Yesu and Lost Horizon

People often ask why we put the camp so far into the mountains. Half the answer is in a novel from 1933.

That year the English writer James Hilton published Lost Horizon. It was the time between the two world wars; Europe was richer than ever, yet the people he saw around him were not happy but anxious and worn out. So he imagined a place: a valley hidden among mountains, a long road away, where time slows and people stop hurrying. The name “Shangri-La” comes from that book.

One detail has always stayed with me. The visitors assume that so deep in the mountains they will have to queue for a bath, and find instead that their rooms are heated and have bathtubs. The wild and comfort, it turns out, can live together.

I would not say this is the place in the book. I only think that if someone comes from far away, travels a long road, rounds the last bend and sees this valley closed in by mountains, then finds hot water and a warm floor inside and sleeps well — perhaps that is enough.