In June of 1936,
an Austrian adventurer disguised a� an Indian pilgrim lay belly-down on a temple roof in
western Tibet, concealing a Leica rangefinder in his robes. Herbert Tichy risked life and limb that day to photograph a group of Buddhist lamas praying before the sheer face of a holy mountain-a mountain considered to be the very axis of the world. It was known by many names, among them Khang Rinpoche, "The Sacred Snow Mountain," and Kailas, "The Golden Throne of Shiva."
Nearly forty years later, Tichy's photograph would change the direction of a young writer's life.
Enraptured by that image, Tom Joyce spent the next twenty years preparing his own pilgrimage to the most astonishing of mountains in the most inhospitable of places. The trek took him through the Humla region of northwestern Nepal, up the Karnali River gorge, across the great Himalaya, and into the remote Zhang-Zhung plateau of Tibet. It was a journey shad
owed by the ever-present specter of Chinese devastation and the inspiring couralle of a proudhbut dying culture-an eye opening voyage to a legendary but sadly forgotten outpost Joyce describes as
Tne Last t"'lace on Earth . .r �� � � -' .. .. ���
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