On May 29, 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first men to summit Mount Everest, long thought to be an impossible task. Many books have been written about this feat, but I would recommend reading the words of the man himself in his book High Adventure.
Of course, nothing great is accomplished without controversy, it seems, and some maintain that George Mallory and Sandy Irvine were the first to do so on or around June 8, 1924. The pair were spotted heading for the summit but never returned to camp. In 1999, the body of George Mallory was found by mountaineer Conrad Anker, who wrote about the search effort in his book The Lost Explorer.
Let’s take today to remember the men who braved the unknown heights.
Pictured in the post banner are Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.