KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand flag is flying at half-mast at Scott Base in Antarctica and there is a "very subdued" atmosphere on the base Sir Edmund Hillary started 51 years ago, Antarctica New Zealand chief executive Lou Sanson said yesterday.
Mr Sanson said it was a sad day for New Zealand and everyone at Scott Base was affected.
Sir Edmund went to Antarctica last year for the 50th anniversary of Scott Base.
At the time, Prime Minister Helen Clark invited him to go back to the ice this summer to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Sir Edmund's arrival at the South Pole.
But Mr Sanson said that about six months ago Sir Edmund had telephoned him to say he wouldn't make it.
"He said he just couldn't do it. He just didn't feel he had the energy to do it."
It was just "so sad" that his death had come barely days after the 50th anniversary of his reaching the South Pole.
Sir Edmund had famously beaten Sir Vivian "Bunny" Fuchs to the South Pole, after leading the support team, laying fuel and food for Fuchs' overland crossing of Antarctica.
Mr Sanson said he saw Sir Edmund shortly before Christmas "and I could see that he had certainly aged" since the trip last year.
Mr Sanson had shown Sir Edmund photographs of the lounge area at Scott Base where ice axes and primus stoves he had signed had been placed.
"What was neat about his visit at Scott Base was that every day he seemed to get younger and he just seemed to be energised by just being at Scott Base and the night in the A-frame (hut), and just totally loving the experience. "We're just going to sorely miss a guy who was just a pillar of New Zealand's national identify in Antarctica.
