{"id":118614,"date":"2026-10-12T06:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T10:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=118614"},"modified":"2026-10-12T06:04:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T10:04:21","slug":"tenzing-norgay-hillary-who-reached-everest-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/entertainment\/tenzing-norgay-hillary-who-reached-everest-first\/","title":{"rendered":"Tenzing Norgay and Hillary: Who Reached Everest First?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='booster-block booster-read-block'>\n                <div class=\"twp-read-time\">\n                \t<i class=\"booster-icon twp-clock\"><\/i> <span>Read Time:<\/span>9 Minute, 55 Second                <\/div>\n\n            <\/div><p>On the morning of 29 May 1953, two men stood on a narrow ridge of snow, a few steps below the highest point on Earth. One was Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa climber who had already been to Everest six times. The other was Edmund Hillary, a beekeeper from New Zealand.<\/p>\n\n<p>A few minutes later they were both on top. Within days, the whole world wanted to know one thing: which of them got there first?<\/p>\n\n<p>For a while, they would not say.<\/p>\n\n<p>That question is back this week. A new film called <em>Tenzing<\/em>, directed by Jennifer Peedom, tells the climb from Tenzing Norgay&#8217;s side. Genden Phuntsok plays Tenzing, Tom Hiddleston plays Hillary, and Willem Dafoe plays expedition leader John Hunt. It opened in select cinemas on 9 October 2026 and comes to Apple TV on 16 October.<\/p>\n\n<p>So here is the real story of the summit, what each man said, and the strange, quiet thing they did with the answer when they finally gave it.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Who reached the top of Everest first: Tenzing Norgay or Hillary?<\/h2>\n\n<p>The short answer is Hillary, by a few steps. But almost nobody learned that from Hillary.<\/p>\n\n<p>They learned it from Tenzing Norgay.<\/p>\n\n<p>The two men were tied to the same rope. On the last part of the climb, the person in front cuts steps in the snow and the person behind follows in them. Near the very top, Hillary was in front. So when the ridge ran out and there was nowhere higher to go, he was the one standing on it first, with Tenzing right behind on the same rope.<\/p>\n\n<p>On a rope, that gap is small. It is the length of a few steps. To the climbers, it did not seem to matter much.<\/p>\n\n<p>To the rest of the world, it mattered enormously.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"convertkit-form wp-block-convertkit-form\" style=\"\"><script async data-uid=\"6491fb8269\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.kit.com\/6491fb8269\/index.js\" data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" data-no-defer=\"1\" data-no-optimize=\"1\" nowprocket><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n<h2>Why the question turned into a fight<\/h2>\n\n<p>When the news came down the mountain, people in many countries wanted the prize for themselves. Britain had organised the expedition. Hillary was from New Zealand. Tenzing Norgay lived in Darjeeling in India and had deep roots in Nepal. Crowds, newspapers and politicians all wanted &#8220;their&#8221; man to be the one who stood on top first.<\/p>\n\n<p>Tenzing later wrote that he came under strong pressure in India and Nepal to claim that he had reached the summit before Hillary.<\/p>\n\n<p>John Hunt, the leader, gave his own answer: they reached it together, as a team.<\/p>\n\n<p>Then Hillary and Tenzing did something simple. They signed a short statement saying they had reached the top &#8220;almost together.&#8221; No winner. No loser. Just two names on one rope.<\/p>\n\n<p>It did not stop the arguing. But it stopped them from being the ones doing it.<\/p>\n\n<h2>The answer Tenzing Norgay gave, in his own book<\/h2>\n\n<p>In 1955, Tenzing Norgay told his life story to the American writer James Ramsey Ullman. Tenzing could speak several languages but could not read or write, so Ullman wrote it down. The book came out in Britain as <em>Man of Everest<\/em> and in the US as <em>Tiger of the Snows<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n<p>In it, Tenzing settled the question that millions of people had wanted answered in his favour. He said it plainly:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Hillary stepped on top first. And I stepped up after him.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Think about who said that. Not Hillary, defending his place. Tenzing, the man a whole region was urging to take the honour. He had it handed to him, and he handed it back.<\/p>\n\n<p>He also made clear he did not think it was the point. To him, the two of them had climbed as one team, and the mountain had let them both up.<\/p>\n\n<h2>The photo that shows the &#8220;wrong&#8221; man<\/h2>\n\n<p>Here is the detail that most people miss, and it turns the whole story around.<\/p>\n\n<p>There is one famous photograph from the summit of Everest that day. It shows a climber in an oxygen mask, standing on the snow, holding up an ice axe hung with flags.<\/p>\n\n<p>That climber is Tenzing Norgay.<\/p>\n\n<p>There is no matching summit photo of Hillary. Hillary held the camera. In his own account, Tenzing offered to take Hillary&#8217;s picture, but Hillary shook his head. Years later Hillary wrote that, as far as he knew, Tenzing &#8220;had never taken a photograph before, and the summit of Everest was hardly the place to show him how.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<p>So look at what happened. The man who stepped on top first is not in the picture. The man who stepped up second is the face the whole world remembers.<\/p>\n\n<p>Each of them, in his own way, gave the other the moment. Hillary gave Tenzing the image. Tenzing gave Hillary the first step. Neither made a fuss about it.<\/p>\n\n<p>They each left something on the top, too. Tenzing, a Buddhist, dug a small hole in the snow and placed some chocolate, biscuits and sweets in it as an offering. Hillary placed beside it a small cross he had been given to carry up. Two men, two very different gifts, side by side in the snow at the top of the world.<\/p>\n\n<h2>What the honours said, and what the men said<\/h2>\n\n<p>The world was not as even-handed as the climbers. Hillary was knighted and became Sir Edmund. Tenzing received the George Medal. Tenzing&#8217;s own family has said for years that he deserved more.<\/p>\n\n<p>That is a fair thing to feel. But it makes Tenzing&#8217;s sentence in his book even more striking. He knew how the honours had fallen. He still chose to say, in his own words, that he stepped up second.<\/p>\n\n<p>The two men stayed friends for the rest of Tenzing&#8217;s life. Tenzing died in Darjeeling in 1986. Hillary lived until 2008 and spent much of his later life building schools and clinics in Sherpa villages in Nepal.<\/p>\n\n<p>If you have ever read about a sports figure whose whole job was to make someone else look good, this will feel familiar. We wrote about one recently: <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/bgodinspired-news\/bgodinspired-sports-news\/jeff-van-note-dies-at-80\/\">Jeff Van Note, who spent 18 years touching the ball first and then giving it away<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Why &#8220;who was first?&#8221; is such an old question<\/h2>\n\n<p>The reason the world cared so much is the same reason we all care. &#8220;Who is first?&#8221; is one of the oldest questions people ask. Who is the best. Who gets the credit. Whose name goes on top.<\/p>\n\n<p>It shows up at work, in families, in friendships, in every group chat. Most of us have quietly kept score about something this week.<\/p>\n\n<p>There is a story, two thousand years old, about a group of friends walking along a dusty road and arguing about exactly this: which of them was the greatest. When they arrived, their teacher, Jesus, asked them what they had been talking about. They went quiet. They were embarrassed.<\/p>\n\n<p>He did not pick a winner. He changed the question. He told them that anyone who wanted to be first would have to be the last of all, and the one who serves everyone else.<\/p>\n\n<p>Tenzing and Hillary never quoted that. They did not need to. On a ridge of snow in 1953, and in the years after, they lived something very close to it. The man who was first did not need to say so. The man who was second said it for him, and became the face in the photograph.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Watching <em>Tenzing<\/em> this week<\/h2>\n\n<p>If you watch the new film, notice how much of the climb happens on one rope. Every step one man takes depends on the man behind him holding firm. &#8220;First&#8221; and &#8220;second&#8221; make sense on a scoreboard. They make much less sense when your lives are tied together.<\/p>\n\n<p>Notice, too, that the story is finally being told from the side of the man in the photo. That is fitting. For seventy years his face has stood for the climb, while the question of who stood there first has mattered less and less.<\/p>\n\n<p>And if you love finding these threads in films, you can explore them further with our free <a href=\"https:\/\/chatgpt.com\/g\/g-tMopd9YRG-movies-the-bible-faith-lessons-in-film\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Movies &amp; the Bible AI assistant<\/a> (it opens in ChatGPT). It is also worth remembering, the next time you pass a stranger, that every person has a story as full as yours. There is even a word for that feeling: <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/articles\/sonder-meaning\/\">sonder<\/a>. Tenzing Norgay was a &#8220;porter&#8221; in many early news reports. He was never only that.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>A good place to start:<\/strong> <em>The Beginner&#8217;s Guide to Feeling God&#8217;s Presence Every Day<\/em>. A short, free video guide for finding meaning and peace in ordinary days, not just on mountaintops. <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/free-video-course-feeling-gods-presence\/?utm_source=wordpress&amp;utm_medium=article-inline&amp;utm_content=hero\">Get the free guide<\/a>. Free.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Questions people ask about Tenzing Norgay and Hillary<\/h2>\n\n<h3>Who stepped on the summit of Everest first, Tenzing Norgay or Edmund Hillary?<\/h3>\n<p>Edmund Hillary stepped onto the summit of Mount Everest first, a few steps ahead of Tenzing Norgay, on 29 May 1953. The two men were roped together, and Hillary was leading on the final stretch. At first they signed a statement saying they reached the top &#8220;almost together.&#8221; Tenzing Norgay himself later confirmed the order in his 1955 autobiography, saying: &#8220;Hillary stepped on top first. And I stepped up after him.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<h3>Why did Tenzing Norgay and Hillary say they reached Everest &#8220;almost together&#8221;?<\/h3>\n<p>After the 1953 Everest climb, there was strong public and political pressure in Britain, New Zealand, India and Nepal over which climber should get credit for being first. Tenzing Norgay later wrote that he was pressed in India and Nepal to claim he had been first. To calm the argument, Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary signed a joint statement saying they had reached the summit &#8220;almost together,&#8221; and expedition leader John Hunt said they reached it together, as a team.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Why is there no summit photo of Edmund Hillary on Everest?<\/h3>\n<p>Edmund Hillary carried the camera on the summit of Everest in 1953 and photographed Tenzing Norgay holding his ice axe with flags. Tenzing offered to take Hillary&#8217;s picture, but Hillary declined. Hillary later wrote that, as far as he knew, Tenzing had never taken a photograph before, and the summit of Everest was hardly the place to show him how. That is why the famous summit image shows Tenzing Norgay, not Hillary.<\/p>\n\n<h3>What did Tenzing Norgay and Hillary leave on the summit of Everest?<\/h3>\n<p>On the summit of Mount Everest in 1953, Tenzing Norgay, a Buddhist, made a small hole in the snow and left chocolate, biscuits and sweets as an offering. Edmund Hillary left a small cross beside it that he had been given to carry to the top.<\/p>\n\n<h3>When is the Tenzing movie on Apple TV?<\/h3>\n<p>The film <em>Tenzing<\/em>, directed by Jennifer Peedom and starring Genden Phuntsok as Tenzing Norgay, Tom Hiddleston as Edmund Hillary and Willem Dafoe as John Hunt, opened in select cinemas on 9 October 2026 and streams on Apple TV from 16 October 2026.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Discussion question<\/h2>\n\n<p>Tenzing Norgay could have let the world believe he was first, and many people wanted him to. He chose to say he was second. Do you think the &#8220;who was first?&#8221; question deserved an answer at all, or were the two men right to treat it as beside the point? Tell us what you think in the comments.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"convertkit-form wp-block-convertkit-form\" style=\"\"><script async data-uid=\"6491fb8269\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.kit.com\/6491fb8269\/index.js\" data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" data-no-defer=\"1\" data-no-optimize=\"1\" nowprocket><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n<h2>Share this<\/h2>\n\n<p>&#8220;The only summit photo from Everest in 1953 is of Tenzing Norgay. The man who stepped on top first, Hillary, is the one holding the camera. https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/entertainment\/tenzing-norgay-hillary-who-reached-everest-first\/&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<p>&#8220;Everyone wanted Tenzing Norgay to say he reached Everest first. In his own book he wrote: &#8216;Hillary stepped on top first. And I stepped up after him.&#8217; Watching the new Tenzing film with that in mind. https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/entertainment\/tenzing-norgay-hillary-who-reached-everest-first\/&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<p>&#8220;Two climbers, one rope, and a question they refused to fight over. Worth reading before you watch Tenzing on Apple TV: https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/entertainment\/tenzing-norgay-hillary-who-reached-everest-first\/&#8221;<\/p>        <div class=\"booster-block booster-reactions-block\">\n            <div class=\"twp-reactions-icons\">\n                \n                <div class=\"twp-reacts-wrap\">\n                    <a react-data=\"be-react-1\" post-id=\"118614\" class=\"be-face-icons un-reacted\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\">\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/booster-extension\/\/assets\/icon\/happy.svg\" alt=\"Happy\" title=\"\">\n                    <\/a>\n                    <div class=\"twp-reaction-title\">\n                        Happy                    <\/div>\n                    <div class=\"twp-count-percent\">\n                                                    <span style=\"display: none;\" class=\"twp-react-count\">0<\/span>\n                        \n                                                <span class=\"twp-react-percent\"><span>0<\/span> %<\/span>\n                                            <\/div>\n                <\/div>\n\n                <div class=\"twp-reacts-wrap\">\n                    <a react-data=\"be-react-2\" post-id=\"118614\" class=\"be-face-icons un-reacted\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\">\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/booster-extension\/\/assets\/icon\/sad.svg\" alt=\"Sad\" title=\"\">\n                    <\/a>\n                    <div class=\"twp-reaction-title\">\n                        Sad                    <\/div>\n                    <div class=\"twp-count-percent\">\n                                                    <span style=\"display: none;\" class=\"twp-react-count\">0<\/span>\n                                                                        <span class=\"twp-react-percent\"><span>0<\/span> %<\/span>\n                                            <\/div>\n                <\/div>\n\n                <div class=\"twp-reacts-wrap\">\n                    <a react-data=\"be-react-3\" post-id=\"118614\" class=\"be-face-icons un-reacted\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\">\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/booster-extension\/\/assets\/icon\/excited.svg\" alt=\"Excited\" title=\"\">\n                    <\/a>\n                    <div class=\"twp-reaction-title\">\n                        Excited                    <\/div>\n                    <div class=\"twp-count-percent\">\n                                                    <span style=\"display: none;\" class=\"twp-react-count\">0<\/span>\n                                                                        <span class=\"twp-react-percent\"><span>0<\/span> %<\/span>\n                                            <\/div>\n                <\/div>\n\n                <div class=\"twp-reacts-wrap\">\n                    <a react-data=\"be-react-6\" post-id=\"118614\" class=\"be-face-icons un-reacted\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\">\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/booster-extension\/\/assets\/icon\/sleepy.svg\" alt=\"Sleepy\" title=\"\">\n                    <\/a>\n                    <div class=\"twp-reaction-title\">\n                        Sleepy                    <\/div>\n                    <div class=\"twp-count-percent\">\n                                                    <span style=\"display: none;\" class=\"twp-react-count\">0<\/span>\n                        \n                                                <span class=\"twp-react-percent\"><span>0<\/span> %<\/span>\n                                            <\/div>\n                <\/div>\n\n                <div class=\"twp-reacts-wrap\">\n                    <a react-data=\"be-react-4\" post-id=\"118614\" class=\"be-face-icons un-reacted\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\">\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/booster-extension\/\/assets\/icon\/angry.svg\" alt=\"Angry\" title=\"\">\n                    <\/a>\n                    <div class=\"twp-reaction-title\">Angry<\/div>\n                    <div class=\"twp-count-percent\">\n                                                    <span style=\"display: none;\" class=\"twp-react-count\">0<\/span>\n                                                                        <span class=\"twp-react-percent\"><span>0<\/span> %<\/span>\n                        \n                    <\/div>\n                <\/div>\n\n                <div class=\"twp-reacts-wrap\">\n                    <a react-data=\"be-react-5\" post-id=\"118614\" class=\"be-face-icons un-reacted\" href=\"javascript:void(0)\">\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/booster-extension\/\/assets\/icon\/surprise.svg\" alt=\"Surprise\" title=\"\">\n                    <\/a>\n                    <div class=\"twp-reaction-title\">Surprise<\/div>\n                    <div class=\"twp-count-percent\">\n                                                    <span style=\"display: none;\" class=\"twp-react-count\">0<\/span>\n                                                                        <span class=\"twp-react-percent\"><span>0<\/span> %<\/span>\n                                            <\/div>\n                <\/div>\n\n            <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n\n    ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary said they reached the top of Everest almost together. Then Tenzing answered the question himself, and gave the honour away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":118613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,649],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118614"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118617,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118614\/revisions\/118617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}