Mount Everest Conqueror Edmund Hillary Dies

Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest, has died at the age of 88.

The New Zealander reached the summit of the Himalayan mountain on May 29 1953 alongside the Tibetan-born Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.

The prime minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, hailed the the explorer as a "colossus".

"The legendary mountaineer, adventurer, and philanthropist is the best-known New Zealander ever to have lived," Clark said. "But most of all he was a quintessential Kiwi."

Hillary led the New Zealand section of the Trans-Antarctic expedition from 1955 to 1958. In 1958 he also participated in the first mechanized expedition to the South Pole.

The quiet beekeeper from Auckland devoted much of his life to aiding the mountain people of Nepal, where he helped build clinics, hospitals and 17 schools.

In an interview with the Guardian in 2003, Hillary said his charity work and not the Everest ascent gave him the most pride. "I find it all rather sad," he said.

"I like to think of Everest as a great mountaineering challenge, and when you've got people just streaming up the mountain - well, many of them are just climbing it to get their name in the paper really ... It's all bullshit on Everest these days."

British adventurer and environmentalist Pen Hadow said Hillary's death "closes one of the great chapters of planetary exploration".

"He was physically and metaphorically at the pinnacle of high adventure," said Hadow.

Because of Hillary's conquest of Everest "millions of people will know him and will and will be affected in some way by his passing".