1953년 세계 최고봉 에베레스트에 처음 오른 뉴질랜드 산악인 에드먼드 힐러리 경이
11일 88세의 나이로 하늘에 올랐다.
Edmund Hillary Dies; First Atop Everest
New Zealander Retained Sense Of Humility After 1953 Achievement
Combined Wire Services
January 11, 2008
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — - Sir Edmund Hillary once expressed surprise that it was he — "an ordinary person with ordinary qualities" — who became the first man to conquer the world's tallest peak.
Although Mount Everest made him one of the 20th century's best-known adventurers, he maintained his reputation for humility, while working to aid the impoverished people of Nepal.
Hillary died today at 88; no cause of death was reported.
"Awe, wonder, humility, pride, exaltation — these surely ought to be the confused emotions of the first men to stand on the highest peak on Earth, after so many others had failed," Hillary wrote of the conquest he and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay achieved on May 29, 1953.
"But my dominant reactions were relief and surprise. Relief because the long grind was over and the unattainable had been attained. And surprise, because it had happened to me, old Ed Hillary, the beekeeper, once the star pupil of the Tuakau District School, but no great shakes at Auckland Grammar [high school] and a no-hoper at university."
As he reached base camp after the climb, he took an irreverent view of their monumental achievement: "We knocked the bastard off."
The climb up the 29,035-foot Himalayan mountain was achieved amid subzero temperatures, unpredictable winds and daunting crevasses, and with a grade of equipment now considered primitive. The ascent ended a decades-long quest undertaken by countless to test human endurance.
The newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II knighted Hillary. His triumph over Everest also came to symbolize for many Britons a postwar era of prosperity, even as its empire was shrinking.
The Everest climb brought Hillary his most enduring fame, and he went on to adventures in India and Antarctica and became a globe-trotting advocate of environmentalism and conservation.
In 1958, via snow tractor, he led the first overland team to reach the South Pole in generations. Two years later, his fruitless yeti-searching excursion in Tibet led him to declare the Abominable Snowman a "mythological creature, probably based on rare sightings of the Tibetan blue bear."
Edmund Percival Hillary was born in Auckland on July 20, 1919, and was raised south of the city in Tuakau. His father, a journalist-turned-beekeeper, brought his family into a fringe Christian movement called Radiant Living.
Hillary described a strict upbringing that led to a lonely childhood and fostered a desire for escape. Mountain climbing, which he discovered at 16 on a school trip to New Zealand's Mount Ruapehu volcano, provided the freedom he sought.
During World War II, he served as a navigator in the Royal New Zealand Air Force. After seeing combat in the Solomon Islands, he returned to beekeeping with his brother, a trade he maintained until 1970. He began to formalize his mountain-hiking skills in the off-season to combat his dread of complacency.
He scaled New Zealand's peaks before trying the Swiss Alps in 1950. The next year, he teamed with Eric Shipton, a revered English climber, to help plan a route atop Everest via Nepal after communist China invaded Tibet.
"We were the first to realize there was a potential route up Everest from the south side," Hillary later said of the reconnaissance mission.
After a change of personnel, John Hunt replaced Shipton as leader. He broke the group in teams, pairing Hillary with Norgay, a porter on earlier expeditions who became one of the world's most experienced climbers. Norgay previously came within 800 feet of the summit.
The Hillary-Norgay team found a path over treacherous crevasses, notably the Khumbu Icefall. Their equipment included nylon ropes, oxygen cylinders, metal-spiked climbing irons for their boots and ice axes minus the curve added in later years to aid climbing.
At 29,000 feet, they encountered a 40-foot wall of rock, which Hillary surmounted when a large ice cornice broke away and he spotted a narrow crack running upward. Norgay followed, and it was a relatively easy route from there to the summit.
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 him 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."
Compiled from Washington Post and Associated Press reports
Below are some of the notable comments made by Sir Edmund Hillary, who died today aged 88.
* Announcing to his climbing companions that he and Tenzing had reached Everest's summit:
"We knocked the bastard off."
* on the changes fame brings:
"I used to walk down Broadway, Papakura, in my tattered overalls and the seat out of my pants. Now, I thought 'That's gone forever. I'll have to buy a new pair of overalls now'."
* on life's inner challenges:
"It is not the mountains that we conquer, but ourselves."
* on the motivation for climbing mountains:
"Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it."
* on what is attainable by Everyman:
"You don't have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things -- to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals."
* At the 50th anniversary of the conquering of Everest:
Advertisement
Advertisement"I like to think that I am a very ordinary New Zealander, not terribly bright perhaps but determined and practical in what I do."
* on 'giving back' later in life:
"The fact that we (in NZ are affluent) is a blessing, and with it comes responsibilities."
* on his reasons for establishing his humanitarian project, the Himalayan Trust, to assist the impoverished in Nepal:
"It is impossible not to see that they lack all the things that we regard as essential in life. They don't have schools and they don't have any medical care or anything of this nature. And I suddenly decided that instead of just talking about it - why didn't I try and do something about it."
* on becoming a knight:
"It was a tremendous honour, of course, but I had never really approved of titles and couldn't really imagine myself possessing one."
* on the news that his face would adorn a banknote - the five dollar note, the first living New Zealander to be so honoured:
"I guess I'll have be respectable for the rest of my life."
* on the decision by NZ climber Mark Inglis who passed a dying British mountaineer during an ascent of Mt Everest for the Discovery Channel:
"All I can say is that in our expedition there was never any likelihood whatsoever if one member of the party was incapacitated that we would just leave him to die."
- NZHERALD STAFF
New Zealander Retained Sense Of Humility After 1953 Achievement
Combined Wire Services
January 11, 2008
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — - Sir Edmund Hillary once expressed surprise that it was he — "an ordinary person with ordinary qualities" — who became the first man to conquer the world's tallest peak.
Although Mount Everest made him one of the 20th century's best-known adventurers, he maintained his reputation for humility, while working to aid the impoverished people of Nepal.
Hillary died today at 88; no cause of death was reported.
"Awe, wonder, humility, pride, exaltation — these surely ought to be the confused emotions of the first men to stand on the highest peak on Earth, after so many others had failed," Hillary wrote of the conquest he and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay achieved on May 29, 1953.
"But my dominant reactions were relief and surprise. Relief because the long grind was over and the unattainable had been attained. And surprise, because it had happened to me, old Ed Hillary, the beekeeper, once the star pupil of the Tuakau District School, but no great shakes at Auckland Grammar [high school] and a no-hoper at university."
As he reached base camp after the climb, he took an irreverent view of their monumental achievement: "We knocked the bastard off."
The climb up the 29,035-foot Himalayan mountain was achieved amid subzero temperatures, unpredictable winds and daunting crevasses, and with a grade of equipment now considered primitive. The ascent ended a decades-long quest undertaken by countless to test human endurance.
The newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II knighted Hillary. His triumph over Everest also came to symbolize for many Britons a postwar era of prosperity, even as its empire was shrinking.
The Everest climb brought Hillary his most enduring fame, and he went on to adventures in India and Antarctica and became a globe-trotting advocate of environmentalism and conservation.
In 1958, via snow tractor, he led the first overland team to reach the South Pole in generations. Two years later, his fruitless yeti-searching excursion in Tibet led him to declare the Abominable Snowman a "mythological creature, probably based on rare sightings of the Tibetan blue bear."
Edmund Percival Hillary was born in Auckland on July 20, 1919, and was raised south of the city in Tuakau. His father, a journalist-turned-beekeeper, brought his family into a fringe Christian movement called Radiant Living.
Hillary described a strict upbringing that led to a lonely childhood and fostered a desire for escape. Mountain climbing, which he discovered at 16 on a school trip to New Zealand's Mount Ruapehu volcano, provided the freedom he sought.
During World War II, he served as a navigator in the Royal New Zealand Air Force. After seeing combat in the Solomon Islands, he returned to beekeeping with his brother, a trade he maintained until 1970. He began to formalize his mountain-hiking skills in the off-season to combat his dread of complacency.
He scaled New Zealand's peaks before trying the Swiss Alps in 1950. The next year, he teamed with Eric Shipton, a revered English climber, to help plan a route atop Everest via Nepal after communist China invaded Tibet.
"We were the first to realize there was a potential route up Everest from the south side," Hillary later said of the reconnaissance mission.
After a change of personnel, John Hunt replaced Shipton as leader. He broke the group in teams, pairing Hillary with Norgay, a porter on earlier expeditions who became one of the world's most experienced climbers. Norgay previously came within 800 feet of the summit.
The Hillary-Norgay team found a path over treacherous crevasses, notably the Khumbu Icefall. Their equipment included nylon ropes, oxygen cylinders, metal-spiked climbing irons for their boots and ice axes minus the curve added in later years to aid climbing.
At 29,000 feet, they encountered a 40-foot wall of rock, which Hillary surmounted when a large ice cornice broke away and he spotted a narrow crack running upward. Norgay followed, and it was a relatively easy route from there to the summit.
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 him 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."
Compiled from Washington Post and Associated Press reports
Below are some of the notable comments made by Sir Edmund Hillary, who died today aged 88.
* Announcing to his climbing companions that he and Tenzing had reached Everest's summit:
"We knocked the bastard off."
* on the changes fame brings:
"I used to walk down Broadway, Papakura, in my tattered overalls and the seat out of my pants. Now, I thought 'That's gone forever. I'll have to buy a new pair of overalls now'."
* on life's inner challenges:
"It is not the mountains that we conquer, but ourselves."
* on the motivation for climbing mountains:
"Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it."
* on what is attainable by Everyman:
"You don't have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things -- to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals."
* At the 50th anniversary of the conquering of Everest:
Advertisement
Advertisement"I like to think that I am a very ordinary New Zealander, not terribly bright perhaps but determined and practical in what I do."
* on 'giving back' later in life:
"The fact that we (in NZ are affluent) is a blessing, and with it comes responsibilities."
* on his reasons for establishing his humanitarian project, the Himalayan Trust, to assist the impoverished in Nepal:
"It is impossible not to see that they lack all the things that we regard as essential in life. They don't have schools and they don't have any medical care or anything of this nature. And I suddenly decided that instead of just talking about it - why didn't I try and do something about it."
* on becoming a knight:
"It was a tremendous honour, of course, but I had never really approved of titles and couldn't really imagine myself possessing one."
* on the news that his face would adorn a banknote - the five dollar note, the first living New Zealander to be so honoured:
"I guess I'll have be respectable for the rest of my life."
* on the decision by NZ climber Mark Inglis who passed a dying British mountaineer during an ascent of Mt Everest for the Discovery Channel:
"All I can say is that in our expedition there was never any likelihood whatsoever if one member of the party was incapacitated that we would just leave him to die."
- NZHERALD STAFF
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