NORGAY, TENZING (15 May 1914–9 May 1986), one of the first two people to summit Mount Everest, the other being Edmund Hillary.
Tenzing Norgay was born Namgyal Wangdi, the eleventh of thirteen children. His name was changed as a child on the advice of a Tibetan Buddhist lama. He received no birth certificate and his exact date of birth is a guess. He claimed in his autobiography that he was born to a Sherpa family in Khumbu, Nepal, in the shadow of Mount Everest, which is known to those in the region as “Chomolungma” or “Mother Goddess.”
Though in English “Sherpa” is a synonym for Himalayan mountaineering guide or porter, Sherpas are actually a specific ethnic and linguistic group indigenous to the Himalayan region that borders Nepal, Tibet, and India. It is now known that Norgay’s parents were ethnically Tibetan, and conflicting accounts of Norgay’s life, including one by Norgay’s son, cite his birthplace as Tshechu, Tibet. It seems likely that Norgay was born in Tibet and sent to work for a Sherpa family in the Khumbu Valley as a child.
At thirteen he ran away to Katmandu but returned a few weeks later. At eighteen he ran away for good to Darjeeling, India, and settled in a Sherpa community. He found work, as many Sherpas did, as a high-altitude porter for European mountaineers. This was dangerous work. By the time Norgay made his first climb, fourteen people had already died in Everest expeditions, ten of them Nepalese.
In 1935 at the age of 19, Norgay got his first job as a porter on a reconnaissance expedition on Everest alongside British mountaineer Eric Shipton. Shipton liked his smile and was willing to overlook his inexperience. Norgay proved himself quickly and on future expeditions was promoted to sirdar, the manager of all porters on an expedition. Mountaineering expeditions were paused during World War II, but over the next decade Norgay would take part in six of the eight total expeditions on Everest. In 1947 he illegally entered Chinese Tibet to attempt a climb with Canadian Earl Denman and Sherpa Ang Dawa. In 1952 he joined a Swiss team that included Raymond Lambert, in which he participated as a climber himself rather than as a sirdar. The two men broke the previous record for highest climb, reaching 28,210 feet.
By 1953 Norgay was the most experienced Everest climber of any man on Earth. British explorer, John Hunt, determined to beat the Swiss to the summit and planning to follow the Southern route Norgay and Lambert had taken, sought out Norgay as a climber for his own expedition.
Hunt’s team reached the southern ridge below the summit days behind schedule and worryingly late in the climbing season. From there, Hunt divided his group into pairs to attempt the summit. Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans made it 330 feet from the peak before turning back, having run into trouble with their oxygen equipment. Two days later, on May 29, 1953, at 11:30 a.m., in unexpectedly perfect weather conditions, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to summit Everest, reaching an impossible height of 29,035 feet.
As they completed their historic climb, Hillary described offering Norgay a handshake and Norgay instead embracing him. They spent a total of fifteen minutes on the summit. Norgay prayed and left an offering of food, in accordance with Buddhist tradition, though the food on hand was a chocolate bar and some candy. He also planted an Indian and Nepalese flag. Norgay and Hillary agreed that they would refuse to say which man had officially been the first to step foot on the peak. When asked in interviews, Norgay would reply “This is teamwork.”
Norgay and Hillary’s record-breaking climb made both men instantly famous, though Hillary received a substantial portion of the credit early on. Hillary was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, while Norgay received a series of smaller accolades, including the George Medal for bravery, the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal, the Order of the Star of Nepal, and the Indian Gold Medal. He remains a national hero in Nepal and India.
Norgay spent the next year co-writing his autobiography, Tiger of the Snows (1955), and receiving visitors at a mini-museum set up in his house in Darjeeling. Travelers arrived in droves to look at the equipment he had carried to the summit, bring him gifts, and take pictures with him. In 1954 India established the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute and named Norgay director of field training, where he worked until he set up his own trekking company, Tenzing Norgay Adventures, in 1973.
Norgay never attempted to summit Everest again. Both he and Hillary described being surprised by the number of people who would attempt the summit after them and the rapid commercialization of the industry. Norgay died in 1986 of a cerebral hemorrhage at 71. He was the father of seven children.
His son Jamling Tenzin Norgay successfully summited Everest in 1996 and now runs Tenzing Norgay Adventures. On the fiftieth anniversary of his father's climb, Jamling Norgay and Edmund Hillary’s son Peter attempted a climb together. While an avid climber and proponent of the industry, Jamling has also drawn attention to the exploitation and often unacknowledged deaths of Sherpas in mountaineering.