Nepal celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest on Thursday with plans to make Sir Edmund Hillary, the man who 'knocked the bastard off', an honorary citizen.

Sir Edmund, who reached the summit with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay at 1130 IST on May 29, 1953, spent the anniversary of his ascent in Nepal's capital Kathmandu, at the age of 83 and no longer able to handle the lack of oxygen in the mountains.

When the pair returned to camp after scaling the peak, Hillary first famous words to the expedition leader was: "We knocked the bastard off."

Sir Edmund's son, Peter, who has also scaled the Everest, celebrated at 3,962 metres at the Tengboche Buddhist monastery, where teams from almost every expedition are blessed before they try for the summit at 8,850 metres.

"My father would love to be up here," Peter Hillary told the Indian media. "Just before we left on this trip, he was lamenting that now he can't come up to altitudes.

"He just misses being up on these wonderful areas, and let's face it -- on the 29th of May, we have this most gorgeous day, all these friends around us -- what a way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest."

Nepali officials said two American-led expeditions were expected to try for the summit on Thursday, but high winds on the mountain could force them to delay the attempt.

Events in Kathmandu were relatively muted after almost a week of street parades and celebrations. Crown Prince Paras Bir Bikram Shah Dev presented Sir Edmund with a medal in the morning.

Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand will later make Sir Edmund an honorary citizen before a royal dinner hosted by the monarch of the world's only Hindu kingdom, King Gyanendra.

About 450 summiteers, many of them Nepali sherpas, essential to Everest expeditions, are taking part in the celebrations, which Nepal hopes will help revive a tourism industry shattered by a bloody Maoist revolt.

More than 1,200 people have already climbed the Everest.

But where Sir Edmund 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 heights just below the summit to help them reach the top.

STILL DEADLY

Sir Edmund and other pioneering climbers, such as Japan's Junko Tabei, who in 1975 became the first woman to reach the summit, are scorn the commercialism that has taken over the mountain.

"There's even a booze tent at base camp," Hillary told Reuters. "If I were 33 again, young, fit and a bit of a dynamo as I think I was in those days, I simply wouldn't want to join the queue that is scrambling to get up the mountainside."

Tabei, now 63 but still a passionate climber, said, "When we climbed, everything had to be done by our own team," she said. "Nowadays, they just follow other people's trails -- it's like a toll way."

But while it is easier than in Sir Edmund's day, climbing the world's highest mountain remains a dangerous challenge.

Over the years, 175 people have died -- including nine in one day in 1996 -- and many of their bodies remain frozen on the mountain. On Wednesday, three people died when a helicopter crashed as it came into base camp.