Sir Edmund Hillary
Civil Rights Monument
His Heroic act
In 1953 the British had received approval to make an attempt at scaling Mount Everest. The government of Nepal would only allow one expedition a year, so this was a big deal. The leader of the expedition, John Hunt, asked Hillary to join in the climb.When climbing a mountain as high as Mount Everest, a large group of people are needed. There were over 400 members of the expedition. They climbed the mountain in stages, moving to a higher camp every few weeks and then getting acclimated to the high altitude. At each stage fewer and fewer people would continue to climb.Once they got to the final camp, there were two teams chosen to climb the last stage to the summit. One team was Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. The other team was Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans. The team of Bourdillon and Evans tried first, but they failed to make it to the top. They got within 300 feet, but had to turn back.