Pen-y-Gwryd expeditions took place, at Helyg near Capel Curig. On the right at the hotel entrance there is a Tyrolean-style Stüberl (dining room) with the signatures, written on the ceiling, of the teams that did the first ascent of Everest in 1953 and of the first ascent of Kangchenjunga in 1955 – these include Sir Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay, Sir John Hunt, Charles Evans, George Band, Joe Brown, John Angelo Jackson, Wilfred Noyce, Tony Streather, Tom Mackinnon, Norman Hardie, Neil Mather, John Clegg and others, including Noel Odell from Mallory's 1924 expedition and Chris Bonington of later successes. There are many
1953 British Mount Everest expedition refused permission for Norgay to be knighted. Hunt received his knighthood in July 1953, on his return to London. Further honours continued to descend on the members of the expedition: the Hubbard Medal of the National Geographic Society, which had never before been awarded on a team basis, although individual medals were struck in bronze for Hunt, Hillary and Tenzing; the Cullum Geographical Medal of the American Geographical Society, the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society; the Lawrence Medal of the Royal Central Asian Society; and honorary degrees from the universities of Aberdeen, Durham, and London. In the New