In 1953, bankrupt and decimated post war Britain was in ruins with its empire crumbling. Yet, the Empire would bind together one last time and achieve an incredible feet that may have been thought to be impossible. Britain allowed two men to ascend into the heavens themselves and stand on the highest place in the world. Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s ascent of Mount Everest was the achievement that helped reestablish patriotism within the United Kingdom; accomplishing something that seven previous British expeditions failed to do. A simple beekeeper and a poor Sherpa made it to the top of a mountain that over a dozen men had died trying to summit. Through great leadership, perseverance, and just dumb luck the two had the success of a lifetime in Britain’s last imperial success.

Starting with a long trek from Kathmandu, the British expedition set off on March 10th, with over 3 tons of supplies all perfectly accounted for and labeled. The tedious work had been performed by the expedition leader, Major George Hunt. The 18 days of trekking through the great Himalayan range allowed for the expedition to become a team; however, George Lowe and Hillary, being from New Zealand, was somewhat looked down upon by their english counterparts. Pass after pass and valley after valley, the caravan treked up to the 12,000 ft base of the tallest mountain in the world. Arriving at the Monastery of Tengboche, the expedition discharged the lowland sherpas and hired new high altitude sherpas that would carry their supplies up to the top of the Western Khum where they would establish a more formal base camp to attack the mountain. However, first they must make a route through the great Khumbu Icefield.

Hunt put Hillary in charge of the task of planning a route through the icefall and making possible for porters carrying great loads. A task that is daunting but Hillary was never afraid of hard work, according to his son. Up through the great ever-changing icefall Hillary plots a path, using every opportunity he can to position himself in front of Hunt. By using aluminum ladders to cross cravases and by using all they had brought, they are forced to send for trees to be cut, while the nearest trees are a two day journey away. Once the route is established, the shepas brought the loads to the base of the Western Khum, where they set up the base camp for the rest of the expedition. During these relies Hillary and Tensing are walking back down the ice fall and Hillary fails to clear a leap over a modest crevasse, that could have taken his life. Tensig saved Hillary from death. Hillary and Tensing have a hard time communicating but get along great. Hillary, knowing that Hunt would never allow two New Zealanders up to the summit, (Lowe, and Hillary) starts to making a better friend of Tensing hopping that they could be a summit team.

The next step was ascending the Lhotse face, which Hunt assigns to Lowe. Several challenging factors faced Lowe in the form of weather and working at an altitude of nearly 25,000 feet. Thousands of steps had to be made and ropes fixed, but the ever-changing surface made progress slow and difficult. All this was made even harder by the lack of support that Hunt gave Lowe, and the support that did arrive could only work for 24 hours before the altitude became too much for them. The slow progress that Lowe faced caused a race against time to get to the top before the monsoon hit. Hunt was forced to make the decision to send Hillary in the lead of four sherpas to establish a camp in the South Col before the daunting task was completed on May 14th. All the sherpas had made it and camp was set. The South Col is a desolate place that is “not meant for humans.” The eeriness was made worse by the reminisce of the Swiss tents found from their failed attempt one year earlier.

With all the camps now established, the expedition began preparation for the assault on the summit of Everest. Knowing that they were going to need to use supplemental oxygen, the options between the two different system of opened and closed began to become a discussion. As Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans readied themselves for the attempt on the summit, they chose to go with Bourdillon’s closed oxygen system.They started up from the camp in the South Col in the morning of May 23rd, 1953, while Hillary and Norgay left base camp with Lowe and a few porters in order to be ready at camp if a second attempt was needed. Lowe spotted Evans and Bourdillon atop the south summit around noon, and they thought they could make it. Hours later, Lowe would spot them once again but much lower as they was descending into the South Col. Hillary goes out to meet them and recognized that they were very tired and did not make it past the south summit. Evans oxygens system had failed. They warned Hillary that the last ridge looked horrifically difficult. Hunt was sick from the lack of oxygen and was convinced to go down to camp with Evans and Bourdillon, and leave Hillary, Norgay, and a clutch of sherpas to attack the summit.

Two day later, Hillary, Norgay and a few other porters would climb to establish a camp somewhere near the south summit. Always looking for a place to camp, Norgay found a small relatively flat rock edge. They set up camp and sent the sherpa back, one sherpa wanted to stay up there in order to make them tea when Hillary and Norgay came back down, although touched by this, Hillary refuses, and sent him down with the rest. They spend sixteen hours on that ledge, sleeping for four. They had planned to sleep longer, but the oxygen bottle they had lugged up there for sleeping oxygen needed a different adapter that someone had ran off with. At 6:30am the morning of the 29th, they started up again. Originally using 4 liters per minute, but the group needed to decrease to three liters per minute in order to conserve oxygen. They reached the south summit at around 9am, and look at the snowpack of the serrated knifes edge ridge that stood before them and decided that it is too unstable but continue anyways.  Eventually arriving at a large rock step. They look at each other, and decide to continue once again. Wedging himself between the rock and the ice, Hillary shimmied up the step (later to named Hillary’s step) and made it to the top. Norgay followed his example. They continued to climb up the ridge, hammock over hammock, and finally reached the summit of Mount Everest. At around 12:30 on May 29th, 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of the tallest mountain in the world. They spent about fifteen minutes up on the summit. Norgay planted some beads in the snow for the gods and Hillary took some picture. They have done it!

At the base camp, there was no radio to talk to the first camp, so they had to wait until Hillary and Norgay came down and told them themselves. When they came into camp, Hunt hugged them as if he had been a child to a long gone parent. Three days later at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth the II, the summiting was announced and was a form of true national pride.