Peter Hillary (born 26 December 1954) is the son of the late adventurer Sir Edmund Hillary, who, along with Tenzing Norgay, completed the first successful ascent of Mount Everest.[1] When Peter Hillary summited Everest in 1990, he and his father were the first father/son duo to achieve the feat. Hillary has achieved two summits of Everest, an 84-day trek across Antarctica to the South Pole, and an expedition guiding astronaut Neil Armstrong to land a small aircraft at the North Pole. He has climbed many of the world’s major peaks, and on June 19, 2008, fulfilled his ambition of climbing the highest mountains on all seven continents when he summited Mount McKinley in Alaska.[2]
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Peter Hillary was born in Auckland, New Zealand to Sir Edmund Hillary and Louise, Lady Hillary, into a life of extraordinary adventure and challenge. He began climbing at age 11 when, roped to his father, he scaled Mount Fog in New Zealand's Southern Alps. He has taken leading roles in dozens of expeditions to mountains in the Asia-Pacific region, 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, two years after his mother and sister were killed in a plane crash in Nepal, Hillary accompanied his father on a jet-boat expedition up the River Ganges from the Sundarbans delta in the Bay of Bengal to its source in the Himalayas near Bandrinath. The journey included scaling two previously unclimbed mountains, Mount Nar Parbat and Mount Akash Parbat.
Mountaineering aside, Peter Hillary also completed an 84-day trek, together with Jon Muir and Eric Philips that established a new overland route to the South Pole.
In 1995, Hillary attempted a climb of K2, the world's second highest mountain, but was caught in a storm when he was just a few hundred metres from the summit. He survived, but the storm claimed the lives of seven others he had been climbing with.[1]
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. With his first summit of Mount Everest in 1990, he and Sir Edmund became the first father and son to achieve the feat. His second ascent in May 2002[3] was part of a National Geographic Society expedition to mark the 50th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay's historic first ascent in 1953. The anniversary expedition brought together Peter Hillary, Jamling Norgay and Brent Bishop - 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 holds the record for the most summits of Everest by a Western climber.
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 James Strong, then Qantas CEO, on Mount Vinson in Antarctica and led entrepreneur Dick Smith up the Carstenz Pyramid in Irian Jaya. He holds a commercial pilot’s licence for fixed wing aircraft.
Peter Hillary now devotes most of his time to fundraising in support of his father’s Himalayan Trust, which was established in 1961 to fund capital projects in the Khumbu Valley region of Nepal. He is also a director of the Australian Himalayan Foundation.
Hillary is also 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.
Peter has spoken to more than 300 high-profile organisations, and to audiences as great as 12,000.[4] He is the patron of Tihoi Venture School, an outdoor education school for 14 year old boys, and gives inspirational talks about his outdoor experiences. He has also 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, and Melbourne’s The Age, among others.
Hillary married Australian Ann Moorhead, a member of the Nathan family, a leading Australian family which owned the Maples chain of furniture stores in Melbourne and many historical estates including Rippon Lea. With Moorhead he has two children, Amelia Rose and George Maurice. They lived in Melbourne and one of the family's country estates in the Macedon Ranges in country Victoria.
In 1995 Hillary and Moorhead separated and later that year he was reunited with his high school sweetheart Dutch-born, Yvonne Oomen. A year later, Hillary married Oomen in a high profile event in Sir Edmund Hillary's garden in Auckland, New Zealand. The couple's first child, Alexander Edmund, was born shortly thereafter. In 1999, the family moved back to Auckland, New Zealand, and 2002 brought the birth of Hillary's fourth child, Lily Louise. All of his children's middle names were selected to honour family members, including his parents, grandparents and Moorhead's father.
In 2003 Hillary traveled with his two eldest children around the United States on the "Surviving Everest" National Geographic tour, celebrating the 50th Anniversary Tour of his father's Ascent of Mount Everest. Also for the anniversary, Hillary traveled with his father Sir Edmund and eldest daughter Amelia Hillary on a world tour, which included celebrations at the Narayanhity Royal Palace, Kathmandu with the Nepalese Royal Family, a celebratory dinner at the Royal Geographical Society London, events with the British Royal Family, and a private dinner in Windsor Palace.
Hillary and his daughter Amelia have worked together on many occasions mainly with National Geographic including leading a group to Everest Base Camp through the foothills of Tibet.
Hillary lives in Epsom, Auckland, with his wife and two youngest children.