Bill Denz was just 32 when he was killed in an avalanche fall on the world's fifth-highest mountain, the 8485m Makalu, in a 1983 Himalayan expedition led by Peter Hillary.
"They were attempting the west pillar and returning to base camp, when a small avalanche swept him into a basin and buried him," Bold Beyond Belief: Bill Denz - New Zealand's Mountain Warrior author Paul Maxim, of Wellington, said this week.
"It was quite a small incident that claimed him, which is ironic considering all the times he really stuck his neck out.
"His body was never recovered. He's still lying in the basin up there, under 3m of rock and snow."
Mr Denz was born in England and emigrated to Dunedin with his family when he was aged 1.
He started rock climbing in Dunedin as a teenager, before he began attacking big peaks in the Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park in 1970.
He bought a house - which is no longer standing - in Broad Bay, where he lived when he was not on mountaineering expeditions.
"He was a revelation at a time when New Zealand climbing was going through a lot of change, with gear and stuff. Bill had a completely different mindset about what was possible," Mr Maxim said.
"He was very well-known in climbing circles, but he climbed a lot on his own, so he didn't get a lot of public recognition."
Mr Denz was regarded as a precocious climber and earned a peerless reputation for forging challenging new routes in New Zealand, Nepal, Tibet, Yosemite, Alaska and Patagonia.
His death on October 3, 1983, on the southwest ridge of Makalu, came on the first of a series of expeditions to scale the 14 peaks in the world which are 8000m or higher.
However, he was also considered brash, aggressive and "blunt to the point of being obnoxious" by some climbers.
"He was pretty in-your-face. He was a bit prickly at times and he had attitude," Mr Maxim, who met Mr Denz at Mt Cook in 1983, said.
"But, he had mellowed out a lot by the time of his death."
Mr Maxim will talk and show a film about Mr Denz's life at 7.30pm today in the University of Otago Staff Club.
There is a $2 door charge.
