Nepal celebrates the 60th anniversary of the conquest of Mount Everest:

Legendary climbers honoured

Nepal celebrated the 60th anniversary of the conquest of Mount Everest today by honouring the first mountaineers to reach the highest spot on Earth. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Everest on May 29, 1953. Since then thousands of people have scaled the 29,035ft (8,850m) peak.

Four days of ceremonies to celebrate the 'Everest Diamond Jubilee' reached a peak as two of the grandchildren of those first summiteers laid garlands on statues of the now-legendary pair.

Amelia Rose Hillary and Tashi Tenzing joined Italian climbing celebrity Reinhold Messner and the last surviving member of the 1953 expedition, Kancha Sherpa, in a horse-drawn chariot parade through Kathmandu.

Mr Messner was the first climber to scale Everest without using bottled oxygen and the first person to climb all 14 of the world's highest peaks.

'I am here in Nepal again for filming ... not any more for climbing,' he said, adding he did reach the base camp of Mount Kanchenjunga during his visit.

'I am full of energy and full of enthusiasm for this country.'

He was among many climbers who travelled to Nepal for the celebrations, who were honoured with flower garlands and scarfs as they took part in the ceremony. As they paraded around the Nepalese capital they were followed by hundreds of revellers who marched holding banners to mark the anniversary.

The British-funded trip to the summit of Everest in 1953 changed mountaineering forever and made New Zealander, Hillary and Nepalese guide Norgay into household names. 'We should be proud that two great people have opened the door not just to climbing Everest but to tourism for the Nepalese people,' said Tenzing's grandson Tashi Tenzing. 'It is a great day for us and we as a family are very happy. We are basically in cloud nine today.' Tenzing Norgay died in Darjeeling, India, in 1986 at age 71. Hillary, who died of heart failure in 2008 at the age of 88, attended the golden jubilee celebration of the conquest in 2003.

Amelia Rose Hillary, granddaughter of mountaineer Edmund Hillary, offers garlands to the statues of Tenzing and Hillary during the Mount Everest Diamond Jubilee celebrations in Kathmandu

Italian Reinhold Messner and New Zealander Lydia Bradey, the fi rst male and female climbers to summit Mount Everest without oxygen, cut a cake at a ceremony to mark the anniversary

Back in Britain a 'flashmob' of former and current mountaineers joined the sons of Tensing and Hillary at the signing of a newly-released book on the expedition in London today. Peter Hillary and Jamling Tenzing Norgay, joined mountaineers Sir Chris Bonington, Stephen Venables and Doug Scott, as well as Kenton Cool, who earlier this month became the first person to scale the three peaks of Everest's Western Cwm in one climb, at Stanfords bookshop in central London.The Conquest of Everest - Original Photographs From The Legendary First Ascent features a previously unpublished collection of photographs from the climb, put together by the late George Lowe, a member of Hillary's team, with help from family friend and historian Huw Lewis-Jones.The book of photographs includes landscapes, candid portraits and action shots portraying the day-to-day moments of the historic expedition.

Mr Lowe was the last surviving member of the team until he died earlier this year aged 89. Dr Lewis-Jones, who worked with him for several years before his death to put together his memoirs and photographs from the climb said today's signing had proved to be 'quite a mountaineers' flashmob'.'It's right that we do everything we can to remind the world of the story of the guys of '53, quite amazing men,' he said.

- Internet