Norman Hardie

Norman David Hardie, who lived from 28 December 1924 to 31 October 2017, was a New Zealand climber born in Timaru. He was one of the climbers of the 1955 British Kangchenjunga expedition that made the first ascent of the 8,586 metre mountain, the third highest in the world; he and Tony Streather reached the summit on the day after George Band and Joe Brown. A civil engineer by training, he developed a better oxygen system for the expedition and was appointed deputy leader by Charles Evans. He later mapped uncharted areas of the Himalaya south of Everest, published In Highest Nepal in 1957, joined the 1960 to 1961 Silver Hut expedition with Edmund Hillary and sat on the board of Hillary's Himalayan Trust for 22 years.