New York, 1961, 1st edition. 264 pp, ills. Life in the Potala Palace by the brother of the Dalai Lama, himself a reincarnated monk. This book, the first autobiography of a Tibetan, was a long time in its gestation. Prompted and introduced to the idea by Heinrich Harrer, Thubten Norbu, brother of the Dalai Lama, took four years to overcome his initial reserves over the project and agree with Harrer's suggestion that his story ought to be written - if nothing else to help the Tibetan people.
Heinrich Harrer became the most famous of the original four from the Eiger climb. He died in 2005 in his 90's. After the Eiger climb he joined a 1939 expedition to Nanga Parbat, a reconnaissance, but was arrested by the British in Pakistan once WWII started. His escape from the prison camp to Tibet and subsequent life with the young Dalai Lama led to his famous book, Seven Years In Tibet.
Harrer went on to become a consumate explorer and adventurer, much like Lowell Thomas, Eric Shipton and H.W. Tilman, but Harrer didn't limit his travels to mountains. Highly appreciative of native culture, Harrer travelled the world to remote mountains and jungles to experience the untouched civilizations. His adventures include trips to remote Amazon jungle tribes, Pacific Islands, remote Himalaya, and New Guinea where he and Philip Temple made the first ascent of Carstensz Pyramid, one of the Seven Summits [Denali, Everest, Vinson, Elbrus, Aconcagua, Kilimanjaro, Carstensz or Kosciusko].
Other notable mountaineering first ascents by Heinrich Harrer were Mount Hunter & Mount Deborah in Alaska with Fred Beckey in 1954 and Ausangate (6400m) in Peru's Cordillera Vilcanota in 1953.
