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roy
Social climber
New Zealand -> Santa Barbara
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Jan 11, 2008 - 08:21pm PT
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RIP Sir Ed
Growing up in NZ in the 1960s, he was a huge inspiration. Probably for every subsequent generation as well.
Erik; No, the Brits didn't necessarily stack the odds. The previous year a Swiss team came close to succeeding on Everest. And one of the high altitude sherpas on that expedition was Tenzing Norgay.
Cheers, Roy
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Polar Sun
Trad climber
Joshua Tree
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Jan 11, 2008 - 09:49pm PT
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Ed lived big, pushed the envelope, and engaged in a lot of genuine humanitarian work. For those of us who believe there is just this one lifetime he got a full banquet.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jan 18, 2008 - 01:20am PT
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Here is the definitive Hillary interview by Ken Wilson from Mountain 45 Sept/Oct 1975. This is the first installment. You really get a good taste of the man.
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Trusty Rusty
Social climber
Tahoe area
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Jan 18, 2008 - 03:36am PT
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Sir Edmond Percival Hillary-
From WW II navigator of Catalina Boats to summit everest with Tenzing @ 1130 May 28, 1953.
And in perfect form as Hillary once put it, "A few more whacks of the ice axe in the firm snow, and we stood on top."
One more of the great hero's leaves us with a legacy we might understand, but none of us will ever relate to. Hats off to Sir Edmond Hillary.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jan 18, 2008 - 11:31am PT
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Thanks, Steve - looking forward to the second instalment.
Of the Everest 1953 climbing team, only a few are still living.
Tenzing Norgay 1914 - 1986
Baron John Hunt K.G. 1910 - 1998
Sir Charles Evans 1918 - 1995
Sir Edmund Hillary, K.G. 1919 - 2008
Tom Bourdillon 1924 - 1956
Alf Gregory 1913 -
Wilfrid Noyce 1917 - 1962 (the fellow who wrote poetry at the South Col)
George Band 1929 - (first ascent of Kanchenjunga, 1955)
Charles Wylie 1919 - 2007
George Lowe 1924 -
Michael Westmacott 1925 -
Griffith Pugh 1909 - 1994
Tom Stobart 1914 - 1980
James (Jan) Morris 1926 -
Michael Ward 1925 - 2005
It appears that Alf Gregory is still alive, at 94 - he was interviewed by BBC radio on Hillary's death. He was one of those who made the carry to Camp IX, at 8,400 m on the Southeast Ridge.
Noyce and Bourdillon died in climbing accidents.
The Royal Geographic Society has a very good website all about Everest - http://imagingeverest.rgs.org/Concepts/Imaging_Everest/-1.html
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jan 18, 2008 - 10:03pm PT
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"A lot of very competant climbers arrive in the Himalaya knowing sweet Fanny Adams about avalanches." Gotta love it!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Jan 22, 2008 - 11:27pm PT
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The second installment of the Ken Wilson interview, Mt. 46.
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L
climber
A Big Puddle on the Coast of CA
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I didn't know that much about Sir Edmund Hillary until his passing, and then I did a little research. What an amazing human being. Here's a very touching and inspiring article about him...just reading it makes me want to be a better person.
Sweetness and Light
by Frank Deford
At the end of the century, I wanted to do a story on Sir Edmund Hillary. All the experts in the United States were carrying on about, essentially, the same characters — Ruth, Jordan, Ali, maybe Jim Thorpe. But I thought that what Hillary had accomplished with the late Tenzing Norgay, his Sherpa guide, was perhaps the single greatest sporting achievement of the 20th century.
In my quest to find Sir Edmund in New Zealand, I called a journalist there. Might he tell me where I could find someone who had Hillary's telephone number? Just a minute, he said. Oh, have you got it, I asked? No, he replied, it's just right here in the phone book. That's right. Anybody could ring up the greatest citizen of the country, the guy on the five-dollar bill, the hero who stood first on the top of the world.
That probably says as much about what Sir Edmund was like as anything does. Well, really, not Sir Edmund. When he found he had to change our appointment, he politely called my house. I was away, so he told my wife it was Ed Hillary calling. "Who?" she asked, struggling with his Kiwi accent. Finally, reluctantly, he acknowledged that he was indeed "Sir Edmund Hillary." He apologized that he had to change our date, but it seemed that President Clinton was going to be in New Zealand and, being a wise politician, wanted Sir Edmund with him. Sorry about that.
My wife said she was sure I'd understand.
In a suburb of Auckland, Hillary lived on a high hill with a vista of the harbor, but significantly, a large Himalayan tree he'd been given, rises higher still over the house on the hill. It's good maybe that you're reminded that no matter how high you go, except maybe on Everest, there is really something always higher.
These latter years, he lived with his second wife, June, and a large tabby cat, Big Red. Both the Hillarys had been widowed. Ed's first wife, Louise, died in a plane crash, along with their daughter, Belinda, when the plane went down leaving Katmandu. He had just put them on it.
The reason the Hillarys were in Katmandu is because after Sir Edmund became famous for conquering the sacred peak that the people there call Chomolungma, he kept coming back to Nepal all his life to help the people and the land. It became his second quest in Nepal.
At first, when he came down from the summit in May of 1953, many Nepalese didn't embrace Hillary, the outsider who had breached their peak. Hillary made sure to say that Norgay had reached the top a few steps before him. Just before he died in 1986, Norgay finally wrote the truth, that Hillary had in fact been first, and Hillary substantiated that.
But, he was quick to tell me, "Believe me, to mountaineers, who's first is not important. We're a team."
In fact, he admitted that he'd felt a little guilty days before when he wasn't sure whether he really wanted his friends, Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans, to make it to the top first. They had to turn back barely 300 feet short.
"I wasn't very proud of my feelings," Hillary admitted to me, ruefully patting the old cat in his lap.
Two days later, Hillary and his teammate made it, and all things considered, I'd have to say that I think God picked the right guy to first stand so close to heaven on earth.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Here is a little sweetness and a smirk for the ages from Ed's autobiography, Nothing Venture , Nothing Win, 1975.
And this one is for Anders.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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May 29, 2008 - 04:56pm PT
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A bump - today is the 55th anniversary of Tenzing & Hillary's climb. Although I guess it's now May 30th in Nepal. :-)
Climbing-related, anyway. And it sort of fits with the "Three Cups" discussion.
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Raydog
Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
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May 29, 2008 - 05:19pm PT
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awesome, thanks 4 the bump
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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May 29, 2012 - 12:37pm PT
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Today is the 59th anniversary of the FA, so I thought I'd nudge this thread. Would that Sir Ed was still alive, and able to comment in his forthright way on the circus on 'his' mountain.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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May 29, 2012 - 01:07pm PT
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Can you imagine how pristine it was just 59 years ago. No trash no corpses, and no money to be made selling her flanks.
Silver, I'm not sure that that is entirely true, but it sure wasn't the zoo/dump it has become.
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TYeary
Social climber
State of decay
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May 29, 2012 - 01:17pm PT
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Hillary had spoken eloquently about the (then) current state of affairs on Everest. I would have to believe he is frowning at what has become of his and Tenzing's great adventure. I had the privilege of short and chance meeting with him once many years ago. He was humble yet fiercely passionate about his Everest climb and even more importantly, the Sherpa people whom he was a father figure to. His kind is rare and sorely missed from the "Everest scene" today.
TY
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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May 29, 2012 - 01:17pm PT
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According to Unsworth's Everest, up until 1953, 13 had died on the slopes of Everest. It looks like few if any of the bodies were removed. Likewise little if any of the detritus from the 1921, 1922, 1924, 1933, 1935, 1936, 1938, 1951, 1952 and 1953 expeditions was removed afterward.
Still, a drop in the bucket compared with what is now left. Behaviours were very different in 1953 and before, and given the relatively sparse usage, probably no one considered it a concern.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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May 29, 2012 - 02:44pm PT
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Wow...this thread only got 77 posts back in 2008. Now I know that religion, politics and gossip always trump climbing on this "climbing forum," but............
Edit: Right after I posted this the Repubs are Wrong thread came up with 20,941 posts.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Topic Author's Reply - May 29, 2012 - 02:52pm PT
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Wow...this thread only got 77 posts back in 2008.
Well Jim, Supertopo is pretty focused on rockclimbing in the US Southwest. Other things might get passing mention, but if it isn't about rock climbing (or politics/religion) it disappears pretty fast here.
Ed Hillary? He didn't climb in Yosemite, so how important can he actually be?
In fact, the Everest climb was just one thing out of a whole lot of wild sh#t that he did. Read his account of the first crossing of Antarctica. Now that was really out there.
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