Sir Edmund modest about ‘first foot’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33804, 29 March 1975, Page 2

Sir Edmund modest about ‘first foot’

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

LONDON, March 28.

Sir Edmund Hillary, the beekeeper from Auckland who climbed the world’s highest mountain with Sherpa Tenzing, still insists it is not important who first set foot on the summit of Mount Everest.

In his 308-page autobiography published today the New Zealander leaves laymen and even experts wondering who got to the top first 22 years ago.

Mountaineers approached for comment said they did not know the answer but invariably added that it was of no consequence.

Tenzing’s autobiography, “Man of Everest,” written with James Ramsey Ullman and published two years after the ascent, said Sir Edmund stepped on top first, although only six feet separated the two men.

The British expedition which conquered the mountain always was careful to blur the details of the last stage.

In his book, “Nothing Venture, Nothing Win,” Sir Edmund says that Tenzing and himself moved throughout one at a time on the mountain and finally: “On a tight rope from Tenzing I climbed up a gentle snow ridge to its top. Immediately it was obvious that we had reached our objective. It was 11.33 a.m. and we were on top of Everest.” ‘NOT CLEAR’ Mr Mike Baker, secretary of the British Alpine Club, said in an interview: "It isn’t clear from that who got to the top first. A tight rope does not imply that the chap giving it is in a position of superiority. Hillary is a very modest man and here he seems to be even more modest than necessary.”

Mr Baker said he did not know who first reached the summit of the 29.028 ft mountain on May 29, 1953, although he had read another book about the expedition by a British climber.

“One can only respect Hillary’s view that it is supremely immaterial who arrived first at the top of such a climb as that,” Mr Baker said. “People in the climbing world haven’t bothered about it.” A climber who would not be named said he did not know who was first on top of

Everest but assumed it was Tenzing because Nepal is his country and Hillary allowed him up first.

When news of the feat first filtered back from the Himalayas into the Indian subcontinent, local press reports said Tenzing was first on the summit. Sir Edmund writes about that: TEAM EFFORT “Tenzing assured us he had made no such claim. We had operated as a team and the question of who actually placed a foot anywhere first was of no consequence to us, or to any mountaineer.” Both men still are asked the question. “Tenzing and I now say that we reached the summit together. We shared the work, the risks, and the success — it was a team effort and nothing else is important,” Sir Edmund writes. He admits to having known fear on Everest but recalls at those times he would say

to himself: “Forget it. This is Everest and you’ve got to take a few risks.”

In the years after the 1953 triumph, Sir Edmund, now 55, several times returned to the Himalayas, and helped the Sherpa people by building a hospital and schools.

On a United Statesfiiianced expedition he investigated the Yeti, the abominable snowman of Himalayan legend. He concluded from relics and footprints that it was the Tibetan blue bear. “But despite our investigations the Yeti remains part of the tradition and mythology of the Sherpa people,” he says.

Beyond Nepal, Sir Edmund says he knows people want to believe in a strange, completely unknown creature and will not be happy until they can observe it from the comfort of their television chairs.

“Nothing Venture, Nothing Win” is published by Hodder and Stoughton.