbu.
Khumbu lies near Mount Everest, which the Tibetans and Sherpas call Chomolungma; in Standard Tibetan, that name means "Holy Mother", or the goddess of the summit. Buddhism is the traditional religion of the Sherpas and Tibetans, and Norgay was Buddhist.
Although his exact date of birth is unknown, he knew it was in late May by the weather and the crops. After his ascent of Everest on 29 May 1953, he decided to celebrate his birthday on that day thereafter. His year of birth, according to the Tibetan calendar, was the Year of the Rabbit, making it likely that he was born in 1914. This agrees with Hunt's statement that he was 39 in 1953, and had "established himself (as) not only the foremost climber of his race but as a mountaineer of world standing".
Tenzing was originally called "Namgyal Wangdi", but as a child his name was changed on the advice of the head lama and founder of Rongbuk Monastery, Ngawang Tenzin Norbu. "Tenzing Norgay" translates as "wealthy-fortunate-follower-of-religion". His father, a Tibetan yak herder, was Ghang La Mingma (d. 1949), and his mother, who was Tibetan, was Dokmo Kinzom. She lived to see him climb Everest. Tenzing was the 11th of 13 children, several of whom died young.
Tenzing ran away from home twice in his teens, first to Kathmandu and later to Darjeeling, India (which at that time was the starting point for most expeditions in the eastern Himalayas), and eventually acquired Indian citizenship. He was once sent to Tengboche Monastery to become a monk, but he decided that was not for him and left. At the age of 19 he settled in the Sherpa community in the Too Song Busti district of Darjeeling.
Norgay received his first opportunity to join an Everest expedition at age 20, when Eric Shipton was assembling the 1935 British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition. After two other prospective team members failed their medical tests, Norgay was pushed forward by his friend Ang Tharkay, a Sherpa sirdar who had been on the 1933 British Mount Everest expedition. His attractive smile caught the eye of Shipton, who decided to take him on.
Norgay participated as a high-altitude porter in three official British attempts to climb Everest from the northern Tibetan side in the 1930s. On the 1936 expedition, he worked with John Morris. He also took part in other climbs in various parts of the Indian subcontinent. For a time in the early 1940s, Norgay lived in the princely state of Chitral (then in India, later a part of Pakistan) as batman to a Major Chapman. Norgay's first wife died and was buried there during his sojourn in the state. He returned to Darjeeling with his two daughters during the Indian partition of 1947, and managed to cross India by train without a ticket and without being challenged by wearing one of Major Chapman's old uniforms.
In 1947, Norgay participated in an unsuccessful summit attempt of Everest. The Canadian-born mountaineer Earl Denman, Ange Dawa Sherpa, and Norgay entered Tibet illegally to attempt the climb, an attempt which ended when a strong storm hit at 22,000 feet (6,700 m). Denman admitted defeat, and all three turned around, returning safely. In 1947, Norgay became a sirdar of a Swiss expedition for the first time after having helped to rescue Sirdar Wangdi Norbu, who had fallen and been seriously injured. The expedition reached the main summit of Kedarnath at 22,769 feet (6,940 m) in the western Garhwal Himalaya with Norgay among the summit party. In 1951 he joined the 1951 British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition.
1952 Swiss Mount Everest expedition
In 1952, he took part in the two Swiss expeditions led by Edouard Wyss-Dunant (spring) and Gabriel Chevalley (autumn), the first serious attempts to climb Everest from the southern (Nepalese) side, after two previous US and British reconnaissance expeditions in 1950 and 1951. On 28 May, Raymond Lambert and Tenzing Norgay were able to reach a height of about 8,595 metres (28,199 ft) on the southeast ridge, setting a new climbing altitude record. The expedition, during which Norgay was for the first time considered a full expedition member ("the greatest honour that had ever been paid me"), opened up a new route on Everest that was successfully climbed the next year and forged a lasting friendship between Norgay and his Swiss friends, in particular Raymond Lambert. During the autumn expedition, the team was stopped by bad weather after reaching an altitude of 8,100 metres (26,575 ft).
In 1953, Tenzing Norgay took part in John Hunt's expedition; Tenzing had previously been to Everest six times (and Hunt three). A member of the team was Edmund Hillary, who fell into a crevasse but was saved from hitting the bottom by Norgay's prompt action in securing the rope using his ice axe, which led Hillary to consider him the climbing partner of choice for any future summit attempt.
At the time, newspaper reports variously referred to him as Tensing, Tenzing, Tenzing Bhotia, Tenzing Norgay, Tensing Norkey, Tenzing Sherpa or Dan Shin, as one Indian academic suggested.
The Hunt expedition totalled over 400 people, including 362 porters, 20 Sherpa guides and 10,000 pounds (4,500 kg) of baggage, and like many such expeditions, was a team effort.
The expedition set up base camp in March 1953. Hillary wrote in 1975 about first meeting Norgay in Kathmandu on 5 March 1953:
I was eager to meet Tenzing Norgay. His reputation had been most impressive even before his two great efforts with the Swiss expedition ... Tenzing really looked the part – larger than most Sherpas, he was very strong and active; his flashing smile was irresistible; and he was incredibly patient with all our questions and requests. His success in the past had given him great physical confidence – I think that even then he expected to be a member of the final assault party ... One message came through however in very positive fashion – Tenzing had substantially greater personal ambition than any Sherpa I had met.
Working slowly, the expedition set up their penultimate camp at the South Col, at 25,900 feet (7,900 m). On 26 May, Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans attempted the climb, but turned back when Evans' oxygen system failed. The pair had reached the South Summit, coming within 300 vertical feet (91 m) of the summit. Hunt then directed Norgay and Hillary to go for the summit.
Snow and wind held the pair up at the South Col for two days. They set out on 28 May with a support trio comprising Ang Nyima, Alfred Gregory and George Lowe. Norgay and Hillary pitched a tent at 27,900 feet (8,500 m) on 28 May while their support group returned down the mountain. On the following morning, Hillary discovered that his boots had frozen solid outside the tent. He spent two hours warming them before he and Tenzing attempted the final ascent, wearing 30-pound (14 kg) packs. The last part of the ascent comprised a 40-foot (12 m) rock face later named the "Hillary Step". Hillary saw a means to wedge his way up a crack in the face between the rock wall and the ice, and Norgay followed.