In October 2008 Jeff Rasley led a trek to a village in a remote valley in the Solu region of Nepal, where trekkers and mountaineers do not go. In Basa Village he found a people thoroughly unaffected by Western consumer-culture values. They had no running water, electricity, or anything that moves on wheels. Each family had a flower garden, and they lived in beautiful, hand-chiseled stone houses. All they seemed to want, beyond what they had, was education for their children.

Bringing Progress to Paradise chronicles Jeff's adventures through remote Nepal: the thrill of reaching mountain peaks and of getting a good night's sleep in a warm tent, the inevitable mishaps that are part and parcel of climbing adventures, and a few tragedies, as well. But the book is more than an engrossing travelogue. Throughout, Rasley reflects deeply on the tangled relationship between tourists and locals in remote locations. In short, the locals seem to want what we have, and we want who they are. How do we promote change without doing harm?