Description: One winter, Dervla Murphy and her six-year-old daughter Rachel walked into the Karakoram mountains in the frozen heart of the Western Himalayas and along the perilous Indus Gorge. Accompanied only by a gallant polo pony, they encountered conditions that tested the limits of their ingenuity, endurance and courage. Even when beset by crumbling tracks over bottomless chasms, an assault by a lascivious Kashmari, the unnerving melancholy of the Balts, and Rachel's continuing probing questions, this formidable traveller retained her enthusiasm for her surroundings and her sense of humour. Hair-raising, gloriously subjective and with the quirky vitality of fiction, the resulting book is a classic of travel writing. "Such is the author's love of travelling and of this untouched wilderness that the lasting impression left by this book is one of sheer joy." Colin Thubron, 'Sunday Telegraph' "It is her real reverence for natural beauty that gives her writing its special quality ... Dervla Murphy is a writer one should be profoundly grateful for: her books are so much more than travellers tales" 'Daily Telegraph' "The fascination of this book lies in the author's gallantry, humour and resource in conditions which would appal the stoutest explorers" 'Irish Times' "One of Miss Murphy's most considerable gifts is the ability to choose, get into live in - and take us back to - places where the world is as it was and probably ever shall be. She is a connoisseur of lost Arcadias" 'Times Literary Supplement'

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