Who is sherpa tenzing

They are beset by inflation—prices are roughly three times what they were in the thirties—and by labor troubles. I have been told that workers in the tea gardens have beaten up several planters, with little or no punishment from the police. To Westerners, Darjeeling is a simple place, but to the Sherpas it is a great city. Sherpa boys run off to it as other boys run off to sea; Tenzing did this himself. The southern edge of the Tibetan plateau is fenced by peaks, including Everest, and then the ground falls sharply toward the plains of eastern India; most of Nepal lies on the higher reaches of this slope.

The Sherpa country is sparsely settled, and the largest village, called Namche Bazar, which apparently means Big Sky Market, consists of a few rows of small stone houses.

The Sherpas get along by raising yaks, which thrive on their blizzardy pastures and the thin air, and by growing potatoes; in one spot, they know it is time to begin planting when a frozen waterfall thaws. Another resident of the Sherpa country is the Abominable Snowman, or yeti —a creature who is said to walk like a man and to leave huge tracks. Many Sherpas believe that the Snowman is supernatural and that the sight of him will kill a man, but others claim to have caught a glimpse of him with no ill effects.

Tenzing has not come across the Snowman. A British expedition, backed by the London Daily Mail , is now in the Sherpa country trying to solve the mystery. There is a strong tendency among Sherpas to leave their difficult homeland. When the men arrive, they are apt to be got up in the Tibetan way, with long, braided hair and huge earrings, but they soon dispose of these. The women, however, usually cling to the Tibetan style—coiled braids, plain, dark dresses, and woollen aprons with narrow stripes in many colors.

The clothes vary in detail, depending on the latest fashion in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, but to the untrained eye they are all alike. Most of the Sherpas in Darjeeling—there are about a hundred families—live in a poor neighborhood called Tung Soong Bustee, a short walk from the center of town. One sunny morning recently, when the rest of the town was still buttoned up, I went over to have a look. This is the way Tenzing earned his living when he came here.

From the square, I made a hairpin turn over to what once was Calcutta Road but now is Tenzing Norkay Road, a dry, hard dirt road with paths running off to houses scattered in the brush below. Soon I was looking down on the tin roofs of the cluster of buildings where Tenzing used to live. A dozen prayer flags, flying from bamboo poles, rose above them; they had been white originally, but were gray with the columns of prayers, thousands and thousands of words, stamped on them.

Flapping in the breeze, they set up spiritual vibrations that, according to Sherpa belief, which is Tibetan Buddhist, would spread far and wide. A few women with the braids, high cheekbones, and small, square build of the Sherpas were filling pails and old kerosene tins with water from a public tap on the road.

I heard hoofbeats and a voice, and when I turned, there was Tenzing. He was riding a brown pony, wearing English-style boots over khaki trousers, and using an English saddle with a bright Tibetan rug under it.

The pony was just under thirteen hands, fit, and well groomed; stopping to chat for a moment, Tenzing said it came from Tibet, and showed me a brand on its hind quarters that looked like a Chinese character. Mount Everest has been a British institution—or at least climbing it has—since a year or two after the First World War. This came as something of a surprise, for Everest does not appear to stand above the peaks around it.

Since then, there have been threats from flash contenders, like Amne Machin, in northwest China, but Everest is still rated highest, even though there have been arguments over exactly how high it is. In , the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, a British project, called it 29, feet—admittedly an approximation. Some authorities say it is 29,—the result of later sightings—but 29, has prevailed, on the ground that no sighting can be reliable and it is better to choose one and stay with it.

A custom developed early in the history of Himalayan climbing whereby, to avoid confusion, different nations in general took on different peaks. In the division, the British got Everest, and except for two Swiss parties, which tried the climb in , with Tenzing along both times, they have had it pretty much to themselves. Between the two World Wars, the only way to approach Everest was from Tibet, because Nepal did not admit climbing parties, and Britain was the only Western country on speaking terms with Tibet.

In , Nepal opened up, and in , with the arrival of the Communists, Tibet closed down. In the days when the road lay only through Tibet, Darjeeling, which is near the caravan track from India to Lhasa, made a natural jumping-off place, where climbers could assemble, start breathing mountain air, check their equipment, learn something about the Himalayas, and, if they liked, be blessed before setting out by lamas from the nearby monastery of Ghoom.

In Darjeeling, too, the expeditions could recruit Sherpas, whose worth as high-altitude porters was discovered at the start of this century and who have helped in all the major attacks on Everest and the other high peaks in this stretch of the Himalayas. Last year, however, a German-Austrian party climbing Nanga Parbat, near the northwestern end of the range, had to do without them, for Nanga Parbat is in the part of Kashmir now held by Pakistani troops, and Pakistan is not hospitable toward Indians.

Being stopped by a frontier was a new experience for the Sherpas, who, all this century, have drifted innocently and unhindered across the otherwise stern border of Tibet and Nepal. If peaks were forbidden, it was not to Sherpas but to their Western employers—though this amounted to the same thing, since most Sherpas are not interested in climbing mountains by themselves.

For them, it is a livelihood, made possible by Western whim. Katmandu, the capital of Nepal, has become the usual jumping-off place for climbers, but Darjeeling remains the recruiting ground for Sherpas. They are generally hired through an organization called the Himalayan Club, which provides expeditions with advice and services, and which keeps dossiers on more than a hundred Sherpas, listing their vital statistics, their working records, and their good and bad qualities.

The Sherpas report early in the year, often walking from Namche Bazar for the purpose, so that they can have jobs by March, when the climbing season begins, and the Club assigns them tasks from sirdar, or foreman, down to common porter.

Tenzing was born in a village called Thami, near Everest and at an altitude of fourteen thousand feet. His father owned yaks, and as a boy Tenzing herded them, often in pastures thousands of feet above Thami. He also went on caravan trips over the Nanpa La, a nineteen-thousand-foot pass near the western shoulder of Everest. From the start, he lived as close to Everest as a human being could.

Two legends, both circulated by Tenzing and both perhaps true, have grown up to explain why he wanted to climb it. As everybody knows, he left an offering—a chocolate bar, biscuits, and candy—on the summit. Recently, however, he has been inclined to explain, making no reference to the Deity, that he had wanted to master Everest since his boyhood, when he caught glimpses of climbing parties and heard stories about them from older Sherpas.

There seems room for both motives, but the difference is there, and it reflects a general de-emphasis of the Buddhist faith in his affairs since last year. One reason for this, it seems, is that many natives have become touchy about their religion; some Westerners laugh at it, so Asians keep silent.

The Moslems broke off into Pakistan, some Sikhs would like to break off into their own Punjab, and the Himalayan Buddhists might get a similar idea. When Tenzing was a boy, his heart was set on going to Darjeeling, but his father insisted that he stay home and herd yaks. Four days later, Mallory and Andrew Irvine launched a summit assault and were never seen alive again.

Whether or not he or Irvine reached the summit remains a mystery. In , Nepal opened its door to the outside world, and in and British expeditions made exploratory climbs up the Southeast Ridge route.

In , a Swiss expedition navigated the treacherous Khumbu Icefall in the first real summit attempt. Two climbers, Raymond Lambert and Tenzing Norgay, reached 28, feet, just below the South Summit, but had to turn back for want of supplies. Shocked by the near-success of the Swiss expedition, a large British expedition was organized for under the command of Colonel John Hunt.

In addition to the best British climbers and such highly experienced Sherpas as Tenzing Norgay, the expedition enlisted talent from the British Commonwealth, such as New Zealanders George Lowe and Edmund Hillary, the latter of whom worked as a beekeeper when not climbing mountains. Members of the expedition were equipped with specially insulated boots and clothing, portable radio equipment, and open- and closed-circuit oxygen systems.

Setting up a series of camps, the expedition pushed its way up the mountain in April and May A new passage was forged through the Khumbu Icefall, and the climbers made their way up the Western Cwm, across the Lhotse Face, and to the South Col, at about 26, feet. On May 26, Charles Evans and Tom Bourdillon launched the first assault on the summit and came within feet of the top of Everest before having to turn back because one of their oxygen sets was malfunctioning.

On May 28, Tenzing and Hillary set out, setting up high camp at 27, feet. After a freezing, sleepless night, the pair plodded on, reaching the South Summit by 9 a. They crawled out of the tent, put on their goggles and oxygen equipment, and headed out into the piercing cold. They walked with difficulty through the crusted snow, heading up toward the ridge above them, where the dawn sun was shining. According to Audrey Salkind in www. For weeks, for months, that is all we have done.

Look up. And there it is—the top of Everest. Only it is different now: so near, so close, only a little more than a thousand feet above us. It is no longer just a dream, a high dream in the sky, but a real and solid thing, a thing of rock and snow, that men can climb. We make ready. We will climb it. This time, with God's help, we will climb on to the end. Up on the ridge top, heavy overhangs of snow known as cornices hung from the high point, which at times was as sharp as a knife edge.

They moved slowly and reached the south summit by 9 a. After checking their oxygen supply, they headed on between cornices and steep drop-offs, and came to a vast slope of snow, which the two previous climbers, Bourdillon and Evans had chosen to avoid. The snow on the steep slope was powdery, too fine to hold an ice axe; if either of them fell, they would have no chance of getting a grip.

In addition, a fall could start an avalanche. According to mountaineer Eric Shipton in Mountain Conquest, Hillary later said that he was "tight with fear. Later, he said, "It was one of the most dangerous places I have ever been on a mountain. They continued on despite the danger and eventually reached a foot cliff. The team had seen this cliff on aerial photographs, but no one knew if it could be climbed.

Conditions were dangerous. Hillary, who was in the lead, wormed his way up through a crack in the face of the cliff. This feature is still known as the "Hillary Step. Tenzing was right behind him. They continued to move up along the ridge until they passed the last switchback, and they could see clearly the relatively easy slope up to the summit. In www. Then we are on our way again.

By today's standards, the British expedition, under the military-style leadership of Sir John Hunt, was massive in the extreme, but in an oddly bottom-heavy way: porters, 20 Sherpas, and tons of supplies to support a vanguard of only ten climbers.

Fifty years later, Band's memory of the campaign remains undimmed. On such expeditions the leader tends to designate the summit pairs quite late during the expedition, when he sees how everybody is performing. But never again would the stakes be quite so high. By the spring of , the ascent of the world's highest mountain was beginning to seem inevitable. First attempted in by the British, Everest had repulsed at least ten major expeditions and two lunatic solo attempts.

With the discovery of a southern approach to the mountain in newly opened Nepal, and the first ascent of the treacherous Khumbu Icefall the following year, what would come to be known by the s as the "yellow brick road" to the summit had been identified. At first it seemed the Swiss would claim the prize. In a strong Swiss team that included legendary alpinist Raymond Lambert had pioneered the route up the steep Lhotse Face and reached the South Col.

From that high, broad saddle, Lambert and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay then pushed all the way to 28, feet 8, meters on the Southeast Ridge before turning back—probably as high as anyone had ever stood on Earth.

Now the British were determined to bring every possible advantage to their spring offensive—including hiring Tenzing, 38, as their lead Sherpa, or sirdar. Earlier British expeditions, though impressive in their accomplishments, were often charmingly informal in style. Hunt's intricately planned assault, on the other hand, was all business.

From the start, the year-old beekeeper Edmund Hillary not yet Sir Edmund was a strong contender for one of the summit slots. The heavily glaciated peaks of his native New Zealand had proved a perfect training ground for the Himalaya. Hillary earned respect early in the expedition by leading the team that forced a route through the Khumbu Icefall. Still, logistical snafus, the failure of a number of stalwarts to acclimatize, and problems with some of the experimental oxygen sets stalled the expedition badly.

The team took a troubling 12 days to retrace the Swiss route on the Lhotse Face in part, perhaps, because the British were not as experienced on difficult ice. In despair, Hunt began to wonder whether his party would even reach the South Col. The expedition finally gained the col—the vital staging area for a summit push—on May This was late enough to be worrisome, for the monsoon, whose heavy snows would prohibit climbing, could arrive as early as June 1.

Because they became the first men to reach the summit of Everest, Hillary and Tenzing would earn a celebrity that has scarcely faded in 50 years.