Edmund Hillary and the porter, Tenzing Norgay, got the glory for conquering Everest, but it was John Hunt who made their success possible. John Hunt was an excellent manager and paid great attention to detail. For instance, he specified that each box of rations contained 29 tins of sardines. His strategy, which was soon to become standard in mountaineering, called for an army of climbers, especially porters who would methodically move up the mountain, carrying supplies to ever higher camps. Hunt gave the human element systematic attention as well. Everest demands an "unusual degree of selflessness and patience", he later wrote. "Failure, whether moral or physical, by even one or two people would add immensely to its difficulties." The desire to reach the top, he added, "must be both individual and collective." That last point was important: the goal of this huge effort was to deliver just two climbers to the summit.

Because they became the first men to reach the summit of Everest, Hillary and Tenzing would earn a celebrity that has scarcely faded in 50 years. Who today remembers Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans? Yet Hunt's plan called for Bourdillon, a former president of the Oxford Mountaineering Club, and Evans, a brain surgeon, to make the first summit bid. Still, logistical snafus, the failure of a number of stalwarts to acclimatize, and problems with some of the experimental oxygen sets stalled the expedition badly.