Rolex is celebrating the 70th anniversary of Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary’s historic climb to the summit of Mount Everest, also known as Chomolungma to Sherpas and Tibetans.
Since the 1930s, Rolex has been equipping the explorers of the globe with its watches as a test for endurance and reliability in the harshest conditions, and the 1953 Mount Everest expedition was no exception.
This expedition set forth the beginning of a relationship between Rolex and the foundations set up by Norgay and Hillary that exist today in Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Initiative. Hillary devoted much of his life to the region of Everest, a region that changed his life, setting up the The Himalayan Trust which gave rise to hospitals, schools, bridges and the Tenzing-Hillary airport in Lukla. Echoing that notion through its Perpetual Planet Initiative, Rolex has supported that very same vision of Hillary.
Troubled by the loss that families in the region must go through due to the frequent injury and death of Sherpa mountaineers, Norgay trained young Sherpas through the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, which he helped create in 1954, and provided a foundation that not only provided financial support to widows, but also improved the community’s access to healthcare, employment, as well as education.
For the 70th anniversary of the climb, both the family foundations, with the support of the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, have refurbished two cultural centres in the Everest region. In a statement from the foundations and Rolex, these centres are, “dedicated to the history and identity of the Sherpa people, and will act as a platform to raise awareness of environmental issues in the area and celebrate the valuable contribution of the Sherpa community to mountaineering, just as the two legendary mountaineers did throughout their lives.”
(Images: Rolex)
Always on a journey to expand his knowledge, Ambrose is a blend of old-school charm and modern curiosity.
