Everest conqueror Hillary dies.

[Cambridge Clarrie]

A sad day, particularly for those with a thirst for adventure...

From all accounts led an amazing life.

Are there still great feats to be undertaken by adventurers these days? Is there anything that hasn't been done yet?

[TroyGFC]

Very sad indeed RIP Sir Edmund! 88 years old????

[JAS]

Agree a very sad day.

Whilst I don't share the thirst for adventure I have huge admiration for those, like him and my own hero Shackleton, that do.

These are the kind of people who should be role models for the kids regardless of which generation they are from. It might even encourage a few to create their own adventures. Highest, longest, quickest etc might have been done but people will always find a way to create a challenge, CC.

R.I.P. Sir Ed

Regards
JAS

[Snaggletooth Tiger]

He was a Kiwi too!

[Squawk]

A sad day, particularly for those with a thirst for adventure...

From all accounts led an amazing life.

Are there still great feats to be undertaken by adventurers these days? Is there anything that hasn't been done yet?

Yeah - descending undersea mountains to the sea floor.

One of my prized possessions is a signed photo of his atop Everest. He is someone I have always thought of as being in the same league and of the same standing as Bradman.

[rod_rooster]

A sad day, particularly for those with a thirst for adventure...

From all accounts led an amazing life.

Are there still great feats to be undertaken by adventurers these days? Is there anything that hasn't been done yet?

Yeah - descending undersea mountains to the sea floor.

One of my prized possessions is a signed photo of his atop Everest. He is someone I have always thought of as being in the same league and of the same standing as Bradman.

He was the first but was he indisputably the best?

World sport context

Wisden hailed Bradman as, "the greatest phenomenon in the history of cricket, indeed in the history of all ball games".[1] Statistician Charles Davis argues that Bradman's performance is the most dominant of any player of any major sport. He analyses the statistics for several prominent sportsmen by comparing the number of standard deviations above the mean for their sport. The top performers in his selected sports are:

bradman.jpg (25.02 KiB) Viewed 323 times

[Squawk]

Good call Rod but I was thinking more in terms of Hillary's feat.
An average of 99.94 is some feat.
So was climbing Everest for the first time.
Bradman firstly galvanised a nation, then became an icon to the cricketing world.
Hillary snared a mother of a mountain and became an icon to the world.

These types of considerations - hard to express but nonetheless, sometimes comparisons cant be made like-for-like.

Loved the table tho - where'd you source that? Would love to see the probability for Steven Bradbury winning Gold!

[Hondo]

I have his autobiography as well as many books on Mt Everest. His achievement in 1953 was simply amazing. A last 20m vertical wall just before the summit was renamed 'The Hilary Step' after he and Tenzing blazed the trail by wedging themselves between the rock and a sheet of ice and inching upwards never being 100% sure if the ice would simply break away. These days its fixed with ropes and people most pull themselves up it.

Sir Edmund Hilary also devoted huge amounts of time and money to building schools and hospitals in remote areas of Nepal.

RIP

[johntheclaret]

Good call Rod but I was thinking more in terms of Hillary's feat.

He had great feet. That's what got him up there in the 1st place

[Squawk]

Good call Rod but I was thinking more in terms of Hillary's feat.

He had great feet. That's what got him up there in the 1st place

Yeah yeah. No typo there tho! F E A T !

As far as I know he came back with ten toes - unlike many who have tried!

[MagicKiwi]

Taoki i tatau pounamu Ta Hillary.

[johntheclaret]

Taoki i tatau pounamu Ta Hillary.

Translates into "bloody hell, this hill is a long way up Eddy me old mucker"