Edmund Percival Hillary:
(Auckland, 20 July 1919 – there, 11 January 2008).
New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, diplomat and publicist. He enjoyed fame as part of the duo that became the first mountaineers to climb the summit of Mount Everest, a feat he accomplished with Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay on 29 May 1953. According to a memo from Edmund Hillary in the Royal Geographical Society archives, they were the first to reach the summit, although Norgay and Hillary had later agreed not to disclose this.
I did have my moments of despair. It was certainly not. It’s not an experience I would like to have again. And then, June came along.
