"Ed Hillary and his son Peter span three decades of high altitude climbing and three decades of aid development in Nepal. From 1953 to 1984 the changes have been immense ... In two halves of this book the Hillarys tell their sometimes separate, sometimes interwoven stories, sharing with the reader their desolation at the deaths of Eds wife Louise and daughter Belinda, and their efforts to to rebuild a family relationship without its lynchpins; their abiding pleasure in discovering the world's most beautiful wildernesses, whether in the snowcapped ranges of New Zealand's own South Island, or camping with old Sherpa friends in a steep rhododendron clad valley of Nepal on a remote bridgebuilding mission; a rueful coming to terms, in Ed's case, with the limitations of growing old, on the American 1981 Everest East Face Expedition; and in Peter's case the exhilaration of climbing at extreme difficulty on Lhotse in 1982 ..." -- Inside front cover.