On 29 May – four days before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II – Hillary and the experienced Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Mt Everest and became the first men to stand on the ‘roof of the world’.
Long-haired Christchurch mountaineers John Glasgow and Peter Gough became the first to successfully scale the 2000-m Caroline Face of Aoraki/Mt Cook, declaring it a ‘triumph for the hippies’
