In granddad Ed’s Everest footsteps
Sir Edmund Hillary’s granddaughter is planning a bold and poignant mission to climb Mt Everest more than 60 years after Sir Ed knocked the bastard off
Lily Hillary is determined to conquer Mt Everest, just like her grandfather did, in 2020. It’s been 65 years since Sir Edmund Hillary became the first person to summit the world’s highest mountain. He died in 2008 at the age of 88 from a heart attack.
His passion for mountain climbing lives on with his 18-year-old granddaughter, finishing up this year at Auckland’s Diocesan School for Girls, setting her sights on the summit too.
Overlooking the city from Mt Eden, she said she knew she had to start small, just like her granddad and her dad, Peter, who has also made it to the top twice before.
Lily said she was all too aware of the potential risks involved.
“It’s nerve-racking watching those Everest films and it doesn’t go so well and knowing that that might be you up there,” she said.
“My grandfather had a great sense of humour but he knew, as does my dad, when to be serious and go ‘actually this is a life-threatening situation’, said Lily.
“I can be a bit of a joker and I definitely think I haven’t been put on an extreme enough mountain to learn that this is life-threatening in some situations.”
She said the advice Sir Ed gave her as a child was simple.
“He said to me ‘you do what you love’. He did not want to place pressure on me or any of my siblings.”
But Lily said climbing was “definitely” in their blood.
“We’ve grown up on mountains, we’ve grown up climbing and scrambling up rocks and competing against each other, which has been such fun,” she said.
“Honestly, I think it’s something we really enjoy . . . being outside and being together. It’s not just the mountain but who you’re with and the experience as well.”
She said she was looking forward to next year’s adventure to Nepal — a country she had always wanted to visit — to do Base Camp and the following year’s goal of making it to the very top.
Her older brothers, Alex, 22, and George, 26, her dad and her mum, Yvonne, were also planning to make the trip.
“I personally have never been with my whole family at the bottom of such an extreme mountain in such an amazing place, where we’ve got so much heritage.”
It’ll be the first time her brothers attempt it too.
George, Lily said, was
We’ve grown up on mountains, we’ve grown up climbing and scrambling up rocks . . . Lily Hillary
particularly determined to do it in 2020.
In the meantime, with end-of-year exams approaching, Lily said her training was far from intensive.
“I’m doing my usual running training which is five or six times a week.”
She also rides horses, boxes and recently signed up for a pentathlon.
Lily said when exams and school were over, she would switch her attention to learning to use the harness and ropes.
“I’ll be doing a lot more climbing . . . serious climbing with my dad and my brothers next year just so I get a hang of the ropes so I won’t kind of hold back the team . . . or be the weakest link”, she laughed.
Mum Yvonne said the Everest plan arose from her sons ticking off climbs on an international Seven Summits list. They had already climbed Kilimanjaro (Africa, 5896m), Puncak Jaya (Papua, Indonesia, 4884m), Elbrus (Russia, 5642m), and Alex had climbed Mt Blanc (France, 4807m). With Lily, they plan to climb Denali (Alaska, 6194m) next year.