23 Facts About Peter Hillary

Peter Edmund Hillary was born on 26 December 1954 and is a New Zealand mountaineer and philanthropist.

Peter Hillary is the son of Sir Edmund Hillary, who, along with mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, completed the first successful ascent of Mount Everest.

Peter Hillary has climbed many of the world's major peaks, and on 19 June 2008, completed the Seven Summits, reaching the top of the highest mountains on all seven continents, when he summited Denali in Alaska.

Peter Edmund Hillary was born in Auckland, New Zealand, on 26 December 1954.

Peter Hillary had two younger sisters, Sarah Louise and Belinda Mary, and was the eldest of the three children of Sir Edmund Hillary and his first wife, Louise Mary Rose.

Peter Hillary received his education at King's College, Auckland and at Auckland University.

Peter Hillary described Lady Hillary and Belinda as 'the glue that bonded the family together'.

Peter Hillary's climbing friend, Australian Mark Moorhead, died on 15 October 1983 attempting to ascend Makalu, a Himalayan mountain that is the fifth-highest in the world.

When Peter Hillary went to pay his respects to the family, he met Moorhead's sister Ann, whom he would later marry.

Peter Hillary later married Yvonne Oomen, with whom he has two children, Alexander and Lily; he has two children, Amelia and George, from his first marriage.

On 11 January 2008, Peter Hillary was in Lisbon, Portugal, at a dinner with some clients when he was informed his father had died of a sudden heart attack at Auckland Hospital.

Peter Hillary delivered a eulogy for his father in which he said, recalling his childhood, 'Growing up in the Peter Hillary family, was quite an adventure.

Apa Sherpa, who at the time had summited Everest more than anyone else, proposed a small portion of Sir Edmund's ashes should be held in reserve to be scattered on the summit of Mount Everest, and Peter Hillary transferred them to a nearby Nepalese monastery.

Peter Hillary said he and his sister owned the watches as per their father's will.

Peter Hillary then spent a year in mediation attempting to establish ownership of the watches and other items that were of great significance to the family, as Lady Peter Hillary had given away an additional 17 items of sentimental value without consulting the family.

Finally, in October 2011, Lady Peter Hillary resigned as the head of the Himalayan Trust, with five additional board members going with her.

Peter Hillary has been to Everest five times, once reaching 8,300 metres on the West Ridge and twice reaching the summit by the South Col route.

Peter Hillary now devotes most of his time to fundraising in support of his father's Himalayan Trust, which was established in 1960 to fund capital projects in the Khumbu Valley region of Nepal.

Peter Hillary is a director of the Australian Himalayan Foundation.

Peter Hillary is the patron for the Everest Rescue Trust, a non-profit, independent trust set up to operate and manage a self-funding rescue helicopter service for the high altitude regions of Nepal.

Since 2017, Peter Hillary has been the Patron of the Kea Conservation Trust, a Charitable Trust set up in 2006 to support conservation and research into New Zealand's Alpine parrot, the Kea.

Peter Hillary wrote the afterword for the book Letters from Everest: A First-hand Account from the Epic First Ascent by George Lowe, who was Sir Edmund Peter Hillary's best friend and accompanied him on the 1953 Everest expedition.

Peter Hillary wrote an article called "In the Name of the Father", describing what it was like on K2 in August 1995 when the mountain claimed the lives of seven summiters, leaving him as one of three survivors of that expedition.