X-Nico

15 unusual facts about Edmund Hillary


Apa Sherpa

Apa first reached the summit of Mount Everest on his fourth attempt, on May 10, 1990, with a New Zealand team led by climber Rob Hall along with Peter Hillary, son of Edmund Hillary.

Caradog Jones

At 33, Jones was the same age as Edmund Hillary when he reached the summit, and indeed this was achieved virtually 32 years on to the day.

Edmund February

Named after one of the two climbers first confirmed to reach the summit of Everest, Edmund Hillary, and living in the shadow of Table Mountain, Edmund was destined to be a climber.

Harry Kirkwood

Under the leadership of Edmund Hillary, Kirkwood landed the New Zealand section of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition along with the material needed to construct Scott Base.

Himalayan Mountaineering Institute

The first ascent of Mount Everest in 1953 by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary sparked a keen interest in establishing mountaineering as a well-respected endeavour for people in the region.

Jan Morris

She reported the success of Hillary and Tenzing in a coded message to the newspaper, "Snow conditions bad stop advanced base abandoned yesterday stop awaiting improvement", and by happy coincidence the news was released on the morning of Queen Elizabeth's coronation.

John B. West

As a physiologist, he joined Sir Edmund Hillary's Himalayan scientific and mountaineering expedition in 1960-61.

Marble Point

Aboard were U.S. Navy Admiral Dufeck and New Zealand explorer Sir Edmund Hillary.

Maurice Herzog

The event caused a huge sensation that was only matched when Everest was summited in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.

Nicholas DeVore III

Physical and technical prowess proved him a go-to for arduous assignments: South Pacific canoeing with celestial navigators, Polynesian rafting from Hawaii to Tahiti, Arctic dog sledding, trekking Mt. Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary.

Samina Baig

The expedition to the summit took 48 days, the team traversed the South Col pass in eight hours, with the mountaineers reaching their goal on the sixtieth anniversary of Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing's first successful conquest of Everest.

Shackleton Energy Company

The human element of the project includes the development of an "industrial astronaut corps" that would select for individuals who have many of the characteristics of previous explorers—such as Ernest Shackleton, Edmund Hillary and Lewis and Clark—"bold vision, determination, independence, leadership, execution and capability necessary to undertake a non-terrestrial industrial venture. Those human qualities are very necessary" to what Shackleton intends to do.

Swami Sundaranand

Nicknamed "the Sadhu Who Clicks" because of his photography, he is a noted mountain climber having scaled over 25 Himalayan peaks, climbing twice with Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.

The Secret Order of the Gumm Street Girls

She thoroughly admires the well-known adventurers, Amelia Earhart and Sir Edmund Hillary and even has a calendar displaying Earhart’s famous quote, “Adventure is worthwhile in itself.”

Tibetan blue bear

A 1960 expedition to search for evidence of the yeti, led by Sir Edmund Hillary, returned with two scraps of fur that had been identified by locals as 'yeti fur' that were later scientifically identified as being portions of the pelt of a blue bear.


Jiri

All early Everest expeditions—including the one led by John Hunt that put Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary on the summit—passed through Jiri.

Kamet

1951: Mukut Parbat is climbed via the steep northwest ridge by a crack New Zealand team that includes Edmund Hillary, George Lowe, H. E. Riddiford (leader), F. M. Cotter and Pasang Dawa Lama.

The Camels

The band returned to the studio in September 2005 to record the follow-up single "On Top Of The World", a tribute to Edmund Hillary& Tenzing Norgay, the first two people to climb Mount Everest.

Tom Bourdillon

They came within three hundred feet of the summit, which was reached by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay three days later.

Waimea College

Students of Waimea College are split into four houses named after four famous New Zealanders; they are Rutherford (Green), named after Ernest Rutherford; Sheppard (Blue), named after Kate Sheppard; Hillary (Yellow), named after Edmund Hillary; and Cooper (Red), named after Whina Cooper.