The most famous climber ever and forever!
Born 1919 in Tuakau, Auckland, New Zealand. Climbed intoimmortality
on May 29, 1953 together with his Sherpa companion Tenzing Norgay,
by becoming the first to reach the highest point on earth
, Mount Everest, 8,850 meters above
sea level. Ed has bagged 11 summits in the Himalaya, all above
6,000 metres.
Ed about his Everest adventure: - "We didn't know if it was humanly possible to reach the top of Mt. Everest. And even using oxygen as we were, if we did get to the top, we weren't at all sure whether we wouldn't drop dead or something of that nature."
In the later fifties, Ed was invited to partipace in the first mekanized expedition to the South Pole. On January 4, 1958, Hillary reaches the Pole with just enough petrol for another 20 miles.
In 1975, Hillary travelled by jet boat from the mouth of the
Ganges to the head waters of the river high in the Himalayas.
What was seen by Hillary as merely an adventure was seen by
millions of Indians as a pilgrimage.
During the recent years, Hillary has continued his global fund-raising work for organisations such as UNICEF and the World Wildlife Fund.
His son, Peter Hillary, inspired by his father has become a
well-known climber, in 1990 (and in May 2002 a second time)
he stood on the summit of Mount Everest with the same view his
father had seen 37 years earlier.
"Reaching the summit of a mountain gives great satisfaction, but nothing for me has been more rewarding in life than the result of our climb on Everest, when we have devoted ourselves to the welfare of our Sherpa friends."
- Sir Edmund Hillary
(Great Climbs 1994)
Books by/about Edmund Hillary
» View from the Summit
» Sir Edmund Hillary : Modern-Day Explorer...
» Sir Edmund Hillary : Sir Edmund Hillary : To Everest and Beyond
» Triumph on Everest : A Photobiography of Sir Edmund Hillary
» Learning About Teamwork
» Ascent : Two Lives Explored : Bbiographies of Ed and Peter Hillary
» Nothing venture, nothing win
Videos with Edmund Hillary
» The Adventurers: Hillary and Tenzing
» Thin Air of Everest: Conquest of Everest
» Return to the climbing heroes mainpage
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