12.3 · Mountains & Himalaya
🇳🇵 *Hiking and trekking are named in my hierarchy, and the Himalaya are outside my window. Very few people get to read great literature about their own landscape.
The Snow Leopard
A 1973 trek through Dolpo with the biologist George Schaller that becomes a book about grief, Zen practice, and not getting the thing you came for. National Book Award winner, and the finest book written about walking in Nepal.
Deepen
Section titled “Deepen”Into Thin Air
The 1996 Everest disaster, reported from inside it. Also a study in how ambition and summit-fever override judgement — read it that way.
Himalaya: A Human History
The range as a human place across millennia — empires, trade, religion, exploration — rather than as a backdrop for Western climbers.
Reference
Section titled “Reference”Touching My Father’s Soul
Everest from the Sherpa side, by Tenzing Norgay’s son. The perspective the famous books leave out.
Annapurna
The first 8,000m summit. Nepal, 1950. A period document as much as an account — read it with that in mind.