Watch Sir Edmund Hillary Describe His Everest Ascent, on the 60th Anniversary of His Climb

Six­ty years ago today, New Zealand explor­er Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sher­pa guide Ten­z­ing Nor­gay became the first climbers to ever reach the sum­mit of Mount Ever­est. This feat may not seem so sig­nif­i­cant now, when upwards of 150 peo­ple may reach the top of the 29,000-foot moun­tain on the best climb­ing day. In fact the sum­mit has become so over­crowd­ed that offi­cials are even debat­ing installing a lad­der for descents (to the hor­ror of seri­ous moun­taineers). But in 1953, Hillary and Norgay’s ascent was a pret­ty big deal, you might say. In the video above, excerpt­ed from Hillary’s appear­ance on the edu­ca­tion­al pro­gram Omnibus, watch the famous explor­er non­cha­lant­ly tell the sto­ry of his and Norgay’s con­quer­ing of Ever­est.

And if you’re in a mood to do some vir­tu­al explor­ing your­self, from the com­fort of your own home, you can look around the Ever­est sum­mit cour­tesy of Google Earth.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Climb Three of the World’s High­est Peaks on Google Street View

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness