When Peter Hillary climbed Mt Everest in 1990, 37 years after his father's historic first ascent in 1953, they became the first father and son to reach the top of the world. It was just one of more than 30 major expeditions to the Himalayas, the Andes, the Karakoram, the Arctic and the Antarctic. He works with the foundations that support the schools and hospitals that the Hillary family operate around the foot of Everest. Peter works as a speaker, a writer and adventure travel operator. He is married, and he has four children.

John Elder is a senior writer for The Sunday Age newspaper in Melbourne, renowned for writing about the more desperate side of the human experience. In 1986, as a crew member of the `In The Footsteps of Scott' Antarctic expedition, he stood on the pack ice and watched his ship the Southern Quest sink to the bottom of the Ross Sea. He is married, and he has two daughters.