In 1991 Ron Edwards persuaded the Chinese authorities to let him travel north to south through an old section of Tibet recently annexed to China.
The most dangerous part of this trip was not the threat of landslides or snow blocked passes but an unfortunate incident with a piss-pot in the sinking village of Zoige.
With a good PR man this journey could have made headlines, not the front page perhaps, but somewhere towards the middle, and nowhere near the social jottings.
It was, as far as the Chinese tourist officials were aware, the first time a group of tourists were allowed to travel overland from north of Tibet down to Lhasa. The Chinese guides decided it would be the first and last trip due to the risks involved.
Further to the South to Lhasa trip in 1986, Ron Edwards tried to explore some of south-eastern Tibet in 1990. The intended destination was never reached, due to a failed Tibetan uprising, but instead the group was allowed to Mount Gongga, a huge mountain only glimpsed for a moment on the return trip.