Tenzing Norgay
Reached the summit of Everest on his seventh attempt
Tenzing Norgay was born in the Khumbu region of Nepal, in the shadow of the mountain his people called Chomolungma. He never knew his exact birthday and had no schooling. As a teenager he ran away to Darjeeling in India, where British expeditions hired Sherpa porters, because he wanted to see the mountain from the other side.
He joined his first Everest expedition in 1935 as a porter, and returned in 1936, 1938, 1947 and twice in 1952, when a Swiss team got within 250 metres of the summit before turning back. On each attempt he learned more, and by the early 1950s he was a sirdar, the leader of the Sherpa team, and one of the most experienced high-altitude climbers alive.
The 1953 British expedition chose him and the New Zealander Edmund Hillary for the final push. On 29 May, at 11:30 in the morning, they reached the summit together. Tenzing buried sweets and a pencil in the snow as an offering. Asked afterwards who had stepped up first, the two men agreed to say they arrived together, and stuck to it.
He was awarded the George Medal, became the first director of field training at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling, and trained a generation of Indian and Nepalese climbers. He had spent his life in the service of other people's expeditions; after 1953 the world knew his name as well as theirs.