Tenzing Norgay

Norgay received his first opportunity to join an Everest expedition when he was employed by Eric Shipton, leader of the 1935 British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition. As a 20-year-old his chance came when two of the others failed their medical tests. As a friend of Ang Tharkay (a Sherpa sirdar who had been on the 1933 British Mount Everest expedition), Norgay was quickly pushed forward, and his attractive smile caught the eye of Shipton, who decided to take him on.

Norgay participated as a high-altitude porter in three official British attempts to climb Everest from the northern Tibetan side in the 1930s. On the 1936 expedition, he worked with John Morris. He also took part in other climbs in various parts of the Indian subcontinent. For a time in the early 1940s Norgay lived in the princely state of Chitral (that later became a part of Pakistan on partition of India) as batman to a Major Chapman. Norgay's first wife died during his tenure there and was buried there. He returned to Darjeeling with his two daughters during the Indian partition of 1947, and managed to cross India by train without a ticket and without being challenged, by wearing one of Major Chapman's old uniforms.

In 1938, after Norgay's third Everest expedition as a porter, the Himalayan Club awarded him its Tiger Medal for high-altitude work.

Norgay was married three times. His first wife, Dawa Phuti, died young in 1944. They had a son, Nima Dorje, who died at the age of four, and two daughters: Pem Pem, whose son, Tashi Tenzing, climbed Everest, and Nima, who married a Filipino graphic designer, Noli Galang.

In 1947, Norgay participated in an unsuccessful summit attempt of Everest. Canadian-born Earl Denman, Ange Dawa Sherpa, and Norgay entered Tibet illegally to attempt the mountain; the attempt ended when a strong storm at 22,000 feet (6,700 m) pounded them. Denman admitted defeat, and all three turned around and safely returned. In 1947, Norgay became a sirdar of a Swiss expedition for the first time, following a magnificent performance in the rescue of Sirdar Wangdi Norbu who had fallen and been seriously injured. The expedition reached the main summit of Kedarnath at 22,769 feet (6,940 m) in the western Garhwal Himalaya with Norgay being one of the summit party.

In 1952, he took part in the two Swiss expeditions led by Edouard Wyss-Dunant (spring) and Gabriel Chevalley (autumn), the first serious attempts to climb Everest from the southern (Nepalese) side, after two previous US and British reconnaissance expeditions in 1950 and 1951. Raymond Lambert and Tenzing Norgay were able to reach a height of about 8,595 metres (28,199 ft) on the southeast ridge, setting a new climbing altitude record. The expedition opened up a new route on Everest that was successfully climbed the next year. Norgay and Raymond Lambert reached on 28 May the then-record height of 8,600 metres (28,215 ft), and this expedition, during which Norgay was for the first time considered a full expedition member ("the greatest honour that had ever been paid me") forged a lasting friendship between Norgay and his Swiss friends, in particular Raymond Lambert. During the autumn expedition, the team was stopped by bad weather after reaching an altitude of 8,100 metres (26,575 ft).

His exact date of birth is unknown, but he knew it was in late May by the weather and the crops. After his ascent of Everest on 29 May 1953, he decided to celebrate his birthday on that day thereafter. His year of birth, according to the Tibetan calendar, was the Year of the Rabbit, making it likely that he was born in 1914. This agrees with Hunt's statement that he was thirty-nine in 1953, and had "established himself (as) not only the foremost climber of his race but as a mountaineer of world standing".

In 1953, Tenzing Norgay took part in John Hunt's expedition; Tenzing had previously been to Everest six times (and Hunt three). A member of the team was Edmund Hillary, who had a near-miss following a fall into a crevasse but was saved from hitting the bottom by Norgay's prompt action in securing the rope using his ice axe, which led Hillary to consider him the climbing partner of choice for any future summit attempt.

The expedition set up base camp in March 1953. Hillary wrote in 1975 about first meeting Norgay in Kathmandu on 5 March 1953:

On 7 June 1953, it was announced that the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II wished to recognize Norgay's achievements. 10 Downing Street announced on 1 July that, following consultation with the governments of India and Nepal, the Queen had approved awarding Norgay the George Medal. He also received, along with the rest of the Everest party, the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal.

In 1953, King Tribhuvan of Nepal presented him with the Order of the Star of Nepal, 1st Class (Supradipta-Manyabara-Nepal-Tara).

Other relatives include Norgay's nephews, Nawang Gombu and Topgay, who took part in the 1953 Everest expedition; and his grandsons, Tashi Tenzing, who lives in Sydney, Australia, and the Trainor grandsons: Tenzing, Kalden, and Yonden. Tenzing Trainor rose to fame as an actor on Liv and Maddie.

Tenzing Norgay became the first Director of Field Training of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling, when it was set up in 1954.

Norgay eventually ended the speculation by revealing that Hillary was first in his 1955 autobiography Man of Everest (page 268; originally titled Tiger of the Snows). It was ghost-written by American writer James Ramsay Ullman as Tenzing could not read English; he could speak four languages but his English was minimal. They were roped six feet apart, with most of the 30 foot rope in loops in his hand:

In 1959, the Government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award of India.

In January 1975, with permission of the King of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, Norgay served as sirdar (guide) for the first American tourist party allowed into the country. Brought together by a company then called Mountain Travel (now called Mountain Travel-Sobek), the group first met Norgay in India before beginning the trek. The official trek began in Paro, northern Bhutan and included a visit to Tiger's Nest (Paro Taktsang), the ancient Buddhist monastery, before returning to India via Nepal and Sikkim. Norgay even introduced his group to the King of Sikkim (the last king of Sikkim, as Sikkim is now a part of India) and also brought them to his home in India for a farewell celebration.

In 1978 Norgay founded Tenzing Norgay Adventures, a company providing trekking adventures in the Himalayas. As of 2003, the company was run by his son Jamling Tenzing Norgay, who himself reached the summit of Everest in 1996.

On 10 May 1984 Tenzing Norgay, together with Grp Capt A. J. S. Grewal, Principal of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, attended the 10th-anniversary celebrations of The School of Adventure, Mysore, Karnataka held at the Mysore Institution of Engineers' auditorium.

There are conflicting accounts of his early life. The account he gave in his autobiography, accepted for several years, is that he was a Sherpa born and raised in Tengboche, Khumbu, in northeastern Nepal. In an interview with All India Radio in 1985, he said that his parents came from Tibet, but that he was born in Nepal. According to many later accounts as well as a book co-authored by his son Jamling Tenzin Norgay, he was born in Tibet, at Tse Chu in the Kama Valley. He spent his early childhood in Kharta, nearby to the north. Tenzing went to Nepal as a child to work for a Sherpa family in Khumbu. He grew up in Thame, Nepal, according to his son Norbu Tenzing Norgay.

Norgay died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Darjeeling, West Bengal, India, on May 9, 1986 at the age of 71. His remains were cremated in the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling, his favorite haunt. His widow Dakku died in 1992.

His third wife was Dakku, whom he married while his second wife was still alive, as allowed by Sherpa custom (see polygyny). They had three sons (Norbu, Jamling and Dhamey), and one daughter, Deki, who married American lawyer Clark Trainor. Jamling would join Peter Hillary, Edmund Hillary's son, in climbing Everest in 2003 on the 50th anniversary of their fathers' climb.

In May 2013, Norgay's grandson, Tashi Tenzing, said he believed his grandfather should have been knighted, not just given "a bloody medal".

In September 2013, the Government of Nepal proposed naming a 7,916-foot (2,413 m) mountain in Nepal Tenzing Peak in Norgay's honour.

In July 2015, the highest-known, 3.4-kilometre-high (11,000 ft) mountain range on the dwarf planet Pluto was named Tenzing Montes.

On Sherpa Tenzing's 102nd Birthday, We Retrace The Steps Of The First Man To Climb Mt Everest

TIME named him one of the most influential people of the 20th century.