Sir Edmund Hillary, the man who has the first to climb Mount Everest, the world's highest peak at 8,848 metres, in 1953, died Friday at the age of 88.

Hillary outlived Sherpa Tenzing by nearly 22 years, his Everest co-conqueror having died in May 1986 aged 71.

For many years, Hillary insisted on sharing the honour of being the first to stand on the roof of the world with Sherpa Tenzing, refusing to say who reached the summit first.

But finally in his autobiography View From The Summit, he said, "I continued cutting a line of steps upwards. Next moment I had moved on to a flattish exposed area of snow with nothing but space in every direction.

"Tenzing quickly joined me and we looked round in wonder. To our immense satisfaction we realised we had reached the top of the world."

Despite failing health in recent years, Hillary remained an adventurer until 12 months ago when he made his last visit to Antarctica, scene of another of his triumphs, having made an overland 3,200-kilometre tractor trip to the South Pole in January 1958.

A man who confessed in his autobiography, "I was always too restless and life was a constant battle against boredom" also rode a tractor to the South Pole, drove jet boats up the Ganges and served his country as its top diplomat in India.

In his native land, he was the best-loved New Zealander of his generation and could have ruled the country for years had he chosen to enter politics. He was equally loved in Nepal where he reciprocated the affection the Sherpas had for him by setting up a Himalayan Trust which built two hospitals, 20-odd schools and a similar number of health clinics for them.

He remained restless and battling to the end, still travelling the world, lecturing and raising money for his beloved Sherpas in his late 80s and making yet another trip to Kathmandu in 2006 to visit the schools and clinics he established. He made his last trip to Antarctica only a year ago.

Hillary was once an unknown 33-year-old beekeeper whose mountaineering skills acquired on New Zealand's Southern Alps qualified him to join a British expedition trying to conquer Mount Everest. After they had conquered the mountain, the New Zealander asked Tenzing what he could do for the Sherpas to repay their help. Their priorities were education and health care, he was told, and Hillary promised to get them.He founded the Himalayan Trust and toured the world to speak of Everest, its neighbouring mountains on the roof of the world and the 100,000 Sherpas who live on them. He solicited funds to improve their lives.

It was a commitment not without personal cost to Hillary. His wife Louise and 16-year-old daughter Belinda died in a plane crash near Kathmandu in early 1975 while flying to join him.

A biography published in 2005 revealed that the accident plunged him into a five-year depression which he countered with whisky and sleeping pills. "God knows if I'll have the courage to go on living," he wrote to friends soon after.

He suffered altitude sickness and was flown out of the mountains with pulmonary oedema - fluid on the lungs - several times over the years, being particularly cross with himself in 2001, at the age of 81, when he had to be airlifted to hospital from "the very low altitude of 2,440 metres."

"I enjoy a challenge," he said, as he showed in January 1958 when he completed an overland 3,200-kilometre tractor trip to the South Pole, disobeying orders to wait short of the pole for the Englishman Vivian Fuchs, leader of the British Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, to catch up with him.

Other challenges included a 1960 Himalayan search for the mythical yeti, or "abominable snowman," a geological and mountaineering expedition to Antarctica, in which he conquered a previously unclimbed peak, and a jet boat expedition up the Ganges River to its source in the Himalayas in 1977.

Long the most famous living New Zealander, Hillary is assured of immortality in his native land if only because of the phrase he uttered when he came down from Everest - "We knocked the bastard off."

It shocked his mother, who disapproved of "those dreadful words", but they have passed into the New Zealand lexicon and will always be associated with him.

Reacting to the death of New Zealand's legendary mountaineer Edmund Hillary, Indian President Pratibha Pratil said Friday the world had lost one of the 20th century's greatest adventurers. His message was echoed by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown who hailed Hillary, saying, "He was a truly great hero who captured the imagination of the world, a towering figure who will always be remembered as a pioneer explorer and leader."

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II said she was "very saddened" to learn of his death and was sending a "personal message of sympathy to his widow and family," reports said. The queen had met the adventurer on several occasions.

In a message of condolence, India's Patil said Hillary represented the positive approach to life. "Sir Edmund Hillary had described his conquest of Mount Everest as his ability to overcome challenges and problems to reach the summit."

Patil said apart from being a keen mountaineer, Hillary was also sensitive to the needs of the people in the Himalayan region and devoted his time and energy to their welfare by helping to build and fund hospitals and health clinics for the sherpas, who accompany climbers in the Himalayas as guides and porters.