In today’s Impromptus, I have occasion to mention Heinrich Harrer, that exceptional man. You may not recall the name. But you may well recall Seven Years in Tibet, which tells part of his story — seven years’ worth. He was . . . what? An athlete, an adventurer, a mountaineer, a writer, a geographer, a filmmaker — many things. He was kind of an hombre, to put it mildly.

He reminds me of Fridtjof Nansen, the Norwegian (1861-1930). (Harrer was an Austrian, who lived from 1912 to 2006.) Both men were real-life Indiana Joneses — although Nansen was even more impressive than the movie character. He was pretty much everything: a great athlete, a leading scientist, a great and historic explorer, a considerable writer, a diplomat (ambassador to the Court of St. James’s), a humanitarian (the first high commissioner on refugees) — winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (1922).

He had a million accomplishments, but I can’t get over these — possibly the least of his accomplishments: At 17, he won Norway’s distance-skating championship. The next year, he broke a world speed-skating record. He won the national cross-country ski championship twelve times in a row.

This was just on the side, mind you — he was reaching heights in “serious” fields. Nansen was a superman, and one of the most famous figures in all the world.

But back to Harrer. According to this obit, he did not exactly chillax after Tibet. “He led path-breaking expeditions to Alaska, the Andes and the Mountains of the Moon in Uganda, as well as the far reaches of the Amazon. Later, in New Guinea, he survived a 130-foot plunge over a waterfall and the attentions of headhunters.”

Hey, how had he gotten to Tibet in the first place? In World War II, he found himself in India, captured. “He escaped from a British prisoner-of-war camp, then hiked across the high Tibetan plateau, dodging bears, leopards and bandits before arriving in the forbidden city of Lhasa, gloveless and with his shoes in tatters.”

Are you feeling lazy and incompetent? There’s more, I’m afraid:

One day, “the Dalai Lama, then a 10-year-old god king, looked down from his palace and observed Mr. Harrer teaching ice-skating to Tibetans, who called the new sport ‘walking on knives.’ . . .

“Mr. Harrer became the Dalai Lama’s tutor when he was 37 and his pupil was 14, teaching him about topics ranging from Soviet politics to how a jet engine works. The young man was an eager student . . .” After the Chinese Communists enslaved and chewed up Tibet, Harrer became a prominent advocate of Tibetan rights, lifelong.

But there was a fly in the ointment — a fly in the ointment of this extraordinary life. Harrer joined the Nazi party, and, indeed, the SS. He said later that he regretted these moves. Let’s hope so.

Very, very often, there are flies in the ointment of lives, aren’t there? Such a precious thing, ointment without a fly.

I’ll tell you why I bring up Harrer in Impromptus. I’m writing a little Salzburg journal, and I found myself on an outing to Kitzbühel (another Austrian town), whose cemetery I visited. It has the grave of Toni Sailer, a great skier, “the Blitz from Kitz” (one of the best nicknames in sports). And it has the grave of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s brother, dead in a car accident at 25 (I believe).

It also has the grave of Harrer — to which grateful Tibetans make pilgrimages. (These are exiles, needless to say.) When I was there, the gravestone was decorated with Tibetan flags and Buddhist items. A ramshackle, somewhat moving sight.