Going to Extremes: The Silk Routes: Tibet

Nick Middleton continues to explore the hostile lands that lie around the Silk Routes on the ancient border between East and West, taking part in one of the world's hardest pilgrimages: the circumnavigation of Mount Kailash in Tibet, the holiest mountain in Asia. It's an 18-kilometre trek at extreme altitude, with the highest pass 6,700m above sea level. In preparation for Nick's ordeal, the Drochba nomads teach him what life is like on the very edge of altitudinal sustainability. But as he travels higher and higher, Nick's problems with altitude really begin to kick in...