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Sir Edmund Hillary: 1919 - 2008
- Posted on: January 11, 2008
- In: Personal
- Comments closed
Sir Edmund Hillary, one of two men to first scale Mount Everest and live to tell the tale, has died age 88. Not only was he a mountaineer of legendary repute, but he was a tireless humanitarian devoting much of his time to setting up schools and hospitals in Nepalese Himalayan region.
My initial interest in armchair mountaineering was awakened by watching a documentary of Hillary and Tenzing’s first ascent. Since then, I’ve consumed countless books and films on the subject—more recently, I’ve finally finished reading The White Spider, a book documenting the first ascent of the north face of the Eiger, by Heinrich Harrer. It’s probably an interest I’ll have for the rest of my life, and it’s down to that first documentary I saw of two guys, with primitive equipment, hauling themselves up the tallest mountain in the world. Inspirational stuff.
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I'm a graphic designer from near Cardiff in the UK. I've been a designer for over ten years now and primarily work on the web. I'm still partial to a bit of print every now and then though. I used to work for Agency.com in London as an Art Director before working as a Senior Designer for the BBC in sunny Cardiff. This was all before I took leave of my senses and formed my own design consultancy, Mark Boulton Design Ltd.
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Comments
I agree, Mark, very inspirational stuff. If you have time, the Discovery Channel has wonderful documentary series (named simply ‘Everest’) which is available in breath-taking HD format complete with helmet-mounted ‘Sherpa cams’.
Jody
Fri 11th Jan 2008
at 5:11 pm
Hiya,
Yeah, Everest, looks stunning in HD, as does blue planet....
A shame he has gone on, though he had a good term…
RIP,
^licks^
Jamie & Lion
Jamie Knight
Sat 12th Jan 2008
at 10:56 am
If you haven’t seen it already, you should definitely watch <a href="<a href="” target="_blank">The Man Who Skied Down Everest</a>, a documentary about Yuichiro Miura’s 1970 attempt to ski down the Lhotse face. It’s shot in panavision, which is pretty incredible, even by today’s standards. Looks great in hi-def.
Mike D.
Sat 12th Jan 2008
at 6:28 pm
I have always been impressed by Hillary’s deed. Nowadays anyone with enough money and reasonably fit can get to the top of Everest, but in Hillary’s times, with only primitive equipment available climbing the Everest was a remarkable achievement. He will be sorely missed…
Adrien McNamarra
Sun 13th Jan 2008
at 4:10 pm
I’m pretty sure that some big station like discovery or national will make a documentabout great people like Sir Edmund or Kukuczka who have been on Everest or all 8 great 8k’s ,soon
Gear
Mon 14th Jan 2008
at 9:20 pm
If you enjoyed the White Spider, then I would thoroughly recommend Reading the books by Joe Simpson - Especially Touching the Void and The Beckoning Silence. The latter being his dissertation on climbing the Eiger and how his own experiences echoed those of Toni Kurz. The film adaptations of these are also essential viewing.
Matt Shaw
Tue 15th Jan 2008
at 10:48 am
He’ll be always remembered. Do you know who was the first woman to be on the hightest mountain?
Szybka Dieta
Thu 17th Jan 2008
at 9:20 pm
Gotta look up to people like that :)
VJ
Fri 18th Jan 2008
at 4:03 pm
Bit of a latecomer to this post, and I’ve been trying to track-down the web site since I heard, but I wondered if you’ve ever seen this poster.
RIP
Kurt Trew
Sat 26th Jan 2008
at 10:17 pm
I would also recommend the writings of Joe Simpson, but my favourite is ‘This Game of Ghosts’. Greg Child’s stuff is worth a read as well.
Jason Landry
Mon 28th Jan 2008
at 7:50 pm
Joe Simpson is much better! My favorite writer!
John Selina
Tue 29th Jan 2008
at 4:52 pm