Mr Hillary, who together with Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, reached the summit of Mount Everest on May 29, 1953, winning him renown as one of the greatest adventurers of the last century.

He died Friday, at 88, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark announced in a statement that paid tribute to his courage, determination and humble personality.

'Sir Ed described himself as an average New Zealander with modest abilities,' Ms Clark said.

'In reality, he was a colossus. He was a heroic figure who not only 'knocked off' Everest but lived a life of determination, humility, and generosity.'

Across the Tasman Sea, Australia's acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard, standing in for vacationing Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, said Mr Hillary's name would forever 'be synonymous with adventure, with achievement, with dreaming and then making those dreams come true.'

'It was obviously a long life well lived,' Gillard told Sky News television.

'For generations to come people will study what Sir Edmund has achieved by being the first to get to the top of the world.'

In Nepal, where Mr Hillary was granted honorary citizenship in 2003 on the golden jubilee of his conquest of Mount Everest, members of the alpine community mourned his passing.

Hero
'He was a hero and a leader for us. He did a lot for the people of the Everest region and will always remain in our hearts,' said Bhoomi Lama of the Nepal Mountaineering Association in Katmandu.

Known by the Nepalese as 'burra sahib' - 'big man,' for his 1.88 m - Mr Hillary spent decades pouring energy and resources from his own fundraising efforts into Nepal through the Himalayan Trust he founded in 1982.

Mr Hillary and his foundation helped build hospitals, health clinics, airfields and schools, and raised funds for higher education for Sherpa families.

Mr Hillary died early on Friday from a heart attack, health officials said.

He had been unwell for some time, but friends in New Zealand said his death still came as a shock.

'I'm incredibly upset, I thought I was ready but I wasn't,' said New Zealand climber Graeme Dingle, who climbed and traveled with Hillary through the 1970s.

'I feel particularly honored to have been close to him.'

Determined
Mr Dingle remembered Mr Hillary as one of the most determined people he had ever met, honest sometimes to a fault and relentless in his pursuit of any goal - whether on the mountains or in his personal life.

'He recently said to someone that he was quite flexible when it came to changing his plans. I think he was most inflexible - to the point of extreme doggedness,' Mr Dingle told reporters.

'That was the great thing about him, really, that once he built up some momentum it was very hard to stop him.'

British actor and mountaineer Brian Blessed, best known for his roles in Shakespearean films and plays, described Hillary as 'a man of tremendous generosity, a great giant of a man.'

Two years after his historic Everest climb, Mr Hillary helped lead a team from the Commonwealth across Antarctica to the South Pole, carving a new path to the Earth's magnetic southernmost point.

Flags at New Zealand's Scott Base, which Mr Hillary helped build in 1957, flew at half-mast Friday, as workers remembered his final visit to the icy continent last year to mark the 50th anniversary of the base.

Mr Hillary, who was 87 at the time, described his visit to Antarctica as 'a marvelous return,' but said he believed it would be his last.

'It's a sad day for New Zealand,' said Lou Sanson, chief executive of Antarctica New Zealand.

'We're just sorely going to miss a guy who was just a pillar of New Zealand's national identity in Antarctica.' -- AP

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