RIP, Sir Edmund

It's always a sad day when the world loses a truly great man, even if that man lived to 88 and had as full and rewarding a life as you can imagine. On my trips to Nepal, I've seen some of the schools and hospitals Hillary helped build. It's not every mountaineer who can say they were the first up the tallest mountain in the world and then spent a good portion of the rest of their life making life better for the people living in its shadow. I never had the chance to meet him, but I wish I had.

I was reading his obituary, and kept remembering something he'd said in a foreword he'd written for a book a while back. It took some searching, but I found it:

While standing on top of Everest, I looked across the valley, towards the other great peak, Makalu, and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed… it showed me that, even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn’t the end of everything for me, by any means. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges. - Sir Edmund Hillary

I think I'm going to head down to Harry's for a bit and have a drink or two.