Sixty years ago today, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary left their tent at 27,900ft on the South-East Ridge of Mt Everest and climbed to the summit and straight into history, as the first men to make the first known ascent of the world’s highest mountain.
There’s plenty of celebrations and events on today to mark the incredible achievement of the 1953 team, and if you are in central London this morning why not nip along to Stanfords in Covent Garden, where Everest legends Doug Scott, Chris Bonington and Stephen Venables will be at a book-signing for George Lowe’s beautiful book ‘The Conquest Of Everest’. Trek & Mountain was at the book’s launch last night at Sotheran’s bookshop in Picadilly, and as well as the aforemetioned Everest greats being present, we also met with the sons of both Ed Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Here’s a pic of Chris Bonington talking about the incredible teamwork of the 1953 team.
Elsewhere, the Royal Geographical Society plays host to two events on the 29th, the main event in the evening being sold out already, but there are still tickets left for the afternoon event which features Rebecca Stephens, Leo Houlding and David Hempleman-Adams among others. The event starts at 1pm and tickets can be booked at the World Expeditions website, with proceeds going towards the Mount Everest Foundation and the Himalayan Trust UK.
If you can’t make it to any of the events, why not have a look at a new website created jointly by Microsoft and David Breasher’s Glacierworks project called Rivers Of Ice, which gives you an unprecented interactive guide to Everest – go to http://explore.glacierworks.org/
RELATED LINKS
www.stanfords.co.uk
www.worldexpeditions.co.uk
www.mef.org.uk/
himalayantrust.co.uk/