The plain-speaking former New Zealand beekeeper became a household name after he and Nepalese guide Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Everest on May 29, 1953, standing atop a peak that had defied mountaineers for decades.
“Well, we knocked the bastard off,” he said on the way back down.
His parents, in an act of remarkable foresight, named him after Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton.
The Dude Abides
Welcome, CNN Election Central visitors! The left link at the bottom of the page is election related. The right link at the bottom of the page will take you to the newest Bond Girl.
Like that’s any contest.
Oh, I reversed the right and left. Purely unintentional, I assure you.
LOL! It’s lines like this that make Dan Collins, well, Dan Collins.
Magnificent bastard.
Wasn’t he kind of a butthead? I’ll check.
Oh. No – not exactly. What I was remembering is he came out with this sort of curmudgeonly ranting about…
It was like a week after someone died climbing that big mountain in Tibet or whatever. Which is only kind of buttheadedish in the sense that if a certain amount of people didn’t die climbing that big mountain in Tibet it would totally lose it’s cachet and he should have known that better than most given how he milked that shit, but all in all he was good people I think.
Hmm. Maybe I shouldn’t comment after the dinners where they make me drink the beverages with the alcohol in ’em, but it’s not like every day and it’s so phony for like hours that it’s kind of nice just to blather here in a voice I recognize even if it’s mostly stupid stuff. Thanks for that a lot really.
happyfeet,
I disagree. Your comment-fu has been unstoppable lately.
Thanks, Karl. I can go to be on that note. I am so gonna feel like crap tomorrow.
ramble on, happyfeet, ramble on. I didn’t drink any alcoholic beverages tonight since I’ve got a voice lesson tomorrow and we’re going to attempt to record some junk. ech. and RTO’s at Ft. Lewis for the weekend learning about lasers or something.
bed is what that was supposed to be. I are impaired.
One of the last great explorers.
Inspiring, but not so much as Mallory and Irving. That probably explains why I’m a Bills fan.
The Dude Abides?
Well that’s, like, your opinion, man.
From wikipedia:
“The two pitched a tent at 8,500 metres (27,900 ft) on 28 May while their support group returned down the mountain. On the following morning Hillary discovered that his boots had frozen solid outside the tent. He spent two hours warming them before he and Tenzing attempted the final ascent wearing 30-pound (10 kg) packs.[8] The crucial move of the last part of the ascent was the 40-foot (12 m) rock face later named the “Hillary Step”. Hillary saw a means to wedge his way up a crack in the face between the rock wall and the ice and Tenzing followed.[10] …”
My guess is the 30 lb pack was for his stones.
We need more men like that.
Celebrities will always make news, but wasn’t it much better when the celebrities actually accomplished something and weren’t just: 1) famous for being famous or 2) famous for being A-holes?
BTW I think Hillary was actually a pretty decent guy. After climbing Everest he spent a large part of his life trying to improve conditions for the Sherpas particularly in the area of education.
Hillary was a very decent guy who truly liked the Sherpas. He was always considerate of their welfare, where other famous mountaineers got them senselessly killed.
Hillary’s major bitch was guided climbs of Everest and other Himalayan giants. In short, he detested them. Personally, I don’t have a problem with them, so long as clients are reasonably competent and in excellent physical condition.
There is a fascinating book, “Climb”, by Anatoly Boukreev, that describes a guided trainwreck on Everest wherein many people died, others permanently maimed. Boukreev’s subsequent rescue efforts are amazing. A raging storm on Everest is best enjoyed in a book. I met a guy who climbed it and was missing most of his toes, said it just wasn’t worth it.