On a mountaineering tour in the Himalaya, Johanna meets the eight-year-old Tempa in a Tibetan monastery, where she grants the request of an old abbot to bring the boy secretly to Lhasa. Upon arriving in the capital, Johanna realizes that Tempa and a group of other Tibetan children are to be brought without any equipment over a dangerous high-mountain pass to Nepal. When the Chinese police get wind of the plan, Johanna is suddenly suspected of collaborating with the charismatic leader of the trek, Tashi. Torn between her sense of responsibility to help Tempa and a justified fear for her own life, Johanna decides to go with the group...