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Travel

R.I.P. Sir Edmund

By: Santosh :+: Under: Travel, Trivia
On: ⋅ January 11, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
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Sir Edmund Hillary passed away at the age of 88 on Jan 11th 2008 of heart failure at the Auckland City Hospital. [link]

“A few more whacks of the ice axe in the firm snow, and we stood on top.”
Sir Edmund & Sherpa Tenzing on the final steps to the summit of Mt. Everest
img: via www.cureblindness.org

Not content with his conquest of the top of the world, Sir Edmund also:
rode to the South Pole in a tractor, [link] ………

Sir Edmund Hillary has reached the South Pole - the first overland explorer to do so since Captain Robert F Scott’s expedition in 1912. The New Zealander and his team arrived safely after travelling 70 miles (113km) through mist and poor weather conditions. They described seeing the round tower of the South Pole for the first time as a “black blob” on the horizon. Sir Edmund and his colleagues had only one drum of petrol left when they sighted the Polar base. This would have been enough for the “tractor train” to travel 20 miles (32km).

rode a jetboat from the mouth of the Ganges river to its source in his now legendary “Ocean to Sky” expedition, [link] ……

became ambassador to India, Nepal and Bangladesh, [link] ……..

That same year, Hillary was appointed New Zealand High Commissioner (Ambassador) to India, Nepal and Bangladesh, and spent four and a half years based in New Delhi. On June 19, 1995, Hillary received the Noble Order of the Garter from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

had his face printed on the national currency of New Zealand (pictured left), ………

was involved in philanthropy work as the Honorary President of the American Himalayan Foundation and Honorary Chairperson of the Himalayan Cataract Project, among others.

Just for good, he also accompanied that guy named Neil Armstrong to the North Pole, thus becoming the only man to conquer both poles and the Everest. [link]

In 1985, Hillary accompanied Neil Armstrong in a small, twin-engine ski plane over the Arctic Ocean and landed at the North Pole. He thus became the first man to stand at both poles as well as the summit of Everest.

A little tidbit on the Everest conquest and about Sir Edmund’s relationship with his Everest hike buddy, Tenzing Norgay: [link] ……..

Once there, “I put out my hand, in sort of stuffy old Anglo-Saxon fashion, to shake his hand, but that wasn’t enough for him,” Hillary later said of Norgay. “He threw his arms around my shoulders, and I threw my arms around him.”

Hillary left a cross in the snow, at the urging of a priest he had met, and Norgay left some candy as an offering to the gods.

In later years, a debate emerged about whether Hillary or Norgay, who died in 1986, was the first to reach the summit.

Hillary told People magazine in 1999: “We agreed we would say we reached it ‘almost together,’ when in fact I reached it a few paces ahead of him. I’ve decided now I’m going to tell it like it was and not worry about whether it’s going to hurt anyone’s feelings.”

Hats off to Sir Edmund as he finally rejoins his buddy Sherpa Tenzing to continue this never ending feud on who reached Everest first.

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