Question 1

True or false: Hillary and Tenzing took a selfie at the summit using a camera strapped to a hiking pole.

Accepted Answer

False. Hillary took photos of Tenzing on the summit, but Tenzing had never used a camera, so no summit photo of Hillary exists.

Question 2

True or false: Tenzing Norgay had previously attempted to climb Mount Everest with a Swiss expedition in 1952.

Accepted Answer

True. Tenzing Norgay was a member of the Swiss expeditions in 1952 that attempted Everest from the south, reaching high altitudes but not summiting. This was prior to his successful 1953 ascent with Hillary.

Question 3

True or false: Tenzing Norgay later admitted he and Hillary ran out of oxygen just 100 feet from the top.

Accepted Answer

False. They had plenty of oxygen. Tenzing later noted their oxygen sets worked perfectly, and they even had some left over.

Question 4

True or false: Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay had to spend the night in a snow cave just below the summit.

Accepted Answer

False. They reached the summit at 11:30 a.m. and descended to Camp IV the same day. No snow cave bivouac occurred.

Question 5

True or false: The news of the successful climb reached the world first via a pre-arranged coded message to The Times.

Accepted Answer

True. The Times had exclusive rights to the story. A coded message ('Snow conditions bad...') was sent to conceal the success until Queen Elizabeth's coronation day, ensuring the scoop.

Question 6

True or false: The 1953 expedition was funded entirely by a single donation from a British chocolate company.

Accepted Answer

False. Funding came from the Joint Himalayan Committee, the Royal Geographical Society, and private donations, not a single chocolate company.

Question 7

True or false: Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were part of a larger team that included a man whose nephew later became a James Bond actor.

Accepted Answer

True. Charles Evans, a member of the 1953 expedition, was the uncle of actor Timothy Dalton, who played James Bond in the 1980s.

Question 8

True or false: The 1953 expedition was actually the ninth British attempt to climb Mount Everest.

Accepted Answer

True. There were eight previous British Everest expeditions in 1921, 1922, 1924, 1933, 1935, 1936, 1938, and 1951. The 1953 successful summit made it the ninth official British attempt.

First Successful Climb of Mount Everest (1953) Trivia Questions