No shame in getting off and pushing either, some hills demand no other approach. It's actually better physiologically to climb off before you explode and, rather than stop and gasp, to keep walking.

I have a stonkin' great hill on my commute and have managed to push my lactic thresh-hold quite a bit higher using this technique, mind you, I use a heart rate monitor and am enough of a nerd to read it and try to understand what it's telling me, you don't actually need one.