The silence of dead places: An excerpt from Frank S Smythe’s “The Valley of Flowers”

British mountaineer, author, photographer and botanist Frank S Smythe, initially renowned for his expeditions in the Swiss Alps, is now best remembered for his Himalayan explorations. In 1931, during his climb of Mount Kamet in the Garhwal region of the Himalayas, Smythe discovered a valley in which “it was impossible to take a step without crushing a flower.” He later named the region the “Valley of Flowers,” and it is now a protected national park. At the time that Smythe climbed it, Kamet was the highest peak to have been scaled. Smythe was also a part of one of the earliest attempts to climb Kanchenjunga, and tried to scale Mount Everest thrice. Smythe’s expeditions resulted in several notable works on mountaineering such as The Kanchenjunga Adventure and Kamet Conquered. In this excerpt from his book The Valley of Flowers, originally published in 1938, Smythe reflects on the “longest, grandest and hardest” mountain climb of his life—the first ascent of Mana Peak—a peak adjoining Kamet. Smythe, who completed the last leg of the climb alone, recalls what he considers more memorable than the ascent—the silence at the top. 

Since I left Peter I had been concerned with climbing and my whole physical and nervous energy had been concentrated to that one end, but now that the deadening work of hoisting the weight of my tired body uphill was at an end, my mental faculties were released from physical bondage. The one concession of high altitudes is that as soon as the climber rests for any length of time he is enabled to forget his physical weariness. To me that day it was as though I had been led blind fold up the mountain and that the bandage had been removed on the summit. It was this more than any sense of “conquest” or achievement that made my few minutes on the summit unforgettable, so that if I live to be old and feeble I can still mount the golden stairs of memory to inspiration and contentment.

The summit of the Mana Peak is the highest and southernmost point of an undulating snow-ridge about 200 yards long which extends northwards in the direction of the group of peaks known as the Ibi Gamin. Kamet is immediately to the west of this group, and the first object I saw when I had recovered from my fatigue was its huge reddish pyramid, to which clung a vast banner of cloud floating slowly westwards yet ever forming against the mountain as it did so.

It would be easy to reel out a string of names of ranges, peaks, glaciers and valleys, but to occupy the mind with trifling topographical details on the summit of a great Himalayan peak is a petty anticlimax to weeks of reconnaissance, strenuous work, and a final glorious scramble. On a mountain-top time’s sands are grains of pure gold; must we then obscure their brightness with a leaden mess of trifling detail? After Kamet I remember clearly but one detail in all that enormous landscape, the plateau of Tibet. I saw it to the east of the Ibi Gamin, a yellow strand laid beyond the Himalayan snows, shadowed here and there with glowing clouds poised in a profound blue ocean like a fleet of white-sailed frigates. For the rest there were clouds and mountains; clouds alight above, blue caverned below over the deeper blue of valleys, citadels of impermeable vapour spanning the distant foothills, and mountains innumerable—snow-mountains, rock-mountains, mountains serene and mountains uneasy with fanged, ragged crests, beautiful mountains and terrible mountains, from the ranges of Nepal to the snows of Badrinath and the far blue ridges of Kulu and Lahoul.

Would that Peter had been there to share this with me.

But of all my memories, distinct or vague, one memory stands pre-eminent: the silence. I have remarked before this silence of the high mountains. How many who read this have experienced silence? I do not mean the silence of the British countryside or even of the northern hills and moorlands, for though we may strain our ears and hear nothing there is always life not far distant. I mean the silence of dead places where not even a plant grows or a bird dwells. That day there was no wind, not the lightest breathing of the atmosphere, and I knew a silence such as I have never known before. I felt that to shout or talk would be profane and terrible, that this silence would shatter in dreadful ruin about me, for it was not the silence of man or earth but the silence of space and eternity. I strained my ears and heard—nothing. Yet, even as I strained, I was conscious of something greater than silence, a Power, the presence of an absolute and immutable Force, so that I seemed on the very boundary of things knowable and things unknowable. And because I have felt this more than once before on the high mountains I know that death is not to be feared, for this Force is a part of Heaven and a part of us; how else should we be aware of it? From it we have been evolved; into it we quietly and peacefully return.

The minutes passed. Presently I mustered up the effort needed to take some photographs; then I began the descent.

The ascent had been hard work; the descent was absurdly easy by comparison. My strength returned with each downward step and once again I realised, as I had realised on Everest, that altitude alone is responsible for exhaustion on high Himalayan peaks. To judge from the speed at which I descended, the difficulties of the Mana Peak are also primarily dependent on the altitude, but it was a steep descent nevertheless and the reverse passage of the hole under the boulder, while being considerably easier, especially as I discovered more holds, was awkward, and so was the slab below it and the big step in the ridge.

An hour later I rejoined Peter, who had regained his strength so well that he had scrambled about to take photographs and had ascended the ridge for a short distance. No time was to be lost if we were to get back to camp before dark and we descended without delay.

All went well till we turned off the ridge on to the ice-slope, but here we had to recut many steps which had been damaged by the sun and lost much valuable time in regaining the lower snowridge. Such work coming after a great climb is particularly irksome and it is on such occasions that risks are taken and accidents occur, but Peter rose nobly to the task and deepened the steps with unfaltering precision.

At last we were on the plateau. The afternoon mists had risen and we passed along the crest of Peak 21,500 feet in a desultory hailstorm. Before turning off it we shouted to the porters, who should be awaiting our arrival at the camp, in the hope that they would hear us and prepare some tea and were relieved to hear a faint response.

At 6.15 the camp loomed out of the mist and a few minutes later hot tea was moistening our parched throats. How good it was; no nectar is more revivifying at the end of a hard day on the mountains.

A few minutes’ rest, while the men packed up, and we set off once more, down the ridge to the Zaskar Pass. At last the snow and ice were behind us; no longer was it necessary to place each foot with exact care; through the dusky mist we moved shadowlike along the easy scree ridge. Already the strenuous events of the day were in the remote past, no longer linked to us by any thread of difficulty or danger. Trudging along, very weary now, through the swift-gathering darkness we came at 7.15 to the camp.

So ended the longest, grandest and hardest mountain climb of our lives.

Excerpted from The Valley of Flowers by Frank S Smythe, published by Speaking Tiger Publishing Pvt Ltd.