When Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Everest in 1953 with New
Zealander Edmund Hillary, he had no idea how his life would change. From that
moment on, Tenzing became an ambassador for his people, the high altitude
Sherpas of Darjeeling and the Khumbu. Although he spoke 7 languages, Tenzing
never learned how to write; however he wrote several books by dictation, and
they provide a timeless account of an era when the high Himalayan frontiers
were still unexplored.
No one knew if the top of Everest could be reached until May 29, 1953 when he
and Ed Hillary plodded their way to the summit from their high camp at 28,000
feet. This was the expedition's camp #9, 1,000 feet from the summit and
situated some 2,000 feet higher than today's highest camp for climbers on the
same route. Today, climbers set up only 4 camps on the mountain, because Base
Camp is positioned much higher than it was in the early days.
On the morning of their summit day, Tenzing and Hillary left their camp and
proceeded up the southeast ridge toward the summit. Tenzing later wrote: On
the top of the rock cliff we rested again. Certainly, after the climb up the
gap we were both a bit breathless, but after some slow pulls at the oxygen I am
feeling fine. I look up; the top is very close now; and my heart thumps with
excitement and joy. Then we are on our way again. Climbing again. There are
still the cornices on our right and the precipice on our left, but the ridge is
now less steep. It is only a row of snowy humps, one beyond the other, one
higher than the other. But we are still afraid of the cornices and, instead of
following the ridge all the way, cut over to the left, where there is now a
long snow slope above the precipice. About a hundred feet below the top we
come to the highest bare rocks.
There is enough almost level space here for
two tents, and I wonder if men will ever camp in this place, so near the summit
of the earth.
I pick up two small stones and put them in my pocket to bring
back to the world below.
"I'm not doing this because I'm going to make some money, I'm doing it more to fulfill my dream. I've always had this urge to climb Everest. Since I was 18 years old I wanted to climb but my father said no. He said, "Why do you want to climb? I already climbed it for you. You don't have to work on the mountain." His basic line was, "I've climbed the mountain. You don't have to climb it, by me climbing the mountain, making money, it's all for you, to give you an education, the best education you can get, the best of everything." So we did get the best of everything—all my brothers and sisters—we studied in the U.S. My three brothers and sister are working in the US right now. . . so I see his point."
There was much controversy and political intrigue after Tenzing's summit of Everest, as the Nepalese government wanted him to claim he was Nepalese and the Indian government wanted him to say he was an Indian citizen. In fact, he was both. As he said to the press at the time: "I was born in the womb of Nepal and raised in the lap of India." But most controversial of all was the question of who was truly the first to step atop the summit of Everest—Tenzing or Hillary? For years, people wondered. Even Hillary wrote in his press statement at the time that they reached the summit "almost together." Jamling, as Tenzing's son, was also hounded by truth seekers:
"From what I understood from what my father said. . . I've asked that question a couple of times myself because I've been asked it by literally thousands of people. People still ask me. My father's answer was, "We climbed as a team, period."Jamling carries with him a copy of his father's book, Tiger of the Snows, The Autobiography of Tenzing of Everest, so he can read his father's vivid account of his historic first ascent of Everest while he, too, is on the mountain. Tenzing's words gradually carry him up Everest toward the summit:
"We are back among the snowy humps. They are curving off to the right, and each time we pass one I wonder, Is the next the last one? Is the next the last? Finally we reach a place where we can see past the humps, and beyond them is the great open sky and brown plains. We are looking down the far side of the mountain upon Tibet. Ahead of us now is only one more hump—the last hump. It is not a pinnacle. The way to it is an easy slope, wide enough for two men to go side by side. About thirty feet away we stop for a minute and look up. Then we go on...."From that fateful day on, Tenzing has been a symbol of Sherpa strength and contribution to Himalayan climbing. Sherpas make up 1/4 of the total ascents of Everest and account for 1/3 of the lives lost on the mountain. Tenzing's own story on Everest is what keeps Jamling going. It wasn't until years later that Tenzing finally revealed exactly who reached the summit first:
"A little below the summit Hillary and I stopped. We looked up. Then we went on. The rope that joined us was thirty feet long, but I held most of it in loops in my hand, so that there was only about six feet between us. I was not thinking of "first" and "second." I did not say to myself "There is a golden apple up there. I will push Hillary aside and run for it." We went on slowly, steadily. And then we were there. Hillary stepped on top first. And I stepped up after him."
But perhaps it is his perspective from being on the summit, his view from the top of the world, that explains why mountaineers keep climbing Everest: "...around us on every side, were the great Himalayas, stretching away through Nepal and Tibet. For the closer peaks—giants like Lhotse, Nuptse, and Makalu—you now had to look sharply downward to see their summits. And farther away, the whole sweep of the greatest range on earth—even Kangchenjunga itself—seemed only like little bumps under the spreading sky. It was such a sight as I had never seen before and would never see again: wild, wonderful and terrible. But terror was not what I felt. I loved the mountains too well for that. I loved Everest too well. At that great moment for which I had waited all my life my mountain did not seem to me a lifeless thing of rock and ice, but warm and friendly and living."