Peter Hillary - Patron

Rescue on Everest Patron Peter Hillary is arguably New Zealand’s greatest adventurer. Peter has spent much of his adult life challenging and conquering frontiers at the very limit of human endurance.

Peter leaning on an ice axe - from peterhillary.com Peter Hillary was born in 1954 to a life of extraordinary adventure and challenge. Now in his early fifties, Peter Hillary’s biography includes a double summit of Mt Everest, an 84-day trek across Antarctica to the South Pole and an expedition guiding astronaut Neil Armstrong to the North Pole. He has climbed many of the world’s highest peaks, surviving where others have not – largely through skill, determination and his own sixth sense.

Peter Hillary age 7 - from peterhillary.com Peter Hillary began climbing at age 10 when, roped to his father Sir Edmund Hillary, he scaled Mount Fog in New Zealand's Southern Alps. He has subsequently taken leading roles in dozens of climbing expeditions to mountains in the Asia-Pacific region. He has traversed the Himalayan Range at high altitude and almost lost his life in a storm descending Pakistan's K2, the world’s second-highest mountain. In 1977, three years after his mother and sister were killed in a plane crash in Nepal, Peter Hillary accompanied his father on a jet-boat expedition up the famous Ganges River from the Bay of Bengal to its source in the Himalayas. The journey included scaling two previously unclimbed mountains.

Peter hillary taking a rest - from peterhillary.com In complete contrast, Peter Hillary also completed an 84-day trek that established a new overland route to the South Pole. But Peter's most significant achievements have been at Mt Everest. He has been on the mountain five times in all, once reaching 8,300 metres on the West Ridge and twice reaching the summit by the West Col route. Peter Hillary once described Mt Everest as an old friend.

"I have great respect for this mountain. I fear it, too. To me it remains one of the ultimates on Earth.”

Peter on Everest again - from peterhillary.com With his first summit of Mt Everest in 1990 he and Sir Edmund became the first father and son to achieve the feat. Peter Hillary’s second ascent in 1992 was part of a National Geographic Council expedition to mark the 50th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay's historic 1953 climb. The anniversary expedition brought Peter Hillary, Jamling Norgay and Brent Bishop together - the sons of Sir Edmund, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and Dr Barry Bishop, a member of the first successful American team to reach the summit in 1963. The 1990 expedition was led by veteran Everest climber Pete Athans who continues to hold the record for the most summits by a Western climber.

Since 1953 more than 2,250 climbers have made it to the summit of Everest, many helped significantly by professional guides and Sherpas. During Hillary’s last ascent an estimated 40 climbers had lined up at the summit ridge waiting for their few minutes at the top of the world. Peter Hillary, like his father Sir Edmund, has often voiced his concern at the way climbing has developed at Everest. There have been husband-and-wife ascents, climbs by siblings, climbs by the blind and disabled. There have also been snowboarders and skiers set off from the summit.

Commenting on recent developments at Mt Everest, Peter Hillary recently told a Canadian magazine that many summits of Mt Everest today lacked the challenge and integrity of previous expeditions.

“You simply cannot compare [Reinhold] Messner and [Erhard] Loretan to many of the recent guided climbers. (Messner was the first to climb Everest without supplemental oxygen and Loretan has climbed 14 of the world's peaks above 8,000m.) And yet they have all climbed to the summit. Except that, using a skyscraper as an analogy, Messner and Loretan climbed the outside skin of the building, following grooves in the concrete and glass; the guided climbers took the elevator."

Peter Hillary, Patron Like many successful adventurers, Peter Hillary has made a career as a professional public speaker, writer and designer of specialty outdoor equipment. He has also worked as an adventure travel operator and guide, specialising in the Himalayas and Antarctica. He once guided Qantas CEO James Strong on Mt Vinson in Antarctica and led entrepreneur Dick Smith up the Carstenz Pyramid in Irian Jaya. He holds a commercial pilot’s license for fixed wing aircraft. Peter Hillary now devotes most of his time to fundraising in support of his father’s Himalayan Trust; established in 1961 to fund capital projects in the Khumbu Valley region of Nepal.

The trust has financed and built dozens of village schools, a hospital and medical clinics and taken a lead in developing conservation programs to protect and nurture that natural Himalayan environment.

Peter has spoken to more than 300 high-profile organisations. He has appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman and with Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America via satellite live from Antarctica. He has been published in the New York Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, Melbourne’s The Age, and other high profile daily newspapers and magazines. He is the author of a number of bestselling books.

Notable Achievements from Peter Hillary’s Lifetime of Adventure

Over 38 mountaineering expeditions including Everest West Ridge, Makalu West Pillar, Mt Vinson, Aconcagua, Lhotse, Amadablam and Carstenz Pyramid.
Surviving the storm on K2: In 1995 Peter Hillary turned his back on a climb of the world’s second highest mountain, the notorious K2. He was just a few hundred metres from the summit. He survived, but the storm claimed the lives of seven others he’d been climbing with.
Landing small aircraft at the North Pole with Sir Edmund and astronaut Neil Armstrong.
The first ski descent of Mt Aspiring: the Matterhorn of the Southern Hemisphere.
The first high-altitude traverse of the Himalayan Range in 1981: a 3,000 mile/5,000 kms route from Mt Kanchenjunga in Sikkim through Nepal and India to K2 in Pakistan.
From the ‘Ocean to the Sky’: jetboating up the sacred Ganges river with his father in 1977, from the Sundarbunds in the Bay of Bengal to high in the Himalayas near Badrinath, where they made first ascents of Mount Nar Parbat and Mount Akash Parbat.
Shark frenzies in the Coral Sea: feeding and filming sharks with Ron and Valerie Taylor at the Osprey Reef 200km off the north Queensland coast.

Biographical Information
Peter Hillary was born in Auckland in 1954. He is married with four children.