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At 5.30am yesterday morning, Elizabeth Hawley was woken by a call in her home in central Kathmandu. It was Sir Edmund's wife, Lady June, to say her husband had died.
An hour later the first Sherpa arrived at her home, which also serves as an office of the Himalayan Trust founded by Sir Edmund in 1960 to improve the lives of the Sherpa people.
"He came and he was crying and he's a grown man," said Ms Hawley, 84. "He didn't say anything, he was too upset."
Ms Hawley, a close friend of the adventurer, said he would want to be remembered for the trust's work rather than the Everest ascent.
"He did it from his heart and not just as a do-gooder, because he had a deep affection for these people and they for him," she said.
Staff at Scott Base lowered the national flag to half-mast when they heard the news.
Antarctica New Zealand's senior representative at Scott Base, Dean Petersen, said the mood at the base, which Sir Edmund visited last year to mark the 50th anniversary of its founding, was sombre.
"His memories are all over the base," Mr Petersen said. "On the wall of the cafeteria there is a climbing axe we had framed and presented to him last time he was here. He signed it and gave it straight back.
"He was a gentleman who had a huge amount of tenacity and, of course, willpower. This was in someone incredibly gentle and caring - an extremely rare combination of qualities," Mr Petersen said.
Tim Macartney-Snape, who with Greg Mortimer made the first Australian ascent of Everest in 1984, said Sir Edmund's achievement should be seen in the context of its time.
"They trod ground that hadn't been trodden before. The psychological difficulty of going somewhere no one had been before was incredibly great."
