On May 29, 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first two people to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Although Hillary was part of Colonel John Hunt’s expedition, when the team had drawn within 300 feet of the summit, Hunt directed Hillary and Tenzing Norgay to scale the final 300 feet to the summit. Hillary describes reaching the summit: “A few more whacks of the ice axe in the firm snow, and we stood on top.”
Although Hillary is credited with reaching the summit first, neither one would have made it without the assistance of the other. As a matter of fact, without Tenzing, Hillary would not have been there to plant his feet on the summit. Hillary had fallen into a crevasse, and as he was quickly heading for a meeting with the bottom, Tenzing grabbed Hillary’s safety rope, slammed his ice axe into the ice, and tied Hillary’s rope to it.
Colonel Hunt, after the incessant pestering by journalists to declare who was the first of the two to stand on the summit, stated, “They reached it together, as a team.” Just as Hillary stated, “A few more whacks of the ice axe in the firm snow, and we stood on top,” he did not credit himself with being the first, but rather declared that the team stood on top.
Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay remained friends for the remainder of their lives.
It is with this premise, this team cohesion, this sharing the credit of success, that Gruppo Sportivo Tenzing was founded in 2003