Hillary Follows in Father’s Steps to Everest Summit

The son of the man who first climbed Mt. Everest reached the peak of the world’s highest mountain Thursday, following an American team and members of a three-nation climb to the crowded summit.

Peter Hillary, 36, son of mountaineer Edmund Hillary, reached the top of the 29,028-foot-high peak 37 years after his father and Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay pioneered the way. It was his fourth attempt.

Hillary followed the traditional southeastern route first used by his father. He reached the top at 7:30 a.m. with the two leaders of an eight-member New Zealand team and a Nepalese Sherpa guide.

Minutes before Hillary completed his feat Thursday, five Americans--three lawyers, a geologist and a mountain guide--reached the summit, the Nepalese Tourism Ministry said. The Americans are members of an 11-member team that also followed the traditional southeastern route.

Also on Thursday, the first joint climb of Everest by U.S., Soviet and Chinese mountaineers broke the record for the number of climbers from the same expedition to scale Everest. Six climbers made it, bringing to 20 the number reaching the summit, among them the first Soviet female climber to do so.

Meanwhile Thursday, a Belgian Everest expedition abandoned its attempt on the same route after the regulator of an oxygen cylinder burst, the ministry said.

Three days ago, climbers from a three-nation team--its members were from the United States, China and the Soviet Union--scaled Everest from its northern side through Tibet. Six climbers in the fourth and last group from that expedition reached the summit Thursday, China’s official news agency reported. American Mark Scott Tucker, 32, who grew up in Huntington Beach, was a member of that group.

Tucker works as a hiking guide at Mt. Rainier, Wash., in the summer and on a ski patrol at Snowbird, Utah, during the winter months, his mother, Peggy Tucker said.

“Climbing Mt. Everest has been a dream of his for a long time,” she said. “I’m very thrilled for him.”