People in High Places

Audrey Salkeld crossed Tibet with a television film crew and a party of ambitious young climbers in 1986 to find Mount Everest swarming with affluent sportsmen all bent on the glittering prize of a brief moment on top of the world. As a mountaineering historian, she had gone to see for herself where it was that Mallory and Irvine had disappeared into the realms of legend in 1924, last seen "going strong for the top" almost 30 years before Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing claimed the laurels for first assent. Some old hands accused her of attempting to destroy a powwerful myth, but she found the conquerors of society a more indulgent, good-humoured bunch and that a far more sinister conquest had overtaken the Tibetan people, whose cries for help were falling on deaf ears. By chance it was a young relative of Tenzing and his English wife who took her back to the Himalaya and deep into the weird desert landscape of Mustang where few are permitted to go. Here she came face to face with an ancient Tibetan culture surviving intact after thousands of years.
She was entranced and began to feel more at home here than at home, despite physical exhaustion and the revolution that marked her coming and going. The author has written the "People" column in the "Mountain" magazine since 1974. She also wrote "The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine".