Two Generations 0340354208

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Ed Hillary and his son Peter span three decades of high-altitude climbing and three decades of aid development in Nepal. From 1953 to 1984 the changes have been immense. On the climbing scene the 8,000-metre peaks have been climbed by harder and harder routes, and the siege tactics of the big battalions have given way to small oxygenless alpine-style ascents, as confidence and equipment have improved beyond all bounds. While Nepal itself, the once secret country, from which Ed Hillary climbed to fame on Everest in 1953, has opened its doors to tourism and embraced the trekking boom. In two halves of this book the Hillarys tell their sometimes separate, sometimes interwoven stories, sharing with the reader their desolation at the deaths of Ed’s wife Louise and daughter Belinda, and their efforts to rebuild a family rel¬ ationship without its linchpins; their abiding pleasure in discovering the world’s most beauti¬ ful wildernesses, whether in the snow-capped ranges of New Zealand’s own South Island, or camping with old Sherpa friends in a steep rhodo¬ dendron-clad valley of Nepal on a remote bridge building mission; a rueful coming to terms, in Ed’s case, with the limitations of growing old, on the American 1981 Everest East Face expedition; and in Peter’s case the exhilaration of climbing at extreme difficulty on Lhotse in 1982, an attempt which was only beaten back by atrocious weather 700 feet from the summit. Two Generations is a frank and engaging book, written with good humour and total honesty by a father and son who do not always see eye to eye, but share a zest for adventure which they communicate unstintingly.

£10.95 net in UK

B.P WELLAND P.L. 796.5220922 Hilla c. Hillary, Edmund, Sir. Two ganerations

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Hillary, Edmund, Sir. Two generations / Edmund and Peter Hillary London ; Toronto : Hodder and Stoughton, cl984. 223 p. : ill., maps. 02255073

ISBN: 0340354208 :

1. Mountaineers - New Zealand - Biography. 2. Hillary, Peter. 3. Hillary, Edmund, Sir I. Hillary, Peter. II. Title.

838 LSCD

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Two Generations

Also by EDMUND HILLARY HIGH ADVENTURE NO LATITUDE FOR ERROR SCHOOLHOUSE IN THE CLOUDS NOTHING VENTURE, NOTHING WIN FROM THE OCEAN TO THE SKY

With Qeorge Lowe EAST OF EVEREST

With Sir Vivian Fuchs THE CROSSING OF ANTARCTICA

With Desmond Doig HIGH IN THE THIN COLD AIR

Also by PETER HILLARY A SUNNY DAY IN THE HIMALAYAS

With Graeme Dingle FIRST ACROSS THE ROOF OF THE WORLD

TWO GENERATIONS Edmund and Peter Hillary

HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON AUCKLAND SYDNEY TORONTO

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Hillary, Edmund Two generations. 1. Hillary, Edmund 2. Hillary, Peter 3. Mountaineers—New Zealand—Biography 1. Title 11. Hillary, Peter 796.5'22'0922 GV199.92.H54 ISBN 0-340-35420-8 Copyright 1984 by Edmund Hillary and Peter Hillary. First printed 1984. Second impression November 1984. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in Great Britain for Hodder and Stoughton Limited, Mill Road, Dunton Green, Sevenoaks, Kent by St Edmundsbury Press, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Typeset by Hewer Text Composition Services, Edinburgh. Hodder and Stoughton Editorial Office: 47 Bedford Square, London

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To Jim and Phyl

Contents

13

Introduction

One-Edmund Hillary

1

Youth

19

2

Maturity

29

3

Sorrow

42

4

Ocean to Sky

53

5

Some same, some changing

73

6

Tibet

88

7

Looking, looking!

112

Two-Peter Hillary

8

The family

127

9

Skiing, flying, climbing

142

10

To the Himalayas

155

11

Lhotse

166

12

Through the Icefall

181

13

Into the Western Cwm

194

14

Eight kilometres high

200

Index

217

Maps page

Nepal

14-15

The Crossing of Antarctica

34

From the Ocean to the Sky

56

Tibet

98

Illustrations facing page Everest and Lhotse rise above the monsoon cloud 32 The sun over Scott Base, Antarctica 32 Belinda on the West Coast near Auckland 33 Mingma Tsering, Ed and Angtemba, 1963 48 Louise, Mingma and Ed receive scarves of welcome 48 Building Bakanje school, 1970 49 Ed and Louise at the King of Nepal’s coronation 49 Building a retaining wall for Thami monastery 64 Belinda, Peter and Sarah in the Kathmandu bazaar 65 Sherpa votive offerings for Louise and Belinda 80 Their ashes were scattered on the Tasman Sea 80 Looking north towards the Tibetan border 81 The work party arrives to start on Khunde hospital 96 Mount Aspiring from the air 97 The first ski descent of Mount Aspiring, 1977 97 Ed passes brother Rex roof aluminium 112 Ama Dablam, a menacing profile 113 Advance Base Camp at 17,500 feet on Ama Dablam 113 The formidable unclimbed East Face of Everest 128 The great buttress on the East Face of Everest 129 Difficult technical climbing on the great buttress 144 Avalanche on the East Face of Everest 145 A hilltop village near Pokhara 160 Butchers’ stalls in a hill village 161 All dressed-up for a Hindu festival 176 Yaks carrying loads over the Dudh Kosi 177 Aid and Paul negotiating the Everest Icefall 192 Advance Base Camp on Lhotse at 21,500 feet 193 The final camp at 25,700 feet 193 Fred returns from the Geneva Spur 208 Fred and Aid climb the gully that leads through the summit bluffs 209

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