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I looked out of the tent at about 4.30 in the morning.
There were clouds around, but the sky was much clearer.
I was completely sure that the other climber, Tenzing and I, could do this.
We knew that the conditions were good enough, so we just made our preparations and pushed ourselves on.
I would not say the final effort to reach the top was fun.
It was very hard work.
But you know, as I have said many times, this was Mount Everest, so we felt we had to push ourselves a bit harder.
We reached the top of the mountain, but I did not really have a huge feeling of great happiness or joy.
I did not jump around or throw my hands in the air or something.
Tenzing and I were tired.
We expected that.
And I could not forget we had to climb safely back down the mountain again.
I think my major feeling was one of being satisfied.
I really did have a feeling of, well, we have finally made it.
These are the words of Sir Edmund Hillary.
He is describing an amazing time.
The moment when he and another climber, Tenzing Norgay, were on top of the world.
They had climbed the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest.
This event took place on the 29th of May, 1953.
Ten teams of climbers had tried to reach the top, or summit, of Everest before.
But all of them failed.
And 16 climbers had even died in the attempt.
This fact made Hillary and Tenzing's success even greater.
But Hilary did not think of himself as a great hero.
His early life was simple.
He came from New Zealand, an island nation in the South Pacific Ocean.
He described his first visit to the mountains of New Zealand.
I was very much a country boy.
My friendship with the mountains started when I was 16.
Every year my school took a group down to Tongariro National Park for a skiing holiday.
I was able to persuade my father to let me go on this trip.
There was snow everywhere.
That was really the start of my love for snow and ice and mountains in general.
Hilary described his growing interest in the mountains.
I did a lot of walking in the hills outside Auckland.
It was the nearest town to my home.
Then I started to climb some smaller mountains.
Then I was able to do harder climbs.
Finally, I became a reasonably skilled mountain climber in the New Zealand Alps.
And I did many long mountain climbs.
I think that happens to a lot of people.
Very few suddenly decide that they are going to be a world champion at something.
In 1951, a British team of climbers was planning a trip to Tibet.
They were going to climb in the Himalayas, the highest mountain range in the world.
They wanted to try and find a different path up to the top of Mount Everest.
They believed that climbing the southwest mountain face was the key to reaching the top.
The team invited Edmund Hillary to be part of this trip.
It was a great success.
The team found a different path.
But they did not reach the summit on that trip.
In 1953, the same team asked Hillary to join them again.
They wanted to try once more.
They wanted to reach the summit of Everest.
Hillary proved to be a strong and skillful member of the team.
So the team leader chose Hillary to make the final attempt to reach the summit.
Tenzing Norgay went with Hillary.
At 1130 on the morning of the 29th of May, the two men reached the summit and their names went straight into the history books.
Edmund Hillary did many other exciting and dangerous activities during his life.
He continued to climb the Himalaya Mountains.
He traveled over ice and snow to the South Pole.
But he made this trip in a farm vehicle, a tractor.
He explored the rivers of eastern Nepal in a speedboat.
He experienced all the wonders and beauty of the natural world.
And it caused him to think about deeper matters.
He said, I have a feeling the world is so complex and so amazing in many ways.
So there must be some sort of intelligence behind it all.
But I'm not sure at all if that intelligence is interested in a little person away down on earth.
Hilary was not the only person to wonder such a thing.
Another person to think like that was a king of ancient Israel, David.
He wrote these words in a poem to God.
I think about the heavens.
I think about what your fingers have created.
What is a human being that you think about him?"
But King David believed that God cared about all his creation.
He wrote in another poem If I rise with the sun in the east, then cross over to the west where the sun sinks into the ocean.
Your hand would be there to guide me.
Your right hand would still be holding me close.
Edmund Hillary may not have understood how much God cared for him, but he understood one thing.
As a famous person, he had many chances to help others and he did much to care for the people who lived near Mount Everest, the Sherpas.
He started an aid group to serve them, the Himalayan Trust.
And through this group, he continued to provide schools and hospitals for the Sherpa people.
He even organized the building of an airfield, a place where planes land, and a bridge for them.
Hillary said, Here was the perfect way to repay the Sherpas for the help and joy they had given me.
Edmund Hillary died on the 11th of January 2008.
His life was an example of courage and strength of character to many people.
And they will miss him.
The man who, for 15 minutes, was on the top of the world.
What is the tallest hill or mountain that you have climbed?
What is the tallest mountain you have ever seen? even if you didn't climb it.
What makes people want to climb mountains?
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The writer of this episode was from the Spotlight team.
The producer was Michio Ozaki.
The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States.
All quotes were adapted for this episode and voiced by Spotlight.
No AI or artificial intelligence was used in this episode.
Spotlight episodes are written, voiced and produced by real people for real people, no matter where in the world they live.
This episode is called A Long Life of Adventure.
We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight episode.
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