" After the war's end, climbers returned to the mountain (Everest), attempting to scale it from the South side in Nepal. Tibet had been closed to foreighners while Nepal had opened its borders. The cumulative work of several teams charted a route up the south side of the mountain. An extremely strong and well-organized British expedition carried oxygen tanks and tons of material up the heights, establishing a chain of nine camps. On May 19, 1953, two team climbers left high camp and by late the same morning New Zealander Edmund Hillary and sherpa Tenzing Norgay stood together on the summit of Mount Everest. One of the most memorable images in climbing history is the photo of Tenzing Norgay silhoutted against the sky, unrecognizable behing his oxygen mask, holding aloft an ice ax with the flags of the United Nations, Great Britain, India and Nepal.

Within months India had issued the first two stamps ever on the topic bearing an image of Mount Everest and the date of the first ascent. The Oct 2, 1953 first day cover in Figure 1^*. bears both stamps, Scott 244-245, and the famed photo of Norgay.
 
 

The 25th anniversary of their epic climb was honored in 1978 on a pair of Nepalese stamps, Scott 343-344.

The tremendous accomplishment of these two individuals was soon swept into a nasty and complex international dispute. Debate arose over which climber reached the summit first and who helped whom. Aditionally both India and Nepal claimed Tenzing as a citizen. India's 1953 issues can be seen as part of a nationalist propaganda campaign for this newly independent nation. Both Hillary and Norgay carried themselves with grace throughout the furor and went on to make substantial contributions in related fields. Norgay founded a national mountaineering school for India. Hillary raised funds to build schools for the Sherpa people in the Everest region.

India trumpeted a later success with a 1965 stamp, Scott 404. The brochure dedicating this issue, shown in Figure 2. employs a decidedly nationalistic spin as it honors "the first All Indian team" to reach the summit, May 20, 1965, and repeats the claim to Tenzing Norgay as Indian."
 
 

* Figure numbers have been changed to account for the edited content.

Credits, Acknowledgements and Disclaimer:

• Article written by Mr. Gregory Frux. I take no credit for it except for the fact that it was formatted and edited for content by the webmaster for web-publishing.
• This article first appeared in the "Scott Stamp Monthly" August 2001.
• All images are from the original article.
• All related image copyrights acknowledged.

Article appears only as a reference source. Please contact me if anybody has a problem and I will reconsider the decision to put it up on the web-site.

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