Threading his way over Tibetan passes or forcing the forbidding cirque of the Nanda Devi Sanctuary, mountaineering legend Eric Shipton (1907-1977) continues to fascinate readers. Here biographer Peter Steele draws a full-bodied portrait of the self-effacing explorer with new information about his public and private lives. He gives, for the first time, the full story behind Shipton's shocking exclusion from the 1953 British expedition to Everest, a controversy that reverberated through the climbing world long after Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay successfully reached the summit.