Edmund Hillary was a New Zealand mountaineer who along with Tenzing Norgay created history when they became the first climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest on 29 May 1953 as a part of a British expedition to Everest led by John Hunt. Later on he participated in expeditions to the South Pole and became one of the first to scale Mt. Herschel in the Antarctic expedition of 1967. Hillary’s interest in mountain climbing dated back to his high school days when he went to Mount Ruapehu in New Zealand's Tangariro National Park on a school trip. He became fascinated with the adventures mountaineering promised and made his first major climb aged 20 when he scaled Mount Ollivier, in the Southern Alps. Throughout his college days he remained active in the outdoor clubs and harbored the ambition of climbing the world’s highest peak, the Mount Everest one day. He became a prominent mountaineer in his own country when he successfully climbed New Zealand's highest peak. Following this he joined a New Zealand party to the central Himalayas and this strengthened his resolve to climb the world’s highest peak. An acclaimed mountaineer by now, he was selected for a British expedition to the Mount Everest in 1953 and created history by becoming one of the first human beings to reach the summit of the hitherto insurmountable peak.