Post by manho on Jan 10, 2008 18:29:14 GMT -5
Mount Everest conqueror Edmund Hillary dies
From the Guardian archive: Hillary reaches the top
Staff and agencies
Thursday January 10, 2008
Guardian Unlimited
Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest, has died at the age of 88.
The New Zealander reached the summit of the Himalayan mountain on May 29 1953 alongside the Tibetan-born Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.
The prime minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, hailed the the explorer as a "colossus".
"The legendary mountaineer, adventurer, and philanthropist is the best-known New Zealander ever to have lived," Clark said. "But most of all he was a quintessential Kiwi."
Hillary led the New Zealand section of the Trans-Antarctic expedition from 1955 to 1958. In 1958 he participated in the first mechanised expedition to the South Pole.
He devoted much of his life to aiding the mountain people of Nepal, where he helped build clinics, hospitals and 17 schools.
Last April, after returning from from a trip to Nepal, Hillary suffered a fall and was admitted to a hospital in Auckland.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
