As a new film about Sherpa Tenzing Norgay is released, we visit Pen-Y-Gwryd, the Snowdonia hotel that served as British ‘base camp’ for the 1953 expedition and where the spirit of adventure lives on

In the early hours of 2 June 1953, guests at the Pen-Y-Gwryd hotel in the heart of Eryri (Snowdonia) were woken from their sleep by the sound of footsteps running down the corridor outside their rooms. The commotion was followed by gleeful shouting and the sound of champagne corks popping. A late-night telephone call to the hotel’s owner had moments earlier confirmed that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay had successfully summited Mount Everest. It had taken two days for the news to travel from the Himalayas to London. Serendipitously, news of the historic achievement coincided with the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II later that day.

In the days and weeks that followed, the two mountaineers were feted across the front pages of newspapers around the world. Posing awkwardly for the cameras, their beaming smiles shone out of frost-burnt faces. In the decades that followed, Tenzing Norgay’s role in the expedition was increasingly marginalised – he was a Sherpa, indigenous to the area, and the load-carrying guide, while Hillary firmly planted his ice axe in the history books.

Genden Phuntsok brings charm and innocence to his portrayal of Tenzing Norgay, while Tom Hiddleston is suitably frank as Edmund Hillary

Here is a well intentioned, watchable, if sometimes soft-edged film with some NatGeo production values and VFX jeopardy on high mountain peaks. The subject is the triumphant Mount Everest expedition of 1953, in which the ultimate ascent was achieved by Nepalese-Indian mountaineer Tenzing Norgay and New Zealander Edmund Hillary.

Tenzing, a former Sherpa guide whose unparalleled knowledge of the mountain and exemplary climbing skills earned him promotion to full team member, is played here by Tibetan actor Genden Phuntsok, while Hillary is robustly portrayed by Tom Hiddleston. Screenwriter Luke Davies and director Jennifer Peedom have the decent aim of restoring Tenzing’s achievement to the centre of the narrative, a tale which at the time was resoundingly claimed for Hillary and the British empire: a glorious redemption of Scott’s Antarctic ordeal 41 years earlier and a sign of divine approval for the imminent coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.