Meet Sir Edmund Hillary Conquerer Of Mount Everest
Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made history in 1953 when they successfully climbed Mount Everest.
Born July 20, 1919 in Auckland, New Zealand, to Percival Augustus Hillary and Gertrude Hillary, in Auckland, on 20 July 1919.
The family moved to Tuakau, a village about 40 miles (64.37 kilometres) south of Auckland in 1920.
Hillary’s father, a veteran of The Gallipoli campaign during World War 1, was allocated land there after the war.
Edmund was educated at Tuakau Primary School and then Auckland Grammar School.
He used the two hour each way bus journey to read. His favourite author and hero was mountaineer Eric Shipton.
He had his first experience of mountain climbing at age 16 during a school trip to Mount Ruapehu.
Completing his first major climb in 1939 after reaching the summit of Mount Oliver in the Southern Alps, he became a beekeeper with his brother Ray.
This occupation enabled him to take time to indulge his passion for mountain climbing during winter.
After the outbreak of World War 2, Hillary applied to join the air force, but withdrew his application due to religious convictions.
Following the outbreak of war in the Pacific in 1943, he was conscripted and joined the Royal New Zealand Airforce as a Catalina Flying Boat navigator.
In 1950 Hillary climbed in the Swiss and Austrian Alps.
Later, in 1952, he joined a New Zealand expedition to the Himalayas.
At the end of 1951 Hillary joined a British Everest Reconnaissance expedition.
Between 1921 and 1953 eight major expeditions had attempted the climb and failed. 16 deaths had occurred over this period.
These attempts had been mostly from the north through Tibet.
After World War 2, Nepal allowed entry to Western expeditions, and new, more accessible routes were found.
This also led to the participation of Sherpa guides in future attempts.
In a 1952 attempt at the summit, Swiss climber Raymond Lambert and Tenzing Norgay reached 27,100 ft (about 8,260m) on Everest.
At this time, this was the highest that anyone had ever climbed.
In late 1952 a British expedition led by Col. John Hunt assembled in England and travelled to India, then on to Nepal.
Hillary joined the 15-man team, which was one of the most professional ever assembled to that point in time.
As well as Hunt and Hillary, the team included Hillary’s close friend George Lowe, Tenzing Norgay, known in Nepal as the “Tiger of the Snows,” eight other British climbers, a cameraman, doctor and James Morris, a reporter from the London Times.
Hillary and Tenzing left their camp at 8,500m (about 27,890 ft) at 6.30 on May 28, 1953.
At 11:30 a.m. the same day, they reached the summit: 8,848 meters (29,028 ft) above sea level.
Quick Facts About Mount Everest:
* Longitude: 86º55’40″ E
* Latitude: 27º59’16″ N
* Nepalese Name: Sagarmatha
* Tibetan Name: Qomolungma (Chomolungma)
Mt Everest was located by Sir George Everest in 1841. Everest was the Indian Surveyor General at the time.
At that time it was called ‘Peak XV’, and was named Everest in 1865.
In Nepal, the peak is known as Sagarmatha, and in Tibet as Qomolungma “the mother goddess of the earth”.
Hillary After Mount Everest:
Hillary’s passion for adventure continued, and in 1958, he led a support team for Vivian Fuch’s planned crossing of Antarctica.
He made a dash on a farm tractor to the South Pole, becoming the first person ever to reach it in a motorized vehicle.
In 1968, Hillary took a jetboat through the wild rivers of Nepal, and in 1977 travelled up the Ganges river from the see to the mountains in a jetboat.
In 1962 he founded the Himalayan Trust, and spent the next 40 years helping to build schools, hospitals, medical centers and bridges in Nepal.
Sources and Links:
Please note that materials used are from the sources below, along with other material in the public domain.
All care has been taken in compiling this post. The author in no way seeks to detract from the quality of the websites below by writing this article.
Rather, it is intended as a quick summary, and the sites below are recommended for further reseach and reading!
Hi Allan,
Been a while since I stopped by, can’t keep me offline for long though,lol. Nice little tribute here, and plenty of facts even I didn’t know about.
Sad to hear of the loss but he did have a good innings and achieved a huge amount in his lifetime, more than most.
Hope you had a great start to the new year and look forward to being less of a stranger over the coming weeks.
Tony:)
Tony Lewis’s last blog post..Greenpeace Ship Has Whaling Fleet On The Run.
G’day Tony,
Thanks for dropping by mate!
He definitely did have a great innings, and was truly one of the last of the old ‘Boys Own’ adventure types.
He was one of my heroes while I was growing up, but I didn’t realise that he had achieved so much until I started reading his history the other day!
As for achieving stuff, he did more in one life time than most would be able to fit into ten.
Actually, this is the second post I have written, not having room for the extra information in the first…
Cheers mate!
Allan
Well written précis Allan. You;re a good writer. Sir Ed is definitely one of my heroes, not only because of his adventures but also the massive humanitarian effort he led. I also appreciate his moral stance ie His stand on the events of Everest in 96.
Cheers
Peter
G’day Peter,
Thanks for visiting and leaving your comment!
I’m glad that you enjoyed the post! I must say that the more I read about Hillary, the more that I admire him!
Cheers Mate!
Sir Edmund Hillary is really a great man. During his career path, Sir Edmund explored places where no other person had moved out before. He and his college Tenzing Norgay have captured the peak of Mount Everest to the world’s imagination. His successful achievement of scaling the Mount Everest for the first time during 1953 is one of the most defining moments during the 20th century.