Hillary dreams of a return to mountains

By TIM WATKIN

Sir Edmund Hillary still dreams of returning one day to the Himalayas.

In recent years his visits to Nepal have been limited to Kathmandu because he suffers from altitude sickness. But Sir Edmund, who is 83, said he had not ruled out returning to the Solu-Khumbu villages and people he loves.

"I would love to go up the hills once more but that might have to be put off. I'm affected quite a lot these days by altitude, so I'm being cautious and staying here in Kathmandu.

"But I hope in years to come, despite my advanced years, that with a bit of oxygen and a good helicopter pilot, we will return to the Khumbu area and once again greet all our friends at Kumjung school and Khune hospital, and all the other projects in which we've had the good fortune to be able to assist."

The 50th anniversary celebrations wound up at a party in Kathmandu yesterday with nearly 400 Sherpas. Sir Edmund sat beneath a banner proclaiming him the Chomolungma Hero and listened as speaker after speaker feted him as the prize and prestige of our community.

He said: "I'm not a strongly religious man but I believe in the Buddhist philosophy that each man or woman must choose his or her own path in life.

"I have chosen mine. It was not only to take part in exciting challenges, but to work with my Sherpa friends to achieve the things that they wanted. And we've worked hard.

"But the rewards for us have been even greater. June and I have a multitude of friends we admire. What more could we ask than that?"

He also paid tribute to the men who had climbed Mt Everest with him.

"Tenzing and I climbed Everest together and the publicity was tremendous. But it wasn't just us who had achieved, it was the whole team - porters, Sherpas and our foreign team members."

A few hours earlier at a gathering of mountaineers, Sir Edmund was granted Nepalese citizenship for the valuable contribution he had made to Nepal, by Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand. Hundreds of mountaineers who had climbed Mt Everest after him rose to applaud.

During the week Sir Edmund led a procession of Everest summiters in a horse-drawn carriage and had a brief audience with King Gyanendra.

The Hillarys were due to leave Nepal yesterday in a private jet owned by investment banker Dick Blum, who raises money for Sir Edmund's Himalayan Trust. They are heading for London, New York, San Francisco and on to New Zealand.

In London, Sir Edmund had a function organised by the Royal Geographic Society. He was then travelling to New York and San Francisco, fundraising for the trust, before returning to New Zealand "where we hope to have a jolly good rest".