May 20, 2003: At Home With an Old Friend

As the 50th anniversary of his Everest climb approaches, Sir Edmund Hillary stands by a portrait of Tenzing Norgay, his Nepalese climbing partner on the 1953 expedition.

It wasn't until after Norgay died in 1986 that Hillary admitted that he had been the first of the duo to reach the summit.

Hillary spent much of his life working for the benefit of Nepal and its Sherpa people, who have played a part in nearly every Everest expedition. He funded and helped build hospitals, health clinics, airfields, and schools, as well as helping to set up reforestation programs in the impoverished country.

"We consider him as a second father," Zimba Zangbu Sherpa, the vice president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, told the AFP news service upon Hillary's death on January 11, 2008.

"His work changed the life of the whole Sherpa community. Without his work, especially the schools, the Sherpas would be nowhere."

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