Hillary and Tenzing: The Road to Everest, 1953

Before the team left for Nepal, it trained in Snowdonia in the Welsh winter. The Pen-y-Gwryd hotel served as a base camp while the climbers sharpened their skills on Snowdon and the Glyderau, and the oxygen equipment was tested at the Climbers Club hut at Helyg, near Capel Curig. The hotel began as a farmhouse in 1811. Today the ceiling of its Tyrolean-style dining room carries the signatures of the 1953 first-ascent team, and Pen-y-Gwryd still hosts the Everest reunions, now every five years.

Visitor guidance: The hotel stands in the pass at the junction of the A4086 and the A498, near the foot of Snowdon.

Kathmandu had no hotels in 1953, so the British ambassador, Christopher Summerhayes, found rooms for the party with embassy staff. In early March twenty Sherpas chosen by the Himalayan Club arrived to carry loads to the Western Cwm and the South Col. Their Sirdar, Tenzing Norgay, had attempted Everest several times before; Hillary first met him here on 5 March. The other Sherpas were expected to sleep on the floor of the embassy garage. On 10 and 11 March the two parties set out for Everest with 150 and 200 porters, as there were no roads further east.

Location precision: The sources don't place the embassy or the Sherpas' lodgings; the pin marks central Kathmandu.

The two parties reached Thyangboche on 26 and 27 March and spent weeks here acclimatising. John Hunt thought it "must be one of the most beautiful places in the world", and Hillary wrote that he had seen the rock step on the summit ridge through binoculars from here. Tenzing knew the place too: he was once sent to the monastery to become a monk, but decided it was not for him. Fire destroyed the old monastery's treasures in 1989; it has since been completely rebuilt, and Everest expeditions still come to light candles and seek blessings.

Visitor guidance: At 3,867 m, the largest gompa in the Khumbu; most trekkers to Base Camp use the traditional trail via Tengboche.

The Icefall party reached Base Camp at 17,900 feet (5,455 m) on 12 April. In all the expedition amounted to over four hundred men, including 362 porters and twenty Sherpa guides, and once a route was open, teams of Sherpas moved tonnes of supplies up to Base. Today's South Base Camp in Nepal stands at 5,364 m on the Khumbu Glacier, which is thinning so fast that in 2022 it was announced that the camp would move 200 to 400 metres lower. About 40,000 people a year trek here from Lukla.

Location precision: The sources don't locate the 1953 camp on the glacier; the pin marks Everest Base Camp in Nepal.

Visitor guidance: Trekkers usually fly from Kathmandu to Lukla before the trek; climbers rest for several days at base camp to acclimatise, and trekkers do too.

A few days after reaching Base Camp, the team set about establishing a route through the Khumbu Icefall. The Swiss had already found a way through it in 1952 and reached the South Col. The icefall is regarded as one of the most dangerous sections of the South Col route: ice takes about 4.3 years to pass through it, and snow bridges hide crevasses while seracs, from several tons to thousands of tons, can open or collapse with little warning. With the route in place, Sherpa teams could carry supplies up.

Location precision: The 1953 line through the moving icefall can't be fixed; the pin marks the icefall.

Above the Icefall lies the Western Cwm, named by George Mallory in 1921; a cwm is a valley fully enclosed by mountains. Camp III went in at the head of the Icefall on 22 April, and Camp IV, the Advance Base, at 21,000 feet on 1 May, set up by Hunt, Bourdillon and Evans, who reconnoitred the Lhotse Face the next day. The surrounding slopes reflect sunlight and warm the basin despite its altitude. On 29 May Hunt and Westmacott waited here in agony and suspense for news from the summit pair.

Location precision: The sources give the camp's height but not its position; the pin marks the Western Cwm.

On 21 May Wilfrid Noyce and the Sherpa Annullu stood above the South Col, just under 26,000 feet, gazing down on the scene of the Swiss drama and up at the final pyramid of Everest. The Swiss had first reached the col in 1952. On 26 May the first assault pair, Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans, set out for the summit; they reached the South Summit at 1 pm but turned back at 1.20 pm, defeated by problems with their closed-circuit oxygen sets and lack of time. Hillary and Tenzing, the second pair, were to start from Camp IX.

Hillary and Tenzing reached the top at 11:30 a.m. on 29 May. Just below it they had to pass the Hillary Step, a rock face some forty feet high; Hillary led Tenzing up a narrow crack between the cornice and the rock. On top they took photographs and buried sweets and a small cross in the snow. Both men called it a team effort by the whole expedition, and in 1955 Tenzing confirmed in his autobiography that Hillary had been first. The summit is said to be the size of a dining room table; its official height is 8,848.86 m.

Jan Morris of The Times heard the news at Base Camp on 30 May and sent a coded message by runner to Namche Bazaar, where a wireless transmitter forwarded it as a telegram to the British Embassy in Kathmandu. "Snow conditions bad" was the agreed code that the summit had been reached. It reached London in time for release on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, 2 June, perhaps the last major news item delivered to the world by runner. Namche, at 3,440 m on the side of a hill, is now a gateway to the high Himalaya.

Location precision: The sources don't say where in Namche the wireless stood; the pin marks the town.

Visitor guidance: Trekkers use Namche for altitude acclimatisation; the weekly market is held on Saturday mornings.