'A few cautious steps'

Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund remained lifelong friends

Sir Edmund Hillary - who has died aged 88 - described his May 1953 conquest of Everest with Tenzing Norgay in thrilling but unsentimental terms in the official account published a few months later.

This extract, from the Royal Geographical Society Journal, begins after the two men had spent the night of 28 May perched precariously high up the mountain, hardly sleeping and breathing from heavy oxygen cylinders.

After a somewhat uncomfortable night, I looked out of the tent very early and was greatly encouraged to see every sign of a fine day.

We quickly organized ourselves and at 6.30am set off up the mountain. The first 500 feet was covered very slowly but steadily.

I felt we had a fair chance so decided to persevere

We were going well, and were able to overcome without difficulty any problems we met.

But then we reached the great 400-foot face running up to the South Summit, and this was a different proposition. Not only was it very steep but I felt the snow was in a dangerous condition.

Laboriously beating a track up it, sometimes to our knees and often deeper, we were always conscious of the tremendous drop to the Kangshung Glacier, 11,000 feet below.

Half-way up the slope I asked Tenzing his opinion and he replied that he was rather unhappy about it and thought it very dangerous. When I asked him whether he thought we should go on, he gave his familiar reply: 'Just as you wish.'

I felt we had a fair chance so decided to persevere. It was a tremendous relief however when, 100 feet from the South Summit, the snow became firm and we were able to kick and chip steps up the last steep slopes on to the South Summit itself.

Difficult and dangerous

We sat down and had a drink from our water bottle. We had been using oxygen at the rate of 3 litres a minute and I estimated that this would give us another four and a half hours on our remaining bottle.

The ridge ahead looked both difficult and dangerous, heavily corniced on the right, dropping off to enormous rock bluffs on the left. The only possibility was to keep along the steep snow slope running between them.

I cut a line of steps down to the saddle between the South Summit and the ridge and was overjoyed to find that the snow, far from being soft and powdery, was firm and hard and that a couple of good blows with the ice-axe would make a step big enough for even our outsize high-altitude boots.

We moved slowly and very carefully. I cut 40 feet of steps, then forced my ice-axe into the snow and belayed Tenzing as he moved up to me. Then he in his turn thrust his ice-axe in and protected me as I cut another 40 feet of steps. Moving one at a time and fully conscious that our margin of safety must inevitably be reduced at this great altitude, we forged slowly ahead.

Using every handhold on the rock in front I wriggled and jammed my way up

After an hour's going the South Summit was dropping away beneath us, but I suddenly noticed that Tenzing, who had been going very well, was starting to drag.

When he approached me I saw he was panting and in some distress. I examined his oxygen set and, finding that the exhaust outlet from his mask was blocked with ice, was able to give him immediate relief.

We moved on again and soon reached the worst problem on the ridge - a great rock bluff which looked far too difficult to tackle directly with our limited strength. There was one possibility: attached to the right-hand side of the rock bluff was a cornice and the ice had peeled away leaving a gap running the full length of the bluff and just large enough to take the human frame.

With Tenzing belaying me I moved into the crack and cramponing on the ice behind and using every handhold on the rock in front I wriggled and jammed my way up and pulled myself panting on to the little ledge at the top.

I signalled to Tenzing and heaved on the rope until he in his turn struggled up and collapsed exhausted on our little ledge. I really felt now a fierce determination that we would succeed in reaching the summit.

A rounded snow cone

The ridge stretched on in a never-ending succession of corniced bumps and as I continued cutting the trail round the back of them I wondered just how long we would have to go on. We were starting to tire.

I had been cutting steps continuously for almost two hours and wondered rather dully, whether we would have enough strength left to get through.

I cut around the back of another hump and saw that the ridge ahead dropped away and that we could see far into Tibet. I looked up and there above us was a rounded snow cone. A few whacks of the ice-axe, a few cautious steps and Tenzing and I were on top.

The time was 11.30am.

We stayed fifteen minutes, removing our masks and so conserving oxygen.

After an hour we were back on the South Summit; moving gingerly down the great snow slope, we were able to shrug off the sense of fear that had been with us all day.