"Best known for the attempted rescue in 1953 of an injured team member from high on K2, Dr. Charles Houston's life beyond mountaineering has also been one of outspokenness, daring, and commitment to humanity....Bernadette McDonald offers insights into the inner man who, always driving himself to do more, wrote in his diary "Is it not better to take risks...than die within from rot? Is it not better to change one's life completely than to wait for the brain to set firmly and irreversibly in one way of life and one environment? I think it is...taking risks, not for the sake of danger alone, but for the sake of growth, is more important than any security one can buy or inherit." Paperback edition. Includes DVD with 1938 and 1953 film footage.