I continued cutting a line of steps upwards - Sir Edmund Hillary
This article is a tribute to a legendary adventurer Sir Edmund Hillary, who conquered the nature. Edmund Percival Hillary born July 20, 1919 in Auckland, New Zealand and died January 11, 2008 at the same place. Mountain climbing is one of the hard sports which test the human spirit and body to the maximum. More than physical endurance the will power and strong motivation is needed to attempt it!In 1935 Sir Edmund Hillary’s relationship with the mountains started, then he was 16. Every year a group used to be taken from Auckland Grammar (where he studied) down to the Tangariro National Park for a skiing holiday. His father was a bee keeper. Sir Edmund Hillary was a fragile-looking boy and he persuaded his father to let him go on that particular trip. He 
along with the group went down to Ruapehu, and it was where it all happened. Hillary witnessed snow everywhere at the National Park.
Sir Edmund Hillary was quoted saying, “…there was snow on the railroad line, and there was snow on the trees. It was a bright moonlit night, and the moonlight was a brilliant, marvelous sight to me, and it was really the most exciting thing that ever happened to me up to that time—us rushing around skiing…“. That was really the start of Hillary’s enthusiasm for snow and ice and mountains.
Then Sir Edmund Hillary began climbing in New Zealand’s Southern Alps while in high school. In 1951 Sir Edmund Hillary joined the British Mount Everest Expedition. Over the next two years he participated in several expeditions to the Himalayas for reconnaissance and practice climbs. By the time the British Mount Everest Expedition was ready to attack Everest in the spring of 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary had become one of its strongest climbers.
In April and May the climbing party ascended the mountain by way of the South Col, the pass between Everest and neighboring peak Lhotse. After the first team of climbers was forced to turn back just about 100 vertical m (about 300 vertical ft) from the summit, Sir Edmund Hillary and veteran Nepalese Sherpa climber Tenzing Norgay were called on to make an attempt. Just 30 vertical m (100 vertical ft) from the summit they faced an exhausting and technically challenging climb up a 12-m (40-ft) tall exposed rock cliff. This rock climb, Everest’s final test, would later become known as the Hillary Step. Sir Edmund Hillary then 35 yrs and Tenzing Norgay conquered the step and reached the summit of 29,035-foot high Mount Everest the world’s highest peak on May 29, 1953.
He recorded the event in his book ‘View From The Summit’, “I continued cutting a line of steps upwards,” he wrote. “Next moment I had moved on to a flattish exposed area of snow with nothing but space in every direction. Tenzing quickly joined me and we looked round in wonder. To our immense satisfaction we realised we had reached the top of the world.”
The duo spent only 15 minutes at the summit. Sir Edmund Hillary took Tenzing’s photos. When he was asked why you didn’t take your photo he told, “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“.
Tenzing Norgay never revealed who reached the top first. Nawang Gombu, Tenzing Norgay’s nephew, was a member of the 1953 expedition and he was the first man to ascend The Everest twice. He says his uncle, Tenzing Norgay, never told him who reached the mountain first: “He (Tenzing) never told me that. He said we did it together, because we were roped up together.”
When Sir Edmund Hillary was asked what he thought on keeping the feet on top of Everest, he replied, “I was not aware that the incident is going to change my life… Then, I sighted the near by peaks and planned to scale them also“. Which he eventuall did!
On returning from Everest’s summit Sir Edmund Hillary’s first words to lifelong friend George Lowe were, “Well George, WE finally knocked the bastard off.”
Sir Edmund Hillary’s great determination can be known by his words, “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.”
Not only getting to the top is important. Safely getting to the bottom is more important and difficult. “You are at your most vulnerable when you’re up there. You’re at 29,000 feet and statistically so many of the fatalities happen on the descent and I think the reason for this is the adrenaline of going up just then gets replaced by that exhaustion and mistakes become very easy up there” - Mr Bear Grylls (The youngest Britain to climb the Mount Everest).
To honour his achievement Sir Edmund Hillary was made a knight of the Order of the British Empire in 1953 and, 42 years later, the Queen bestowed on him her highest honour a knighthood in the Order of the Garter.
In the years that followed, the adventurer climbed 11 different peaks of over 20,000 feet in the Himalayas. Some of the expeditions are first ascents including Baruntse (23,517 feet/7,168 meters), Chago (22,615 feet/6,893 feet), and Pethangtse (22,106 feet/6,738 meters).
In 1955 Sir Edmund Hillary was appointed leader of the New Zealand party of the British Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, which was headed by British geologist Vivian E. Fuchs. Sir Edmund Hillary led his party across Antarctica by snow tractor (modified farm tractor), pioneering a new route to the South Pole. He reached the South Pole on Jan. 4, 1958. He went in search of the mythical yeti in Nepal. He recorded this feat in The Crossing of Antarctica (1958; with Fuchs) and No Latitude for Error (1961).
In the early 1960s, Sir Edmund Hillary began raising money to build a school for the children of Khumjung, the home village for many of the Sherpas who had accompanied him on the Everest ascent. During his two-year stint as New Zealand’s High Commissioner to India Sir Edmund Hillary established the Himalayan Trust in 1964, which since its inception has funded more than 30 schools in Nepal, as well as hospitals, medical clinics, and airstrips. When asked about his achievements, “My most worthwhile things have been the building of schools and clinics. That has given me far more satisfaction than a footprint on a mountain,” he had said.
This dedication to the Sherpas lasted into his later years and was recognized in 2003; Sir Edmund Hillary was granted honorary citizenship of Nepal during celebrations held in 2003 to mark the 50th anniversary of the ascent. It is not an exaggeration to quote that “Sir Edmund Hillary devoted his life for the betterment of Nepal’s Sherpas who live on the slopes of the Himalayas”.
Sir Edmund Hillary experienced devastating loss when his first wife, Louise Mary Rose, and one of their two daughters died in a plane crash in the Himalayas in 1975. He bravely fought out of the sorrow. His thirst for adventure never came down. In 1977 he led a jet boat expedition from the mouth of The Ganges to its source. Sir Edmund Hillary felt lifted from the sorrow when a Hindu Pujari performed a ritual at the banks of The Ganges and he describes it as a very emotional moment in his life. Generally he was perceived as a low emotional person.
Sir Edmund Hillary has shared his son Peter’s elation when, on his fourth attempt, Peter conquered Everest in 1990. He made a final visit in January 2007 to Antarctica, the scene of another of his triumphs.
He was always modest in his achievements, “In some ways I believe I epitomise the average New Zealander: I have modest abilities, I combine these with a good deal of determination, and I rather like to succeed.“. Sir Edmund Hillary described himself as small, but he was a Hercules.
Sir Edmund Hillary died peacefully from a heart attack at the age of 88, at 9am on Friday 11 Jan 2008 in his home town. A state funeral was held for Sir Edmund Hillary and flags have also been lowered to half-mast at Parliament in Wellington.
References:
Internet Sources [Accessed January 2008]:
THE TIME 100 - Heroes & Icons: Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay - http://www.time.com/time/time100/heroes/profile/hillary_norgay01.html
American Academy of Achievement - Sir Edmund Hillary Biography - http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/hil0bio-1
American Academy of Achievement - Sir Edmund Hillary Profile - http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/hil0pro-1
Radio New Zealand News - Sir Edmund Hillary is dead - http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/latest/200801111143/sir_edmund_hillary_is_dead
National Geographic - Everest 50 years and counting - http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0305/feature1/index.html?fs=www7.nationalgeographic.com
TIME - The greatest adventures of all time - http://www.time.com/time/2003/adventures/interview.html
The New Zealand Edge - Adventurers: Sir Edmund Hillary - http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/hillary.html
Encyclopedia Britannica - Sir Edmund Hillary - http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9040469/Sir-Edmund-Hillary
“Sir Edmund Hillary,” Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2007 http://encarta.msn.com
The Telegraph - Sir Edmund Hillary mourned by Sherpas - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=WT1FECOF5FG33QFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2008/01/11/whillary411.xml
BBC News - Everest: 50 years at the top - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/2959774.stm
Television Interview:
BBC WORLD - HARD TALK With Tim Sebastian - Recorded in 1999 and Re-telecast on 12 January 2008 0430 GMT.