A true giant among men, Edmund Hilary, the first man to successfully climb Mount Everest died at his home in New Zealand yesterday. At 11:30 on the morning of May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit, 29,028 feet above sea level, the highest spot on earth. After his ascent in May of 1953, Hilary devoted the rest of his life to helping the Sherpa people of Nepal through the Himalayan trust, which he founded and to which he had given much of his time and energy. Through his efforts he had succeeded in building many schools and hospitals in a fairly remote region of the Himalayas. He was the Honorary President of the American Himalayan Foundation, a United States non-profit body that helps improve the ecology and living conditions in the Himalayas.
5 comments:
Sherpa's in the City, sounds like an HBO special. Who knew the biggest Sherpa population outside Himalayas was Queens NY?
http://intelligenttravel.typepad.com/
it/2007/12/sherpa-in-the-c.html
Yes, I remember hiring a Sherpa to help me trek into East New York to buy a VW distributor once. I needed him specifically to navigate a series of ladders around the interboro parkway.
Spazz, we could have used the skills of a Sherpa on our trip to New Haven Ct. that snowy night, do you still have those tapes?? How do they sound?
Mr. Jam, I have not listened to New Haven in a while - however I will dig them out and run through them when I get back from my trip. I am watching a cd recorder on ebay, as I just inherited 800 maxells of various live stuff - Kevin retired to the Phillipines - I will compile a list when I have about 5 hours to kill. Remember the snowball fight in that parking garage?!
By the way, Patriot, I like this tribute to Hilary. I noticed that Philip Agee died over the weekend as well, though he didn't get quite the glowing obit - maybe I will throw something up for the old spook.
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