Heroic mountaineers in the team to conquer Everest were gasping for cigarettes as well as oxygen, a writer has discovered. Among the supplies for the triumphant 1953 expedition were 15,000 cigarettes.
While Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first climbers to scale the world’s highest peak, were not thought to smoke. Others in the team liked to light up.
Expedition leader John Hunt and climber Charles Evans smoked pipes but Wilfred Noyce was a cigarette man. Noyce reached the 26,000ft South Col, between Everest and Lhotse mountain, on May 21, 1953.
Eight days later Hillary was on top of the world at 29,035ft. News of the success was released on the day of the Queen’s coronation.
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