Sherpas the 'heroes' of Everest

NEW DELHI, India — It was, recalled Sir Edmund Hillary, like riding a runaway elevator down a tube of ice, plunging deep into the crevasse and wondering whether the rope would stop him before he met his death.

Fifty years have passed since the New Zealander and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, the mountaineer at the other end of the rope, became the first men to scale 29,035-foot Mount Everest, but the story still enthralled the audience gathered in New Delhi on Tuesday to mark the anniversary.

Preparing to scale the peak, Hillary said, he and Norgay had headed up the icefall "just to prove how fit we were," and were heading back from 21,000 feet, trying to reach camp before dark.

"We were roped together and I pounded down in the lead, when we reached another of the innumerable crevasses, very deep . . . and too wide to step across," Hillary recalled.

A chunk of ice was attached to the wall of the crevasse.

"Without too much sense, I leapt into the air and landed with both feet on the chunk of ice," said Hillary. It "broke off and fell down into the crevasse with me on it."

He said that as he fell he "came to the conclusion that if Tenzing didn't tighten the rope soon" he and the ice would hit the bottom and shatter.

Then the rope tightened "and I swung into the ice wall," Hillary said. He could then cut steps in the ice to climb back to safety. The Sherpa had saved his life.

Norgay and Hillary reached the summit on May 29, 1953. Tenzing Norgay died in 1986, but Hillary, 83, is taking part in commemorations in India, Nepal and Britain, which sponsored the 1953 expedition, and on Tuesday night nearly 100 climbers set out from base camp in Nepal to reach Everest's summit.

Climbing the world's tallest mountain is much more dangerous for Sherpas than for their customers and their contributions have not been properly recognized, Norgay's son said in an interview.

"The Sherpas are the unsung heroes of the mountain," said Jamling Tenzing Norgay, who reached Everest's summit in 1996 and now runs a mountaineering firm.

Sherpas must put up the ropes, carry supplies to camps high on the mountain and tote oxygen bottles for climbers who pay up to $65,000 each for a chance at reaching the top of Everest.