George Lowe | An Everest pioneer, 89

George Lowe, 89, the last surviving climber from the team that made the first successful ascent of Mount Everest, has died, his wife said Thursday. Mary Lowe said her husband died Wednesday at a nursing home in Ripley, central England, after an illness.

Mr. Lowe and his friend Edmund Hillary were the only two New Zealanders on the 1953 British-led attempt to climb the world's highest peak. Mr. Lowe was part of a small group that established the final camp 1,000 feet below the mountain's summit on May 28, 1953. The next day, Hillary and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal reached the 29,035-foot peak.

As Hillary descended the next day, he met Mr. Lowe, walking toward him with soup and emergency oxygen. "Well, George," Hillary recalled saying, "we knocked the bastard off."

Almost 4,000 people have now successfully climbed Everest, according to the Nepal Mountaineering Association, but that 1953 expedition remains one of the iconic moments of 20th-century adventure. - AP