Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the conquering of Mount Everest. The royal family in Nepal, along with many mountaineers from all over the globe, met in Katmandu to celebrate Sir Edmund Hillary – the supposed first person to scale the world’s tallest peak. These dignitaries also “recalled” the work of Tenzing Norgay, the Sherpa who walked with Hillary all the way to the top of the mountain.
During the past week of the Everest celebration, Hillary, 83, has continually praised the work of Norgay – who died 17 years ago – while many of the other people in the celebration focused mainly on Hillary and his achievements while not giving much credit to his Sherpa climbing partner.
Hillary, a native New Zealander, is most often associated with the British empire – mostly because it funded his exhibition and knighted him after his achievement. He might get more attention than Norgay for scaling Everest because Hillary was funded by the empire, or it might be that most people outside of Nepal are more interested in honoring the person who is more like them than the native Sherpa who did just as much work, if not more, to get to the top of the world’s tallest mountain.
Even Hillary said he is disgusted with the way outsiders are treating the Sherpas of Nepal. While the Nepalese government is granting Hillary honorary citizenship because of his contributions to the Sherpa community, non-experienced climbers – or tourists – are accruing at the base camp of Everest and paying off Sherpas to get them to the top of Everest.
Sherpas are the heroes of climbing the Himalayan mountains. They do most of the climbing, carry the necessary equipment and get less worthy adventurers to the summit. Yet, not one of them get any recognition that comes close to comparing to what most non-native get. Two people scaled Everest for the first time in 1953, and yet Sir Edmund Hillary is a household name, while most people cannot even pronounce Tenzing Norgay. This is not like the case of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, where Armstrong gets most of the recognition because he really was the first person on the moon. Both Hillary and Norgay set foot on the highest ground of the Earth, no one better than the other.
So why is it virtually no credit is given to Norgay for his accomplishment? While climbing is not the world’s most popular sport, it is doubtful anyone can name a single Sherpa climber – even though two hold the world record for scaling Everest at 10 hours and 56 minutes.
Hillary’s accomplishment was amazing, and he deserves the recognition he is getting for it. However, he wasn’t the only one at the top of that mountain.
