Hilary and Norgay

“But I do feel that in his story of our climb he is not quite fair to me; that all the way through he indicates when things went well it was his doing and when things went badly it was mine.” said Tenzing Norgay. Although Sir Edmund Hillary and Norgay were climbing partners on the first mission to the summit of Mt. Everest, Norgay believed that Hillary was not fair to him. These two climbing partners had some stuff that makes them different from one another.

Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary had different attitudes toward Mt. Everest. “At that great moment for which I had waited all my life my mountain did not seem to me a lifeless thing of rock and ice, but warm and friendly and living” said Tenzing Norgay. Norgay felt that the summit was a living thing to him, that it was a mother hen and the other mountains were chicks under her wings. “I felt a more urgent need to have photographic evidence that we had reached the summit, so quickly took shots down every major ridge.” said Sir Edmund Hillary. Hillary did not care if the summit was living he just wanted proof that he conquered the summit of Mt. Everest. As he removes his camera from his jacket and takes pictures of his achievement. This was different to what Norgay felt.

Both climbers had different attitudes towards each other. “All the way up and down we helped, and were helped by, each other and that was the way it should be. But we were not leader and led. We were partners.” said Tenzing Norgay. Norgay states that both, Hillary and he were equal partners. There was no leader or no one was led up the mountain and that they both helped one another. On the other hand, Hillary believed that he was the ultimate one, he had no help, and he was the helper as he states in this quote. “I noticed to my surprise that Tenzing was moving rather slowly and seemed in some distress. I examined his oxygen equipment.” As you can see, both of these climbers had different attitudes towards each other.

In the end, both Hillary and Norgay are different in some ways. Although they were climbing partners on the first successful mission to the summit of Mt. Everest, they were different from one another. One believed that he was the best and the other believed he was not treated fairly. There are many more differences between these two climbers.