Creature record / 1937
July 17, 1937. A glacier pass above the Bhyundar Valley, high in the Garhwal Himalaya. Frank Smythe and three Sherpas found a line of fresh prints in the snow. Huge. Five-toed. Apparently made by something walking on two legs. The Sherpas named it at once. A Mirka. A wild man. To set eyes on one, they believed, meant instant death. They would not follow. Smythe went after the tracks, photographed them and sent the negatives to London. There, the experts gave their verdict. A bear. Smythe accepted it. The Sherpas signed a statement of their own. These were not bear tracks, they swore. They were the tracks of a Mirka.
In 1931, on the way back from Kamet, the British mountaineer Frank Smythe came upon the Bhyundar Valley in Garhwal. It would become known as the Valley of Flowers. In 1937 he came back. Six weeks, with no other Europeans, collecting plants high in the Himalaya. Three Sherpas went with him.