Kathmandu, Feb. 5 -- Our Mountain Travel office was located in the grounds of Gen Shamrajya Rana's splendid but crumbling palace in Naxal. The walled garden bustled with activity, bright tents and sleeping bags spread on the grass to dry in the Himalayan sun. Prayer flags fluttered from the eaves, and inside the rooms were high-ceilinged and airy, icy in winter.

This was the domain of Al Read, Managing Director of Mountain Travel from 1973 to 1984. With craggy good looks, bearded and burly, (he later became affectionately known at the Great Yak of Moose Wyoming), Al brimmed with a contained energy and the calm confidence of a crisis manager. The consummate mountain man, Al brought to Mountain Travel a background of first ascents, ski in...