Monday Milestone: Royal Ascent
“Well George, we knocked the bastard off”
– Sir Edmund Hilary’s first words to good friend George Lowe after returning from the summit of Everest
This Week in History:
1953, May 29
Sir Edmund Hilary and sherpa Tenzing Norgay become (allegedly) the first men atop Mt Everest, the highest peak on the planet.
The Kiwis are a strange folk. The land of the long white cloud, full of hobbits and sheep fanciers sits tucked away in their corner of the world, far from anything. Yet in the sporting arena, New Zealanders have achieved success in some peculiar areas. They once won an America's Cup. Richard Hadlee was a superstar. And the first man to ever climb Mount Everest was Sir Edmund Hillary – a Kiwi.
Yes, the first footsteps on the roof of the world were from New Zealand boots in 1953, putting the land of the murdered vowel well in front of anything else their Anzac cousins have produced in the world of mountaineering.
Ever since the identification of Everest as the world’s highest peak, men attempted to best her, supposedly without luck. Until, in 1953 New Zealander Edmund Hilary using the assistance of one of the local Nepalese sherpas, Tenzing Norgay, who had been contracted for the expedition, stood at base camp and stared up at the summit, 8,848 metres above sea level. This was his turn.
Other members of their climbing party had been already turned back on one attempt, so when Hilary and Tenzing were given a crack at the summit, this was the team’s last chance. Off they set, and up they went. Negotiating the sheer cliff face (now called Hillary’s Step), they climbed ever higher. Serendipitously that day the weather held out for them, and the two scrambled up, embracing as they reached the highest point on earth.
The English press went mad. It was the same week Queen Elizabeth II was crowned. It’s not often a Kiwi conquers the world in such a manner, and for one of the dominions of the great British Empire to climb Mt Everest, in the same week that there was a new queen, it’s logical for the British media to quickly claim him as their own and dedicate the entire expedition in her honour. In return Hillary and others received knighthoods. Isn’t that nice?
But were Hilary and Tenzing actually the first to the roof of the world? An ill-fated 1924 expedition by Englishman George Mallory, whose well-preserved body was discovered on Everest in 1999, two curious questions: there was no picture of his wife, which he had claimed he would leave on the summit, and his snow goggles were in his pocket indicating a descent after sunset. Why else would they still be out after nightfall if they hadn’t gone for the summit? Circumstantial evidence, granted but it begs the question of was Hillary first? Perhaps we will never know…
Years later someone asked Sir Edmund Hilary later in life, why exactly he wanted to climb Mount Everest. Was it to be the first man to do it? Was it for the Queen? Was it simply to be a proud New Zealander and prove that sometimes his Kiwi brethren are better than Australians?
No. His answer was instead a simple one.
“Because it’s there”
Milestone Five: Reasons New Zealand is better than Australia
5. Desserts – Both the lamington and the pavlova, identified as Aussie desserts, actually originated in New Zealand. And both are delicious.
4. Suffragettes – It’s a little known fact but the progressive nation from across the Tasman were the world’s first to give women the vote in 1893. Well done New Zealand.
3. Neil Finn – The man that brought us Crowded House is a genius and a Making the Nut favourite. No matter how much Australia claims him, he still won’t lose that bloody accent.
2. The Haka – This traditional war cry is awesome. Chock full of swearing, I am envious every time it’s performed. Australia, in response have John Williamson on a guitar singing Waltzing Matilda. Fail.
1. Edmund Hilary – the first Australian to climb Everest didn’t happen until 1984. Hilary was thirty years ahead of his antipodean counterparts
