Mount Everest - Mount Everest - The historic ascent of 1953: Members of the expedition, which was sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club, were Colonel John Hunt (leader; later Baron Hunt), G.C. Band, Bourdillon, R.C. Evans, A. Gregory, Edmund Hillary, W.G. Lowe, C.W.F. Noyce, M.P. Ward, M.H. Westmacott, Major C.G. Wylie (transport), T. Stobart (cinematographer), and L.G.C. Pugh (physiologist). After three weeks’ training on neighbouring mountains, a route was worked out up the Khumbu Icefall, and it was possible to start ferrying loads of supplies to the Western Cwm head. Two forms of oxygen apparatus, closed- and open-circuit types, were tried. As a result of a reconnaissance
Edmund Hillary, New Zealand mountain climber and Antarctic explorer who, with the Tibetan mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, became the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world, in 1953. He founded the Himalayan Trust, which contributed to the welfare of the peoples of Nepal, in 1960.