I was privileged to meet him about six or seven years ago. He was on a fund raising trip to the US for a hospital in Nepal. He gave a speech to a large gathering and then, for those of us making a sufficient donation, he attended a smaller party. My sister and I got him to autograph our copy of the above-posted National Geographic. My sister, although not a climber, is an Everest junkie and has been to Nepal and the foot of the mountain.
Some interesting insights offered to a few specific questions:
1) what technology helped his group that had been unavailable o previous climbers?---- he said "down jackets"...prior expeditons relied on heavy cloth which froze and impeded climbing.
2) why was he chosen to make the final assault? --- he said he was in the best physical condition and felt the strongest at that point in the climb; also, New Zealanders are the best ice climbers and Everest is largely an ice climb, particularly the final assault with the dreaded ice wall, or Hillary step.
3) his words "we knocked the bastard off" were published worldwide... he said his mother called him on his triumphant return, not to offer praise but to yell at him for cursing
4) he offered one bit of criticism: there can be only one 'first' to do anything. Not the 'first woman' or the 'first Asian', just the first person. period. Anything else engenders racism. Why, he asked, would someone tout being the 'first woman' in space. It's like saying 'the first blond in space' or the 'first guy named Fred' to climb Everest. It implies that being blond or named Fred makes you somehow different... intersting perspective.
5) he said he knew the world had changed when he was watching TV one night and his son called him --- from the peak of Everest using a satellite phone. He said it was creepy to hear his son's clear voice describing the things they left on the summit decades earlier
RIP --- you have to admire a guy who gets his face on his nation's currency in his lifetime!!
