Michael Gill was a 22-year-old medical student in 1959 when he followed up on a newspaper statement that Sir Edmund Hillary was looking for additional climbers for his next Himalayan expedition. As a climber, photographer, doctor and writer, Michael was subsequently invited on nearly all the Hillary expeditions through to the last of them, a jet boat adventure up the river Ganges in 1977, and became a close friend of Sir Edmund’s.

Michael has written two other books, a mountaineering autobiography, Mountain Midsummer, and Himalayan Hospitals, an account of the experiences of the doctors and other volunteers who worked for the Himalayan Trust between 1961 and 2002. He is based in Auckland.