- Title: NEPAL: SIR EDMUND HILARY HONOURED ON 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF EVEREST ASCENT.
- Date: 29th May 2003
- Summary: (W3) KATHMANDU, NEPAL (MAY 29, 2003)(REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. GV/TILT DOWN: YAK AND YETI HOTEL 0.08 2. CU/GV: SIR EDMUND HILLARY WAITING FOR CROWN PRINCE AND PRINCESS TO ARRIVE (4 SHOTS) 0.28 3. MV/GV: CROWN PRINCE PARAS AND CROWN PRINCESS PRERNA ARRIVE IN CAR, GREETED (2 SHOTS) 0.35 4. GV/CU/TILT: CHILDREN IN TRADITIONAL NEPALESE DRESS (2 SHOTS) 0.48 5. MV: PRINCE PARAS AND PRINCESS PRERNA WALK INTO HOTEL 0.52 6. GV: AUDIENCE 0.59 7. GV: PRINCE PARAS OPENS MOUNTAINEERING SYMPOSIUM BY FIXING AN AXE ON A MODEL OF MOUNT EVEREST 1.06 8. GV/CU: AUDIENCE APPLAUDING/ AXE (2 SHOTS) 1.15 9. G/MV/CU: PRINCE PARAS AND PRINCESS PRERNA, AUDIENCE IN FOREGROUND (5 SHOTS) 1.47 10. SV/CU: AUDIENCE 1.56 11. MCU: HILLARY AND HIS WIFE LADY JUNE 2.08 12. LV: AUDIENCE AND DAIS 2.12 13. MV.CU: PRINCE PARAS GIVES HILLARY AND OTHER MOUNTAINEERS MEDALS, AUDIENCE (5 SHOTS) 2.32 14. GV: HILLARY SEATED WITH WIFE 2.36 15. MCU: (SOUNDBITE) (English) EVEREST SUMMITEER PEMBA NORBU SAYING: "I'm very happy because we met many fellow mountaineers." 2.56 16. MV/PAN: APPA SHERPA, WHO HAS CLIMBED MOUNT EVEREST THIRTEEN TIMES, WALKING IN HALL 3.08 17. MCU;(SOUNDBITE) (English) APPA SHERPA, WHO HAS CLIMBED MOUNT EVEREST THIRTEEN TIMES, SAYING: "I am very glad, very happy to have come here for the fiftieth anniversary." 3.21 18. LAS/GV/GV/PAN: HOTEL; PRINCE AND PRINCESS LEAVING (3 SHOTS) 3.57 19. MCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Hindi) KATHMANDU RESIDENT RAM CHANDER SAYING: "This whole thing, this celebration is reminding me of the day fifty years ago when a Nepali sherpa - Tenzig - and Hillary climbed Mount Everest. It is a very proud moment for us." 4.11 20. VARIOUS: VIEWS OF KATHMANDU (5 SHOTS) 4.40 (W3) KATHMANDU, NEPAL (FILE) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) (MONOCHROME 21. GV/MV: VARIOUS OF PROCESSION AS HILLARY AND NORGAY ARRIVE IN KATHMANDU AFTER THEIR ASCENT; HILLARY AND NORGAY STANING TOGETHER (5 SHOTS) 5.04 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 13th June 2003 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: KATHMANDU, NEPAL
- Country: Nepal
- Reuters ID: LVA6PRFT26ATE2VX4Z5U05S307GL
- Story Text: Nepal has celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first
ascent of Everest with plans to make Sir Edmund Hillary, the
man who "knocked the bastard off", an honorary citizen.
Hillary, who reached the summit with Sherpa Tenzing
Norgay at 11.30 on the morning of May 29, 1953, was spending
the day in Nepal's low-lying capital Kathmandu on Thursday
(May 29), at the age of 83 no longer able to handle the lack
of oxygen in the mountains.
When the pair returned to camp after scaling the peak,
Hillary famously told the expedition leader "we knocked the
bastard off".
His son Peter, who has also scaled Everest, celebrated at
3,962 metres (13,000 feet) at the Tengboche Buddhist
monastery, where teams from almost every expedition are
blessed before they try for the summit at 8,850 metres (29,035
feet).
"My father would love to be up here," Peter Hillary told
Indian television. "Just before we left on this trip, he was
lamenting that now he can't come up to altitudes.
"He just misses being up on these wonderful areas, and
let's face it on the 29th of May we have this most gorgeous
day, all these friends all around -- what a way to celebrate
the 50th anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest."
Nepali officials said two American-led expeditions were
expected to try for the summit on Thursday, but high winds on
the mountain could force them to delay the attempt.
Events in Kathmandu were relatively muted after almost a
week of street parades and celebrations. Crown Prince Paras
presented Hillary with a medal in the morning.
Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand was to make Hillary
an honorary citizen before a royal dinner hosted by the
monarch of the world's only Hindu kingdom, King Gyanendra.
About 450 summiteers, many of them Nepali Sherpas
essential to Everest expeditions, are taking part in the
celebrations, which Nepal hopes will help revive a tourism
industry shattered by a bloody Maoist revolt.
More than 1,200 people have now climbed Everest.
But where Hillary and Tenzing cut their own way, most
climbers today pay guides up to $65,000 to lay ladders across
the gaping crevasses of the Khumbu icefall and rig ropes along
the heights just below the summit to help them reach the top.
Hillary and other pioneering climbers, such as Japan's
Junko Tabei who in 1975 became the first woman to reach the
summit, are scathingly critical of the commercialism that has
taken over the mountain.
"There's even a booze tent at base camp," Hillary told
Reuters this week.
"If I were 33 again, young, fit and a bit of a dynamo as I
think I was in those days, I simply wouldn't want to join the
queue that is scrambling to get up the mountainside."
Tabei, now 63 but still a passionate climber, told
Reuters:
"When we climbed, everything had to be done by our own
team," she said. "Nowadays, they just follow other people's
trails -- it's like a toll way."
But while it is easier than in Hillary's day, climbing the
world's highest mountain remains a dangerous challenge.
Over the years 175 people have died -- including nine in
one day in 1996 -- and many of their bodies remain frozen on
the mountain. On Wednesday, two people died when a helicopter
crashed as it came into base camp.
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