Sunday, May 29, 2011
On May 29, 1953, New Zealand’s Edmund Hillary, 33, and Nepalese sherpa Tenzing Norgay, 39, become the first climbers to conquer Mount Everest, the highest point on earth at 29,035 feet above sea level. As part of a large British expedition, news of their success reaches a delighted Queen Elizabeth II as she is about to be coroneted. One of her first official acts is knighting Hillary. In a 2001 interview with caricaturist Mick Joffe, Sir Hillary said, “The news flashed round the world, they got my name wrong, which didn’t matter and said British not New Zealander, but I was happy to be part of the British team... I wasn’t all that happy about the knighthood to tell you the truth... I was just a rough old country boy... a beekeeper.”
Last Thursday, George Atkinson, a 16-year-old British schoolboy summits Everest becoming the youngest person ever to have completed the Seven Summits Challenge—climbing the highest mountain on all seven continents. Atkinson reached Everest three days shy of his seventeenth birthday, giving him three mountains in one year, along with Alaska’s Denali and Vinson Massif in Antarctica. His first conquest was Africa’s Kilimanjaro at age 11. Two hours before Atkinson reached the peak, Geordie Stewart, 22, also summited Everest, setting the record for youngest Brit to accomplish the Seven Summits Challenge—a title he held for all of two hours.
