User name

TenzingNorgay_Famous

First name

Tenzing

Last name

Norgay

Gender

Male

Profile Number

3003

Date of Birth

05/29/1914

About Me

He can be considered as one of the most famous and influential people from Nepal. Born in late 1914 as Namgyal Wangdi, Tenzing Norgay was the 11th of the 13 children of Ghang La Mingma and Dokmo Kinzom. Norgay was a Nepali Sherpa mountaineer, holding the honor of being the first two individuals, together with Sir Edmund Hillary to reach the summit of Mount Everest on May 29, 1953. According to some accounts he was born a Sherpa and brought up in Tengboche, Khumbu which was located in the northeastern part of Nepal. Others claimed that he was born in the Kharta Valley in Tibet but he was sold as a bonded servant to a Sherpa family in Thamel, Nepal by his destitute family. Sherpas are traditional mountain guides. His name was changed by the Ngawang Tenzin Norbu, head lama and founder of the Rongbuk Monastery. Tenzing Norgay roughly translated to mean a wealthy-fortunate-follower-of-religion and Tenzing was a Buddhist follower. He had been a guide to many mountaineers who attempted to climb Mount Everest from the Tibetan and Nepali sides when he was younger, but most of the expeditions were unsuccessful due to extreme weather conditions. In 1952 Norgay was part of two serious Swiss expeditions led by Raymond Lambert who attempted to climb Mount Everest from the Nepali side. They were able to reach a record height of 8,599 meters, short of just 249 meters to reach the summit. He was part of the John Hunt expedition in March 1953, Tenzing 7th climb on the Everest. The team included Edmund Hillary, who was saved by Tenzing from a fall into a crevasse. The whole team comprised 400 people and Tenzing was part of the 20 Sherpa guides. Equipment failure sent some of the climbers down until John Hunt ordered Tenzing and Hillary to continue the climb. On May 29, 1953 at 11:30 in the morning, they reached the 8,848 meter-summit of Mount Everest. Hillary was able to take a picture of Tenzing holding his ice axe but Tenzing, who had not used a camera before was not able to take a picture of Hillary. They did take pictures from the top as proof. He received the George Medal from Queen Elizabeth II and the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal together with the Mount Everest team in 1953. He was also presented the Order of the Star of Nepal, First Class by King Tribhuvan of Nepal in 1953. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honor by the Government of India in 1959 and was honored by the creation of the Tenzing Norgay Award in 1978 by the Indian Government. He became director of field training for the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in India and founded his own company, the Tenzing Norgay Adventures which is now run by his son, Jamling Tenzing Norgay. Tensing Norgay died in 1986 at the age of 71 with cerebral hemorrhage in Darjeeling, India. A small airport in Nepal, the Lukla Airport was renamed in 2008 as the Tenzing-Hillary Airport in their honor.