"Heinrich Harrer led such an amazing life that the fact that he was part
of the first team to climb the suicidally dangerous north face of the
Eiger in Switzerland -- one of the most significant feats in the history
of mountaineering -- is merely a footnote in his biography. Olympic
skier, anthropologist, author of a dozen books, maker of 40 documentary
films, explorer of Papua New Guinea -- all his accomplishments are
overshadowed by the Austrian's greatest adventure.

In 1944, when Tibet was one of the most unknown, forbidding, secretive
places on earth -- only a handful of Westerners had ever seen its
capital, Lhasa -- Harrer and a friend escaped from a British POW camp in
India and walked across a Himalayan pass onto the rooftop of the world.

They had no maps and no firm idea of what lay ahead. They shielded
themselves from the cold with tattered sheepskin coats; they ate only
what they could scrounge from the land. To keep foreigners out, Tibetans
were forbidden to help them in any way. The two Austrians hiked for 21
months and 1,000 miles through deserts and snowdrifts, but eventually
they found themselves gazing up at the golden-roofed Potala Palace,
which crowns an entire hilltop. They'd achieved a feat that had eluded
so many of the West's most determined explorers and adventurers: They'd
reached the forbidden city of Lhasa.

There Harrer became the tutor, friend and confidante of the Dalai Lama,
who was merely a teenager at the time and ravenous for information about
the outside world. The unlikely pair became lifelong friends, and Harrer
spent the rest of his years championing the Tibetan cause.

He died at age 93 in January in Austria, and next month the Dalai Lama
will travel to Harrer's hometown to honor their friendship by laying the
foundation for an International Center of Higher Tibetan Studies, the
only one of its kind outside the Dalai Lama's home in Dharamsala, India.