Stories of heroes, battles, and risk-takers inspire us.

This is one of the reasons in my weekly newsletter I share a story of strength every week… hearing a story of someone’s feat of strength and courage helps us get off the couch and get into action.

This week’s story is about the first successful summit of Mount Everest. 

Over the decades, several mountaineers have attempted to summit Mount Everest. The first recorded reconnaissance mission was in 1921 by the British. In 1924, the two British climbers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine attempted a summit on June 8th, but never returned. 

It wasn’t until almost 30 years later in 1953 when the first summit was accomplished. 

This is the story of Edmund Hillary and Tinzing, the first two men to summit Mount Everest.

Mount Everest is an imposing mountain. Located in Nepal, it’s summit is a whopping 29,031 feet over sea level.

To put that height in perspective, a two story house is typically ~20 feet tall… which means that you would have to stack over 1,400 houses on top of each other to reach Everest’ summit.

Amazing. And our God made that.

In 1953, Great Britain put forward two teams of two men that would both attempt to summit Everest. The first team was Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans, and the second team was Edmund Hillary and Tenzing.

Here’s what it took for the first summit of Everest:

• An expedition party with with 400 people, including 362 porters and 20 Sherpas.

• 10,000 pounds of baggage.

• One failed attempt. On May 26th, Bourdillon and Evans made the first attempt to summit the mountain, but had to turn back when they were 300 feet from the top due to bad weather and oxygen system failure.

On May 28th, Hillary and Tenzing made their attempt to summit Everest.

But this was not any easier for them.

During the climb, Hillary’s boots had frozen solid. He had to spend 2 hours warming them over a stove before he was ready to continue.

When they were 28,000 feet above sea level, the two men had to ascend a 40-foot rock face.

But the two men made it to the top, climbing into the history books as the first men to summit Everest.