Tenzing Norgay

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Statue of Tenzing Norgays in Darjeeling, India
On May 29, 1953, Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary made the first ascent of Mount Everest
Route of the ascent of Everest in April / May 1953

Sardar Tenzing Norgay Sherpa ( Tibetan བསྟན་ འཛིན་ ནོར་ རྒྱས་ ཤར་ པ bstan 'dzin nor rgyas śar pa , Nepali तेन्जिङ नोर्गे शेर्पा Tenjiṅ Norge Śerpā ; * May 15, 1914 in Tshechu , Tibet ; † May 9, 1986 in Darjiling ) was a Nepalese-Indian mountaineer , high porter and member of the Sherpa people . In 1953, together with Edmund Hillary from New Zealand , he was the first to climb Mount Everest .

Life

Sardar Tenzing Norgay was probably born in May 1914 during a pilgrimage to the Tibetan monastery Ghang La , the eleventh child of a Tibetan yak keeper family from the Kharta Valley northeast of Mount Everest. Originally his name was Namgyal Wangdi, but after a high lama had announced that he was the reincarnation of a rich Sherpa, he was renamed Tenzing Norgay, German "wealthy or fortunate follower of religion". He grew up in a remote Tibetan village, but when he was around six to eight years old, his parents emigrated with him across the border into Nepal to the Khumbu region . As a young man he moved to the Darjiling area , where many expeditions to the Himalayas started.

For several years he did odd jobs. In 1935, under the direction of Eric Shipton , he took part in his first expedition to Mount Everest , which no one had climbed at the time. He proved himself, was hired more often from now on and gained great recognition even before the Everest success, including the Swiss Garhwal expedition under André Roch in 1947, the Tibet trip by Giuseppe Tucci in 1948 and the French Nanda Devi expedition 1951. He reached the summit of Mount Everest on May 29, 1953 together with the New Zealander Edmund Hillary . After the first rope team had only penetrated to the south summit (8760 m), the two mountaineers managed to climb the “roof of the world” and thus conquer the so-called “third pole”. Before that, he had already failed on the summit several times, most recently in 1952 as part of two Swiss expeditions in which he and Raymond Lambert made it to just below the southern summit as an expedition member with equal rights . A dispute broke out among the Nepalese public as to which of the twosome was up first; The Nepalese forced the primacy of Tenzing Norgay, whom they had taken over as a compatriot, and whom they had been able to persuade to sign a corresponding declaration. But Tenzing and Hillary always said they had gone to the summit together and remained lifelong friends. Tenzing was awarded the George Medal by Queen Elisabeth II for the ascent. The event was documented with Conquering Everest .

After the success of the summit in 1953, Tenzing was commissioned by Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to found the Indian Himalayan Mountaineering Institute (HMI) and became its head of training. He contributed a lot to the development of mountaineering in India and at the same time to the self-esteem and awareness of the Sherpa .

Tenzing trained at the first mountaineering school in Switzerland, the mountaineering institute Rosenlaui founded by Arnold Glatthard (today mountaineering school Rosenlaui) in Meiringen . From 1954 Indian and Nepalese Sherpas were trained as mountain guides there.

His success did not make Tenzing rich, and after his retirement as director of the HMI in 1972, he worked as a tour guide for US agencies around the world to ensure the standard of living for his family.

The funeral procession at his funeral in 1986 was over a kilometer long and thus a sign of the great respect he had earned during his lifetime.

One of his sons, Jamling Tenzing Norgay , also reached the summit of Mount Everest in 1996, as did one of his grandsons in 1997, Tashi Tenzing.

Another grandson is the American actor Tenzing Norgay Trainor .

Honors

  • At the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjiling Zoo , a statue in his honor was unveiled by Edmund Hillary, his companion on the climb.
  • In 2008 Lukla Airport was renamed Tenzing-Hillary Airport .
  • A mountain structure on Pluto , up to 3500 m high icy mountains, discovered during the flyby of New Horizons on July 14, 2015, was informally named Montes Tenzing by NASA .
  • Grandson Tashi Wangchuk Norgay was a guest at the Mountain Film Festival Graz in November 2019 .

literature

  • Tenzing Norgay: The Tiger from Everest. Sherpa Tenzing's autobiography, written down by JR Ullman. Rheinische-Verlagsanstalt, Wiesbaden 1955
  • Tenzing Norgay Sherpa: After everest: An autobiography. As told to Malcolm Barnes. Vikas Publ. House, New Delhi [and a.] 1977, ISBN 0-7069-0616-0
  • Jamling Tenzing Norgay & Broughton Coburn: Touching my father's soul. Harper, San Francisco 2002, ISBN 0-06-251687-6
  • Tashi and Judy Tenzing: Tenzing and the Sherpas of the Everest. Sydney 2001, ISBN 0-07-138180-5
  • Ed Douglas: Tenzing, hero of Everest. A biography of Tenzing Norgay. National Geographic Society, Washington DC 2003, ISBN 0-7922-6983-7
  • In the shadow of Everest. Frederking & Thaler Verlag, Munich, 2003, ISBN 3-89405-244-9

Web links

Commons : Tenzing Norgay  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Christoph Driessen: On the roof of the world. The Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. In: G / Geschichte , No. 2/2017, pp. 14–19, here p. 18.
  2. ↑ Uwe-Jens Schumann: Everest Tenzing Norgay first to conquer, "He could have been a king!" In: one day . May 27, 2013
  3. ↑ Mountaineering School Rosenlaui
  4. ↑ Astronomy Picture of the Day: Fly Over Pluto NASA, apod.nasa.gov, July 18, 2015, accessed October 10, 2019.
  5. ↑ Lifestyle: The mountain is calling - to the cinema! orf.at, October 10, 2019, accessed October 10, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Norgay, Tenzing
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Norgay Sherpa, Sardar Tenzing (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Nepalese climber, first to climb Mount Everest
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Tshechu , Tibet
DATE OF DEATH May 9, 1986
PLACE OF DEATH Darjiling