-- Intimate interviews with world-renowned climbers Ed Viesturs, Doug Scott, and Reinhold Messner

-- 160 stunning full-color photographs

Art Wolfe has achieved what few photographers have attempted -- capturing the spirit of the entire Himalayan region. This stunning collection of photographs presents not only breathtaking mountain landscapes, but also the flora, fauna, and culture of the highest mountain range in the world. More than 150 photographs -- taken during Wolfe's many travels through Pakistan, India, Nepal, Tibet, and China -- provide us an inside look at the people, architecture, religious icons, plants, and mountain vistas of these countries. With the skill and artistry for which he is renowned, Wolfe brings the Himalaya to life.

Complementing his spectacular images are Peter Potterfield's interviews with a select group of world-class climbers. Reinhold Messner, Doug Scott, and Ed Viesturs share their thoughts on the Himalaya as a natural world, a social and cultural world, and a climbers' world. Their personal insights, paired with the diversity of Wolfe's images, set this book apart from all others.

Award-winning photographer Art Wolfe is an internationally respected nature photographer. He has published more than forty books, including Photography Outdoors (page 19). A Seattle resident, he travels all over the world to capture his photographs. Wolfe performs many slide shows and lectures of his work each year. In April 2000 Wolfe was awarded the coveted Alfred Eisenstaedt Magazine Photography Award. In 1998 he was named Outstanding Nature Photographer of the Year and was recognized bythe National Audobon Society with the first-ever Rachel Carson award. Peter Potterfield is the author of In the Zone (page 29) and Selected Climbs in the Cascades, Volumes I and II (page 24). Norbu Tenzing Norgay is a world-class climber, the Director of Development for the American Himalayan Foundation in San Francisco, and the son of Tenzing Norgay, who summited Mount Everest with Sir Edmund HIllary in 1953.