"I have an ape-like build peculiarly suited to climbing," wrote Michael Gill. Sir Edmund Hillary, to who the letter was addressed, was intrigued. He suggested an interview and as a result Michael Gill joined the 1960 Himalayan Expedition and several others in years to come.
Although he was fascinated by the Himalayas and the people who live there, his great love was for the little known New Zealand range, the Darrans. While a medical student he ventured again and again into those remote and beautiful mountains, finding amongst their rock walls, their ice-falls and forests the adventure he longed for. The story of his climbing these peaks makes exciting reading and later he moves abroad, to North Wales, France, Nepal and the Antarctic.