Sir Edmund Hillary stepped up from this land on 11 January 2008, aged 88.

Hillary conquered Mount Everest and the South Pole and captured the world’s imagination. Yet where others would have been content to admire the view, look down and bask in the sheer individuality of achievement, for Sir Edmund Hillary it was only the beginning of a lifetime of service to others.

The young Edmund went to Auckland Grammar School. It took over two hours each way to get there from Tuakau, so he filled the time by reading. He was younger and smaller than most of his class, and not socially adept, as he says: "I was a shy boy with a deep sense of inferiority that I still have."

He took refuge in reading and dreamed of a life filled with adventure.

"There was a phase when I was the fastest gun in the west," Hillary recalled in an interview, "then another when I explored the Antarctic. I would walk for hours with my mind drifting to all these things."

Discovering the Heights

It was when he was sixteen, during a school trip to Mount Ruapehu, that his interest in mountaineering began. He was fascinated by the snow which he had never seen before. He was also discovering that, while he was not a natural athlete, his gangly, taut frame was physically strong and had higher levels of endurance than many of the friends he went tramping with.

By World War II, Hillary, who had followed in his father’s footsteps as a beekeeper, was seriously involved in climbing. He served in the New Zealand Air Force for two years as a navigator, but was discharged after an accident. By this stage a dream had also been born. As Grayland, Hillarys biographer, notes, he was a dreamer:

"Some day I’m going to climb Everest’, he had told a friend just before the war. He meant it though no one believed it then. After his discharge from the Air Force he joined the Auckland section of the New Zealand Alpine Club, taking part in the first ascent of the southern ridge of Mount Cook and several other high climbs in the Southern Alps."

Everest is a very big mountain:

It is 29,028 feet high to be exact. Known and revered as Chomolungma to its people. A mountain – unreachable, fearless, deadly, intangible - that had defeated 15 previous expeditions. On its slopes many of the world's strongest climbers had perished.

The North Pole had been reached in 1909; the South Pole in 1911. But Everest (often described as the Third Pole), had defied all attempts - reaching the summit had come to seem beyond mere mortals.

After an uncomfortable night, they left the last camp at South Col in the freezing chill dawn of May 29th 1953. Five hours later, at 11:30am, Hillary, who was leading the climb at this point, stepped onto the summit.
 

Then Tenzing stepped up and Hillary took a photograph of him. Hillary and Tenzing Norgay stood literally on top of the world. It didn't enter Hillary's head to have his photograph taken.

"As far as I knew, he [Tenzing] had never taken a photograph before, and the summit of Everest was hardly the place to show him how".

Sir Edmund, writing in 1958, remarked,

"The explorers of the past were great men and we should honour them. But let us not forget that their spirit lives on. It is still not hard to find a man who will adventure for the sake of a dream or one who will search, for the pleasure of searching, not for what he may find."

Hillary was never the sort to accept the profession of full-time celebrity. He had higher ideals than that.

His travels in Nepal and his friendship with Tenzing had gave him a deep appreciation of the Nepalese culture and people. Yet he was not so blinded by the romantic beauty of the landscape to overlook the very real social problems that Nepalese people faced, living in a small, poor country dwarfed by two huge neighbours.

 

Hillary recalled how an elderly Sherpa from Khumjung village, the hometown of most of the Sherpas on his Everest ascent, had come to him a few years after that expedition and said, "Our children lack education. They are not prepared for the future. What we need more than anything is a school in Khumjung."

What the Nepalese needed was practical help, to be able to help themselves improve their standards of education and health. Hillary established the Himalayan Trust, and in 1961 a three room school-house was built in Khumjung with funds raised by the tireless mountaineer. Throughout the 1960’s Hillary’s commitment to Nepal broadened as he returned there to help the Nepalese build clinics, hospitals and more schools. Over the next four decades, he worked to raise the funds and help set up over 30 schools, two hospitals and 12 medical clinics.
 

Our thanks to The New Zealand Edge for these amazing facts of the life and times of Sir Edmund Hillary.