The death of Sir Edmund Hillary is big news around the world -- and rightly so. The conqueror of Everest (along with his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay) was a huge event at the time and it remains so, even in an age when climbing the mountain has become a feat successfully completed by any number of unlikely adventurers.
As I understand it, some of the people who have climbed Everest in recent years have never previously climbed anything higher than the social ladder. Real climbers must think it is rich that some of the people on Everest claim to be climbers -- and they would be right. If you are rich, you can climb Everest.
But the ascent was perilous then and remains so today. Every season the mountain exacts a deadly revenge for the affront on its dignity. So many have died and been left where they fell that Everest may be not only the highest peak in the world but also its highest mausoleum.
When Hillary climbed Everest, it seemed unconquerable, but the self-effacing beekeeper from New Zealand and his guide managed it anyway. (Hillary's day job was always an endearing feature of the story; it's hard to hate a person who charms bees).
The timing for the climb was perfect. Britain was exhausted from the war; it was a grim period of rationing and strikes. The empire was dissolving and victory now tasted like ashes in the mouth. Suddenly, a new queen was on the throne. The news broke on the day of her coronation, leading to a famous headline in the Daily Express: "All this and Everest too."
To despondent Britons, the conquering of Everest was hailed as a great patriotic feat, a triumph of British pluck and reminder of former glories -- and never mind that Hillary was from New Zealand. In those days, New Zealanders, Australians, South Africans (as long as they were Anglos) were considered presumptively British and, indeed, often considered themselves so. Of course, this left poor Sherpa Tenzing a bit out of luck in the shared acclaim department, although Hillary always gave him his due.
I am not a mountaineer -- I get vertigo standing on a chair -- but I thrill to the exploits of mountaineers. In the famous saying, mountaineers climb mountains "because they are there." I like reading about their exploits "because they are there."
To me, mountaineering holds the same appeal as watching a construction site. My happy reaction to it is: Thank goodness somebody else is doing it.
I am personally connected to the Hillary story by thin ropes. I was a small boy in England at the time of the coronation and the Everest climb. I remember watching the coronation on TV and I apparently ingested the story of Everest at some psychic level (perhaps my Dad hit me over the butt with the Daily Express that day). This lifelong interest led me to hear Sir Edmund lecture in Pittsburgh some years ago. I was not disappointed.
RIP, Sir Edmund. Or as they say Down Under, good onya!
First Published: January 11, 2008, 11:15 p.m.
