Welcome to Sir Edmund Hilarys myspace tribute site
Official Himalayan Trust Site
I was born in Auckland and i was given the name Edmund Percival Hillary in 1919. I went to Auckland Grammar School. It took over two hours each way to get there from Tuakau, so I filled the time by reading. At school I felt inferior at sport, awkward and uncoordinated. I was also smaller than most of my class, and not socially adept, I was a shy boy with a deep sense of inferiority that I still have, even back in 1953, when I wanted to ask my future wife Louise to marry me, i was so shy that i got my future mother-in-law to ask her on my behalf.
It was when I was sixteen, during a school trip to Mount Ruapehu, that my interest in mountaineering began. I was fascinated by the snow which, as a born and bred Aucklander, i had never seen before. I was also discovering that, while I was not a natural athlete, my gangly, taunt frame was physically strong and had higher levels of endurance than many of my friends I went tramping with.
By World War II, I had followed in my father’s footsteps as a beekeeper and also was seriously involved in climbing. I served in the New Zealand Air Force for two years as a navigator, but was discharged after an accident. By this stage a dream had also been born, i remember telling a friend before the war "Some day I’m going to climb Everest" After the war I joined the Auckland section of the New Zealand Alpine Club, taking part in the first ascent of the southern ridge of Mount Cook and several other high climbs in the Southern Alps.
After the war, i spent as much time preparing for Everest as i could. I climbed the Southern Alps in summer and winter, to practice both rock climbing and ice pick work, and also took up wrestling. In 1951 I made my first trip to the Himalayas and the following year joined a British Everest Committee training team.
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.
So then I joined a British expedition to climb Everest in 1953, led by British mountaineer John Hunt and 400 others. After an earlier pair had to retire 300 feet short of the summit, a Nepalese Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay and I were recognised as the strongest and fittest in the team, we were chosen to try the ascent.
After an uncomfortable night, we left the last camp at the South Col in the freezing chill dawn of May 29th 1953. Five hours later, at 11:30am, I stepped onto the summit. I then realised that the ridge ahead, instead of still monotonously rising, now dropped sharply away, and far below I could see the North Col and the Rongbuk Glacier. I looked upwards to see a narow snow ridge running up to a snowy summit. A few more whacks of the ice-axe in the firm snow, and we stood on the top.
The announcement of our triumph coincided with the morning of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. I was knighted and found myself catapulted into the media spotlight.
I was just an enthusiastic mountaineer of modest abilities who was willing to work quite hard and had the necessary imagination and determination. I was just an average bloke; it was the media that transformed me into a heroic figure. And try as I did, there was no way to destroy my heroic image. But as I learned through the years, as long as you didn’t believe all that rubbish about yourself, you wouldn’t come to much harm
I continued to go on mountaineering expeditions, always breaking new ground. In 1958, I led an expedition riding tractors across Antarctica to the South Pole, following in the footsteps of Scott. In the ‘50s and ‘60s I undertook another half dozen Himalayan ascents; in 1960 I embarked on a much-publicised expedition to find the Abominable Snowman; and in 1977 I journeyed by jet boat to the source of the Ganges.
Now 87 years old, I'm no longer an active mountaineer, but still a fundraiser and worker for education and health projects in Nepal. I've been widely honoured in New Zealand and around the world, and I'm the only living New Zealander to be featured on a bank note. I have a son called Peter who has followed in my footseps, having climbed Everest twice himself, and amongst other adventures, has visited the North Pole with astronaut Neil Armstrong and has climbed Mt Vinson, Antarctica's highest peak.
