What is the tallest mountain in the world?
Do you know the name of the tallest mountain in the world? It is called Mount Everest and it is 29,000 feet high. As you can imagine, it is the same as 1,000 houses stacked on top of each other.
We’re going to learn about the little boy who grew up to be the man who climbed this mountain — this is the story of Sir Edmund Hillary.
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When was Edmund Hillary born?
Edmund was born in 1919 in the country of New Zealand. He was smaller than other kids his age and shy. Every day he got on a train and took it a long way to school. On the train, he liked to read books. His favorite books were about mountains and adventures. He dreamed that one day he would go on his own adventures.
Edmund didn’t always stay small. When he was a teenager he grew very, very tall. By that time he didn’t only dream about adventures, he started making his own adventures by climbing mountains. He loved climbing, especially in cold, snowy places. He had a passion for it. Passion is when you love doing something very much. Edmund practiced and practiced and became very good at climbing. He knew that all great adventurers have to practice and practice if they want to become very good at something. Edmund climbed over 34 mountains. That is a lot of practice!
Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world in a country called Tibet. No one had ever climbed to the top. It was in a freezing cold place with fast wind and deep snow that made it very difficult and very dangerous to climb. All of the climbers in the world wanted to be the first person to make it to the top. Edmund wanted with all his heart to be the first one to the top.
When Edmund finally got the chance to try and reach the top of Mount Everest, he had a helper named Tenzing. Edmund and Tenzing had to wear warm clothes and carry heavy backpacks with all their food and other supplies. It was very cold and much of the time they were hungry and tired, but Edmund and Tenzing kept going. They needed each other all along the way. They could not do it alone. This is called teamwork. Teamwork is when people help each other to get something done.
When others turned around and went back down the mountain, Edmund remembered the adventures he read and dreamed about as a boy. Now he was the hero and this was his adventure.
Close to the top of Mount Everest there was a very high wall of ice that no else could climb. But Edmund was creative and strong and figured out a way to wriggle his way up a crack in to the top. The top of Mount Everest was so high that they could barely breath. It took them 20 days and they were only there for a few minutes, but they had reached their goal!
News about Edmund spread all around the world. When Edmund got home he met the Queen of England who made him a knight. In his day a knight was someone who had done something great.
After Mount Everest, Edmund’s adventures weren’t over. He also went to the South Pole, then the North Pole and wrote books about the amazing things he had done. Edmund became famous and made a lot of money from it. But Edmund didn’t keep all the money for himself. He used the money to build schools, hospitals, churches and roads for poor villages. When the newspapers wrote about Edmund and his adventures they said he was a hero, he said he was just a normal person who had a big imagination, had a lot of energy and worked hard.
Like Edmund, you can read books and dream about doing great things. You can also have passion for things you enjoy. You can practice to get better at these things. You can also use teamwork, which is working together to get things done, because you can’t always do everything by yourself. Like Edmund, you can think about others who don’t have all the nice things you have; and do what you can to help them out. And always remember, even mountains can be climbed if we work hard and take them one step at a time.
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