This is the story of four happy months spent amidst some of the noblest and most beautiful mountains of the world. Its inception dates back to 1931. In that year Kamet, a mountain 25,447 feet high, situated in the Garhwal Himalayas, was climbed by a small expedition of six British mountaineers of whom I was one. After the climb we descended to the village of Gamsali in the Dhauli Valley, then crossed the Zaskar Range, which separates the upper Dhauli and Alaknanda Valleys, by the Bhyundar Pass, 16,688 feet, with the intention of exploring the mountainous region at the sources of the two principal tributaries of the Ganges, the Alaknanda and Gangotri Rivers.
The monsoon had broken and the day we crossed the pass was wet, cold and miserable. Below 16,000 feet rain was falling, but above that height there was sleet or snow. A bitter wind drove at us, sheeting our clothing with wet snow and chilling us to the bone, and as quickly as possible we descended into the Bhyundar Valley, which bifurcates with the Alaknanda Valley.
Within a few minutes we were out of the wind and in rain which became gradually warmer as we lost height. Dense mist shrouded the mountainside and we had paused, uncertain as to the route, when I heard R.L. Holdsworth, who was a botanist as well as a climbing member of the expedition, exclaim: ‘Look!’ I followed the direction of his outstretched hand. At first I could see nothing but rocks, then suddenly my wandering gaze was arrested by a little splash of blue, and beyond it were other splashes of blue, a blue so intense it seemed to light the hillside. As Holdsworth wrote: ‘All of a sudden I realised that I was simply surrounded byprimulas. At once the day seemed to brighten perceptibly. Forgotten were all pains and cold and lost porters. And what aprimula it was! Its leek-like habit proclaimed it a member of thenivalis section. All over the little shelves and terraces it grew, often with its roots in running water. At the most it stood six inches high, but its flowers were enormous for its stature, and ample in number – sometimes as many as thirty to the beautifully proportioned umbel, and in colour of the most heavenly French blue, sweetly scented.’
In all my mountain wanderings I had not seen a more beautiful flower than thisprimula; the fine raindrops clung to its soft petals like galaxies of seed pearls and frosted its leaves with silver.
Lower, where we camped near a moraine, wereandrosaces,saxifrages,sedums, yellow and redpotentillas,geums,geraniums,asters,gentians, to mention but a few plants, and it was impossible to take a step without crushing a flower.
Next day we descended to lush meadows. Here our camp was embowered amidst flowers: snow-white drifts ofanemones, golden lily-likenomocharis, marigolds, globe flowers,delphiniums, violets,eritrichiums, bluecorydalis, wild roses, flowering shrubs and rhododendrons, many of them flowers with homely sounding English names. The Bhyundar Valley was the most beautiful valley that any of us had seen. We camped in it for two days and we remembered it afterwards as the Valley of Flowers.
Often, in dark winter days, I wandered in spirit to these flowerful pastures with their clear-running streams set against a frieze of silver birches and shining snow peaks. Then once again I saw the slow passage of the breeze through the flowers, and heard the eternal note of the glacier torrent coming to the campfire through the star-filled night.
After many years in London I went to live in the country, where I set to work to make a garden out of a field of thistles, ragwort and dandelions. I had looked on gardening as an old man’s hobby, and a dull and unremunerative labour, but I came upon something that Karel Capek had written:
You must have a garden before you know what you are treading on. Then, dear friend, you will see that not even clouds are so diverse, so beautiful and terrible as the soil under your feet. … I tell you that to tame a couple of rods of soil is a great victory. Now it lies there, workable, crumbly and humid. …You are almost jealous of the vegetation which will take hold of this noble and humane work which is called the soil.
So I became a gardener. But I was profoundly ignorant. Two and a half years ago I did not know the difference between a biennial and a perennial. I am still ignorant, for there is no limit to ignorance or knowledge in gardening. But I discovered one thing; that there is a freemasonry among gardeners, which places gardening on a pinnacle above jealousy and suspicion. Perhaps this is because it is essentially a creative task and brings out a fine quality of patience. You may hasten the growth of a constitution but you cannot hasten the growth of an alpine plant.
In 1937 the opportunity came to return to the Bhyundar Valley. I travelled alone for several reasons, but it
