Tenzing Norgay
Tenzing Norgay, known to the world as Sherpa Tenzing actually grew up in the Kharta Valley region in Tibet to the east of Mount Everest, but this was kept secret for many years, for political reasons.
He was originally named Namgyal, but when he was taken to see the famous founder of Rongbuk Monastary the lama advised his family to change his name to Tenzing Norgay, which roughly means wealthy and fortunate follower of religion – which rather makes you feel that the lama had his eye on the main chance, and his fame was well deserved as only a very lucky monk might have seen the future prosperity of this uneducated todder!
His father was a yak herder who died in the 1940s but his mother lived to see him climb Everest. He was he was the 11th of 13 children, most of whom died young.
His exact date of birth is uncertain, except that he was born in spring, so later in life he decided to make 29 May his birthday, as this was the date he climbed Everest.
As a young man he served as a high-altitude porter in three British attempts to climb Everest from the northern Tibetan side during the 1930s. He also took part in other climbs in various parts of the Indian subcontinent, and for a time in the early 1940s he lived in what is now Pakistan; he said that the most difficult climb he ever took part in was on Nanda Devi East, where a number of people were killed.
In 1947, he took part in an unsuccessful summit attempt. With an eccentric Englishman Earl Denman, and another Nepali porter, Ange Dawa Sherpa, he entered Tibet illegally to attempt the mountain, but encountered a strong storm at 22,000 feet after which Denman admitted defeat.
Then in 1953, he took part in John Hunt's expedition, his own seventh expedition to Everest, in which he and Hillary became the first to reach the summit. Tenzing and Hillary were the first people to conclusively set their feet on the summit of Mount Everest, but journalists were persistently repeating the question which of the two men had the right to the glory of being the first one, and who was merely the second, the follower.
Tenzing was married three times. His first wife, Dawa Phuti, died young in 1944. With her he had a son, Nima Dorje, who died at the age of four, and two daughters: Pem Pem, who had a son Tashi Tenzing who climbed Everest, and Nima. His second wife was Ang Lahmu, a cousin of his first wife. They had no children, but she acted as stepmother to his daughters. His third wife was Daku, whom he married while his second wife was still alive, a traditional Sherpa custom, and with her he had his sons Jamling and Norbu. Tenzing served as a consultant to many expeditions and in 1978 he founded a company, Tenzing Norgay Adventures, that offers trekking in the Himalaya.
Since 2003, the company has been run by his son Jamling Tenzing Norgay, who himself reached the summit of Everest in 1996.
Sherpa Tenzing Norgay died in Darjeeling, India in 1986.
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