HIGH TIME

Lady Louise, wife of Sir Edmund of Everest elevation, took a holiday with her husband, four teenagers (inducting three Hillarys), and Sherpa companions through the mountains, valleys and villages of Nepal. This was, in a sense, a semi-official trek since Edmund is Chairman of the Himalayan Trust -- an organization formed and funded to aid the Sherpa people by building schools, improving hygiene and medical facilities and aiding in engineering. The party did visit some Hillary projects -- ongoing, completed and beginning. But Lady Louise's narrative consists mainly of appreciative observations of people, quintessential scenery, cheerful discomfiture and the pleasures of camping, moments of hilarity and camaraderie between ages and cultures. The author writes with amusing high spirits -- even when remembering how she was left with the care of a possibly seriously ill son, while Sir Edmund sprinted on ahead announcing that this family always finished a journey. Many attractive photographs of ancient hills and young Hillarys -- a lure for the hardier breed of backpackers.