Wellington - Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb the world's highest peak Mount Everest with Sherpa Tenzing in 1953, died in hospital in Auckland on Friday, aged 88. His death was announced by New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark who said he was the best-known New Zealander ever to have lived and his passing was a profound loss to the country.
Despite failing health in recent years, he remained an adventurer until 12 months ago when he made his last visit to Antarctica, scene of another of his triumphs, having made an overland 3,200-kilometre tractor trip to the South Pole in January 1958.
Hillary was known to all his fellow countrymen as Sir Ed, and Clark said he described himself as an average New Zealander with modest abilities.
"In reality, he was a colossus," she said. "He was an heroic figure who not only 'knocked off' Everest but lived a life of determination, humility, and generosity."
Clark said that after his ascent of Everest brought him worldwide fame "he set out to support development for the Sherpa people of the Himalayas. His lifetime's humanitarian work there is of huge significance and lasting benefit."
Hillary established the Himalayan Trust in the early 1960s and toured and lectured around the world to raise funds and build schools and hospitals for Sherpas in the mountains.
He told an interviewer in his final years, "When I sort of kick the bucket as it were, of all the things that I would really like to feel have some continuing activity would unquestionably be my Sherpa schools and so on."
