Tenzing Norgay

Let's talk about what happened on this day in history for this May the 29th.

The highlight of this day came in 1953 when Mount Everest was conquered as Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal became the first climbers to reach the summit.

In 1453 Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks marking the end of the Byzantine Empire.

In 1660, Britain's King Charles II was restored to the throne on his 30th birthday after nine years in exile.

There is no greater friend to Happy, Sad, Confused than Tom.

Uh, and also a new friend, Gendun Putsock, who stars as Tenzing Norgay in this remarkable true story, of course, of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, and their, uh, amazing ascent up Everest in 1953.

This is a film that comes out in a few weeks.

It comes out in October, so consider this an extended kind of s- sneak preview of this film.

He, he was a, a brilliant physician, um, but he was also, um, you know, an extraordinary athlete and, uh, he a- he applied a, a scientific engineering approach to, uh, tackling what was thought to be an impossible challenge, which is, you know, breaking the four-minute mark, uh, running the mile.

And so, you know, people like him, uh, Lewis and Clark that explored the, uh, North America, um, uh, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first to summit Everest, uh, John Glenn and Yuri Gagarin, the first to, uh, to travel into space.

Those are the types of people that I read about.

Uh, Jacques Cousteau, of course, undersea exploration.

Well, it's interesting.

You know, one of the movies that it was here at, um, at, at Telluride was, um, Tenzing, which is the, a portrait of Tenzing Norgay and, um, Edmund Hillary and, and their attempt to-

Mm-hmm

... scale Everest.

It's a feature film.

And you know, it's like a pretty successful portrait of a historical event.

It's, it's right down the middle, but it tells that story very well from, from Tenzing's perspective.

And one of the things that this movie is attempting to do, Everest, is at least be generous and thoughtful about the role that Sherpas play in this world.

For anyone who hikes or climbs mountains, its peak stands at 29,000 feet above sea level.

The first to reach the summit and return safely was a New Zealand climber named Edmund Hillary along with his Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in May 1953.

A Sherpa, for those of you who don't know, is a member of an ethnic group native to the mountainous regions of Nepal and Tibet.

They are renowned for their elite mountaineering skills and their genetic adaptations to high altitudes.

So your body, just like climbing Mount Everest, will get used to a higher altitude with less oxygen.

That's why Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary built base camps halfway up Mount Everest to acclimatize or get the body used to those lower oxygen areas.

Same thing with heat exhaustion or heat stroke.

Your temperature mechanisms in the body to cope with that need to adjust.

It does not flow, does not deform, and does not erode under the feeble forces available on Pluto's surface.

The mountains near Sputnik Planitia, including ranges informally named after Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, rise one to three kilometres above the surrounding terrain.

Built from blocks of water ice that appear to have been broken and pushed around by geological forces, and their peaks are white, not with water frost, but with methane frost.

Bright methane ice coats the highest elevations, creating a visual effect eerily similar to snow-capped mountains on Earth.