Explorers Tenzing Norgay of Nepal, left, and Sir Edmund Hillary, of New Zealand, are shown in this 1953 handout photo. Hillary, the New Zealander who conquered Mount Everest, has died. He was considered one of the 20th century's greatest adventurers.

Wellington, New Zealand ? Sir Edmund Hillary, the unassuming beekeeper who conquered Mount Everest to win renown as one of the 20th century’s greatest adventurers, died Friday. He was 88.

The gangling New Zealander devoted much of his life to aiding the mountain people of Nepal and took his fame in stride, preferring to be called Ed and considering himself an “ordinary person with ordinary qualities.”

Hillary died at Auckland Hospital about 9 a.m. Friday from a heart attack, said a statement from the Auckland District Health Board. Though ailing in his later years, he remained active.

His life was marked by grand achievements, high adventure, discovery, excitement – but he was especially proud of his decades-long campaign to set up schools and health clinics in Nepal, the homeland of Tenzing Norgay, the mountain guide with whom he stood arm in arm on the summit of Everest on May 29, 1953.

Yet he was humble to the point that he only admitted being the first man atop Everest long after the death of Norgay.

Then, upon arriving back at base camp, he took an irreverent view: “We knocked the bastard off.”

‘Ordinary person’

His philosophy of life was simple: “Adventuring can be for the ordinary person with ordinary qualities, such as I regard myself,” he said in a 1975 interview after writing his autobiography, “Nothing Venture, Nothing Win.”

But Prime Minister Clark, announcing his death, said Hillary was anything but ordinary.

“Sir Ed described himself as an average New Zealander with modest abilities. In reality, he was a colossus. He was an heroic figure who not only ‘knocked off’ Everest but lived a life of determination, humility, and generosity. … The legendary mountaineer, adventurer, and philanthropist is the best-known New Zealander ever to have lived.”

Hillary’s pace slowed in his final years.

He made his last visit to the Himalayas in April 2007 when he and Elizabeth Hawley – unofficial chronicler of expeditions in the Himalayas for 40 years – met the 2007 SuperSherpas Expedition in Kathmandu.

A year earlier, he joined a flight of New Zealand dignitaries who flew to Antarctica for the 50th anniversary of the Scott Base, which the adventurer helped build in 1957.

Breaking the silence

Unlike many climbers, Hillary said when he died he had no desire to have his remains left on a mountain. He wanted his ashes scattered on Waitemata Harbor in the northern city of Auckland where he lived his life.

Hillary remains the only nonpolitical person outside Britain honored as a member of the Britain’s Order of the Garter, bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II on just 24 knights and ladies living worldwide at any time.

In his 1999 book “View from the Summit,” Hillary finally broke his long public silence about whether it was he or Norgay who was the first man to step atop Everest.

He later recalled his surprise at the huge international interest in their feat. “I was a bit taken aback to tell you the truth. I was absolutely astonished that everyone should be so interested in us just climbing a mountain.”

Duty

Hillary never forgot the small mountainous country that propelled him to worldwide fame. He revisited Nepal constantly over the next 54 years.

Without fanfare and without compensation, Hillary spend decades pouring energy and resources from his own fund-raising efforts into Nepal through the Himalayan Trust he founded in 1962.

He raised funds for higher education for Sherpa families, and helped set up reforestation programs in the impoverished country. About $250,000 a year was raised by the charity for projects in Nepal.

A strong conservationist, he demanded that international mountaineers clean up thousands of tons of discarded oxygen bottles, food containers and other climbing debris that litter an area known as South Col valley, the jump-off point for Everest attempts.

His commitment to Nepal took him back more than 120 times. His adventurer son Peter has described his father’s humanitarian work there as “his duty” to those who had helped him.