Surely the indigenous people of the region scaled Everest before Hillary or even possibly Mallory?
Expeditions took a guide. I'm assuming the guide therefore knew the way.
Is there any evidence, even in folklore?
(We've been watching a documentary on the discovery of Trafford Leigh-Mallory and it just seems strange no one thought to scale it before)
There's always more to say, but /u/caitrona and /u/Bacarruda have answered How was it that Edmund Hillary, a foreigner, was supposedly the first man to climb Mt. Everest when his local guide Tenzing Norgay's people had presumably lived near the mountain for thousands of years?