Wilfred Thesiger, this century’s greatest living explorer, recalls his travels among the mountain ranges of Asia.

'I felt an uplift of spirit. Never had I seen such country.' This was Thesiger's reaction to his first sight of snow-capped mountain ranges and Iraqi Kurdistan. The legendary explorer has always been attracted to mountains. In the course of thirty years he fulfilled his dreams of travelling in the awesome ranges of the Karakorams, the Hindu Kush and in Ladakh, visiting Chitral, where the people of the Black Kafir valley still worshipped pagan gods, and wild, untravelled Nuristan.

Drawing on his unpublished diaries. Thesiger brilliantly documents the hardships, dangers and rewards of mountain travel. Each of his journeys has a unique quality, captured in some of the finest photographs he has ever taken – images of startling beauty, many of which are reproduced here for the first time.

'Both the pleasure and pain of mountain travel are revealed through eyes of one of the legendary explorers of our time.'
CONDE NAST TRAVELLER

'This is not the tale of a mountaineer but of a man who loves mountains. His delight lies in seeing them, travelling through them and meeting the resilient men who live on them'
MICHAEL TILLOTSON, 'Country Life'

'Here is a true grandeur in the landscape and true dignity in the man'
CATHERINE LOCKERBIE, 'Scotsman'

'The photographs alone make it worth a place on the traveller's bookshelf.'
WANDERLUST

Wilfred Thesiger, this century’s greatest living explorer, recalls his travels among the mountain ranges of Asia.

Although Wilfred Thesiger is still largely associated with the Arabian deserts and the Marshes of Iraq, he has also travelled extensively at intervals, over the years, among mountains and mountain people in other remote areas of the Middle East and Asia.

In 1987 Thesiger wrote: ‘I have always been attracted by mountains…’ And he observed more recently: ‘Had I done nothing else as a traveller except my journeys in Nuristan, these alone would have amounted to something worthwhile’.

Eventful, interesting and remarkable achievements in their own right, the Asian journeys – among the Hindu Kush, the Karakorams and the Pamirs – have inspired many of the finest photographs Thesiger has ever taken and contribute significantly to his standing as a great traveller and explorer.

Spanning a period of over 30 years (1951-1983) this book draws on Thesiger’s original diaries of his various journeys and his vivid memories of them, and includes some 80 or so previously unpublished photographs of the stunning mountain scenery he saw and the people he encountered.