The Step was named after Sir Edmund Hillary, who was the first known person, along with Tenzing Norgay, to scale it on the way to the summit during the 1953 British Mount Everest Expedition. Hillary and Tenzing first climbed the Hillary Step on 29 May 1953 by climbing the crack between the snow and the rock. Hillary reported that the snow on the step was harder than at lower elevation. Hillary wrote in 1953 (the reference to Tenzing being hauled up like a fish rankled with Tenzing, and the fish simile disappeared from later accounts):