Nepal has celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first ascent of Everest by making Sir Edmund Hillary, the man who "knocked the bastard off", an honorary citizen.
Hillary, who reached the summit with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay at 11:30 on the morning of May 29, 1953, was spending Thursday in Nepal's low-lying capital Kathmandu, at the age of 83 no longer able to handle the lack of oxygen in the mountains.
When the pair returned to camp after scaling the peak, Hillary, a New Zealander, famously told the expedition leader "we knocked the bastard off".
His son Peter, who has also scaled Everest, celebrated in the mountains at the Tengboche Buddhist monastery, where teams are blessed en route to the 8,850 metre (29,035 feet) summit.
"My father would love to be up here," Peter Hillary told Indian television. "Just before we left on this trip, he was lamenting that now he can't come up to altitudes.
Solo Russian climber Sergey Larin radioed his support team to say he had made it to the top on Thursday from the Chinese side, the only climber so far to claim the summit on the anniversary.
"I am standing at the summit of Everest and setting our flag," expedition leader Alexander Abramov wrote on leading Everest website www.everestnews.com.
Larin's climb has not yet been officially confirmed. Nepali officials said two US-led teams would try for the summit on Thursday from the South Col route in Nepal pioneered by Hillary and Tenzing.
But one reported on the same site it would wait a day due to impossibly high winds. It is due to try again within hours. There was no immediate word from the second team.
Events in Kathmandu were relatively muted after almost a week of street parades and celebrations.
Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand handed Hillary a certificate making him an honorary citizen at a ceremony for summiteers before the former beekeeper met the monarch of the world's only Hindu kingdom, King Gyanendra.
"It's been an absolutely marvellous day. I feel completely overwhelmed," Hillary told reporters after being welcomed to the ceremony by a group of monks and fanfare of alpine horns.
He was to end the day with a dinner with hundreds of Sherpa friends before heading to London on Friday for further events.
About 450 summiteers joined the celebrations, which Nepal hopes will help revive a tourism industry shattered by a bloody Maoist revolt.
More than 1,200 people have now climbed Everest.
But where Hillary and Tenzing cut their own way, most climbers today pay guides up to $65,000 to lay ladders across the gaping crevasses of the Khumbu icefall and rig ropes along the Hillary Step just below the summit to help them reach the top.