By RIA Novosti
Auckland : New Zealand could rename a local mountain after the late Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest, the country’s NZ Herald newspaper said on Wednesday.
New Zealand’s Sir Edmund Hillary died in hospital on Friday at the age of 88. He scaled Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain at 8,850 meters (29,035 feet), on 29 May 1953.
Mount Cook’s Hermitage hotel and the Alpine Guides company have put forward a proposal to rename Mount Ollivier as Mount Sir Edmund Hillary or Mount Hillary.
Mount Ollivier, on New Zealand’s South Island, was the first mountain Hillary ever reached the peak of, and he later described the 1939 climb as the happiest day of his life, the paper said.
The NZ Herald quoted a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Helen Clark as saying it was too early to consider any proposals to honor Sir Edmund, with the focus currently being on ensuring “a fitting state funeral for him.”
A Maori elder also opposed the hotel’s proposal, saying that it was “all about money.”
The newspaper added that two Antarctic place names already bore Hillary’s name – the Hillary Coast, which is formally recognized by New Zealand, the United States and Russia, and the Hillary Canyon.
Nepalese media reported on Tuesday that a 76-year-old local, Bahadur Sherchan, has decided to become the world’s oldest man to climb Mount Everest. He plans to set out for the peak in March 2008.