Legend tells of a utopian kingdom hidden among the towering mountains of inner Asia. A paradise on Earth, yet a place apart. A place of spiritual contentment and eternal life. A place that’s become known to the West as Shangri-La. For century’s romantics, adventurers and the devout risked their lives searching for this heaven on Earth. Many perished in the quest. Those who returned told of a journey through hostile lands, of crossing treacherous mountain passes & desert gorges in their search for a valley where people live for hundreds of years. To this day its whereabouts remains a mystery…
David Adams goes in search of Shangri-La in the icy valleys of the Himalaya and Karakoram Mountains in Far North Pakistan.
Opinion/Comment: Based upon the novel Lost Horizon, written by James Hilton.
Originally published in 1933, Lost Horizon gained unrivaled popularity from coast to coast, particularly after Frank Capra’s spellbinding 1937 film introduced audiences nationwide to its stunning tale of revolution, utopia, emotion, and adventure set in a hidden mountaintop escape known only as Shangri-La.
When an uprising in Baskul forces a small group of English and American residents to flee, their plane crash-lands in the far western reaches of the Tibetan Himalayas. There, the bewildered party finds themselves stranded outside the protective borders of the British Empire, and discovers access to a place beyond the bounds of the imagination—a legendary paradise, the mystic monastery Shangri-La.