the explorers journal the global adventure issue - The Explorers Club

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?great moments in exploration as told to Jim ClashS u m m i t i n gEverestwithSir Edmund HillaryJC: Tell us about that historic day, May 29, 1953,when you and Tenzing Norgay were first to reachthe summit of Mount Everest. What do youremember?Sir Edmund Hillary: Well, I think my feeling was notone of exultation. I didn’t jump around and throwmy hands up, or anything like that. My feeling wasmuch more one of considerable satisfaction becausepeople had tried before, without success,and we’d worked pretty hard at it. Here Tenzing[Norgay] and I were standing on top of the world.It was a pretty good feeling, actually, but sort ofsubdued. I was still very much aware that we hadto get safely down again. Tenzing was, too. I putmy hand out to shake with Tenzing in a rathertypical Anglo-Saxon way, but that wasn’t enoughfor him. He threw his arms around my shouldersand gave me a hug. Then I gave him a hug and allthe rest of it. We had a sort of warm moment, ifyou will, on the summit of a cold mountain.64There are two other things I rememberclearly, even in the short time I was there. Oneis that I did look around a bit to see if therewas any sign of remnants of [George] Mallory.I didn’t expect there to be, of course, afterall those years. And there wasn’t. The otherthing is that while standing on top of Everest,I looked across the valley, towards the othergreat peak Makalu, and mentally worked out aroute about how it could be climbed. That wasthe route the French first climbed it by someyears later. But it showed me that even thoughI was standing on top of the world, it wasn’tthe end of everything for me, by any means.I was still looking beyond to other interestingchallenges. I’ll always remember doing that. Ifound it quite interesting.More of Jim Clash’s columns and video shows can be foundat www.forbes.com/adventurer.Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, courtesy the Royal Geographical Society Everest Archive