Chatting with Sir Ed
The Mountain Zone: Are you pleased that your son Peter has followed in your footsteps?
Sir Edmund Hillary: Oh, I never tried to persuade him. When he was young...I think
children ought to be encouraged to be interested in the out-of-doors but
I never really tried to persuade him to be interested in the technical
side of mountaineering. That was really something he decided to do for
himself and I think he has done it very well. I wish him well obviously.
Since those very early days we have never climbed together anyway. He's
gone toward very technical mountaineering and the technique and
equipment are very different now.
Hear Sir Edmond Hillary talk about his influence on his son:
The Mountain Zone: With the growing popularity of Nepal's mountains can the region
realistically be saved from over use and be preserved in a wild state?
Sir Edmund Hillary: Tourism trips have far more people today than mountaineering. On
the big mountains, to tell you the truth, I think the Nepalese
government has to be a bit more restrictive about permission for groups.
I mean we had an enormous advantage when we were climbing in those early
days because we were the only people there. You never saw another party
or another climber. You had to pioneer your own routes and be able to
take care of yourself. Now days on mountains like Everest they have
thousands of feet of fixed ropes in all the difficult places. They have
sixty aluminum ladders on the ice fall. I mean the whole mountain is
sort of tied down almost. Made tamer by all this sort of equipment. I
feel lucky to have been up there climbing when it was a different sort
of mountaineering. Now there are still a lot of very good expeditions
going up the extremely difficult routes of the mountain and they are
much to be admired but I don't particularly like the commercialized
side of mountaineering.
Hear Sir Edmond Hillary on the difference between climbing Everest now and then:
The Mountain Zone: What do you think of polypropylene? Do you still wear wool or do you
wear polypropylene?
Sir Edmund Hillary: Both. I think there is a place for both of them. Certainly some of
the modern equipment is very effective but there is still a place for
some good woolen clothing as well. But, clothing has become a lot more
efficient than it ever was in my day.
The Mountain Zone: Are you familiar with the World Wide Web? The Internet?
Sir Edmund Hillary: Oh no. I know very little about it but I read about it all the
time. But I really know nothing about it except that everybody seems to
go all gaga about it these days.
The Mountain Zone: What are your favorite foods for high altitude?
Sir Edmund Hillary: Well the food we had for high altitude was very simple really. One
of the problems at altitude is that you often get nauseated as far as
food is concerned. I would say that we got the majority of our energy
from hot drinks with lots of sugar in them. We used to particularly have
weak tea with a lot of sugar in it, not what you would regard as a
healthy diet down here, but for the relatively short time you were at
high altitude, that sugar gave quite a lot of energy. I think now days
there is quite a variety of food... much better freeze dried food than
there was in my day so people can eat better than we did. However, we
got there in spite of it.
KIRO: Sir Edmund, I know from reading of you that this is a cause that
is very close to you, the people of the Himalaya. What touched you most
on your early trips over there and caused this wonderful outpouring of
your thoughts and efforts?
Sir Edmund Hillary: Well, I have built up a very close relationship with the Himalayan
people. I have always admired their strength and enthusiasm and their
sense of humor. I have never really felt sorry for them even though
their way of life is a pretty harsh one. But, I decided many years ago
to give them help in establishing schools and medical facilities and
I've been doing it now for 35 years, or so, and it has been very worth
while I find.
Hear Sir Edmond Hillary talk about his impression of the Himalayan people:
KIRO: What do see as your influence of the schools and also the impact
of tourism, the trekking industry and the climbing industry that is
really pretty big business there... How does that impact the traditional
Sherpa life?
Sir Edmund Hillary: Well I think that the tourism is a very big economic benefit to the
Sherpa people and also they have very strong ties to their own social
attitudes and their own religion, so fortunately, they're not too
influenced by many of our Western attitudes. They are affected a little
I guess. I can remember when I first went into the Himalayan area way
back in 1951 money for instance was not important at all to the local
people. But now, finance has become just as important to them as it is
to us, and this is a change maybe not for the better.
But they have very strong culture and very strong village spirit. They
work together on projects and so on and much of this I think is very
admirable.
Hear Sir Edmond Hillary consider the role of tourism in the Himalaya:
Hear Sir Edmond Hillary's thoughts on the commercialization of the Himalayan area:
Hear Sir Edmond Hillary talk about what he's up to these days:
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Schmoozing with the Greats
The American Himalayan Foundation held a fund raising event at the
Sheraton Hotel in Seattle on Saturday night, November 9, 1996. The sold out
benefit raised over $150,000.00 and featured legends of Himalayan
mountaineering.
Who's Who
Sir Edmund Hillary -- he and Tenzing Norgay were the first people to reach the summit of Everest (May 29, 1953)
Maurice Herzog -- became the first person to climb above 8,000 meters when he reached the summit of Annapurna in 1950
Lou Whittaker -- has 234 ascents of Mt. Rainier
Jim Whittaker -- member of the first American Everest expedition (Everest, 1963)
Tom Hornbein -- made the first alpine-style traverse of Everest's West Ridge with Willie Unsoeld in 1963
Lou Reichardt (Everest,
1983)
Ed Viesturs (Everest, 1990, 1991, 1994, 1996)
Brent Bishop (Everest, 1994)
Jamling Norgay -- fist person to put a Tibetan Flag on the summit of Everest, 1996
Sir Edmund Hillary showed an incredible slide show while giving a
characteristically modest account on his first ascent of Mount Everest on May
29,1953. We sat transfixed as he told of confronting the infamous rock
wall on the West ridge after having just been told that it was
insurmountable by a previous party. He told us how he'd jammed himself into the
crack where the snow and ice was melting away from the rock and wriggled up the face. Not until he'd actually squirmed out of that crack did he actually believe that he and Tenzing
Norgay would reach the summit. It's hard to imagine Sir Edmund Hillary
wriggling and squirming, but then, he'd be the first to admit: they weren't as technical back in
those days.
Maurice Herzog, the first person to climb an 8,000 meter peak, told us that his heart was in
Nepal and that the country was his second motherland. He lamented the
deforestation of the country and suggested that if done well, the
construction of dams to generate hydroelectric energy would greatly benefit the area. If
located far up the valleys where the only thing they disturb is rock, the dams would be environmentally unobtrusive.
It would be unacceptable though to put them in the valley
floors where they might displace people and destroy vegetation.
There was a solid measure of good-natured teasing about who climbed what
before who and some belated yet sincere congratulations about past
conquests. Jim Whittaker chided Ed Viesturs about his refusal to use
bottled oxygen and having to cut him from the US-Chino-Soviet Climb for
Peace team because he wanted the best chance of summiting. (Ed later climbed Everest alone and without oxygen.)
Tom Hornbein, whose alpine-style traverse of Everest's West Ridge with Willie Unsoeld in 1963 stunned the climbing world, was the next one to take the stage. He congratulated Viesturs but mentioned that he'd probably lost a few brain cells as a result of the achievement - "brain
cells that he obviously could ill-afford to loose!"
In recounting his experiences on Everest, Viesturs insisted that reaching the summit was always optional. Getting down safely was mandatory.
Brent Bishop followed with another spectacular slide show and a talk on his successful expeditions to begin cleaning up the climbing debris on Everest. (Bishop has organized programs to pay climbers for the empty oxygen bottles that they brought down off the mountain.) He noted that many of the commercial enterprises, that generally took much of the heat from environmentalists, had actually done the most to provide funding and man power for the clean-up efforts. The Sherpas too, have done
a great deal to remove trash from the mountain and had to be limited as
to the number of bottles that could be brought down per load so as not
to endanger themselves.
Bishop also urged those trekking in Nepal to not tolerate the use of wood as a fuel for the preparation of food. Because of the country's severe deforestation crises, the only acceptable fuels are gas and kerosene.
-- Gaylord Kellogg, Mountain Zone Staff
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