A Passage to Himalaya
 8185336970, 9788185336978

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THE HIMALAYAN CLUB The Himalayan Club, founded in 1928, is one of the earliest mountaineering clubs to have been established in the sub-continent. Its mission was 'to encourage and assist Himalayan travel and exploration, and to extend knowledge of the Himalaya and adjoining mountain ranges through science, art, literature and sport'. Today at the turn of the

new

that

it

century,

has

it

fulfilled

can be safely claimed mission with

its

considerable success. In

the pre-war years, every expedition to the

Himalaya and Karakoram was assisted by the Club members. After the ascent of Everest in 1953, there was a growth in the number of expeditions to India and Nepal and mountaineering caught on as a sport and inspired the youth to high adventure in the sub-continent. With this the role of the Himalayan Club has changed to an extent. Today the Club continues in its main mission by offering a meeting ground to its members - talks, slide and film shows are organised regularly. The Club offers scholarships for needy students to the courses run by the three mountaineering institutes in India.

It

has a

fair

stock of

equipment which it hires out to its members for a nominal charge and it issues to its members every year the Himalayan Journal and the Himalayan Club Newsletter. These publications have now been recognised as in climbing Himalaya, the Karakoram and the

the fore-most authority

in

the

Hindu Kush.

The Club has worldwide membership and can boast of most of the famous mountaineers amongst its members. The Himalayan Club welcomes members: trekkers, climbers, arm-chair travellers, or in any aspect of the mountains, can become members.

persons interested

membership, contact the Hon. Secretary in Mumbai)

(For

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2012

http://archive.org/details/passagetohimalayOOhari

Soil S.

Mehta

/" rwa Spires, Arwa Valley, Garhwal. Inset. Editors the Himalayan Journal (1928-2001).

of

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Edited by

HARISH KAPADIA

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS DELHI LONDON NEW YORK 2001

©The

Himalayan Club, 2001

Published by

Divyesh Muni, Hon. Secretary

The Himalayan Club Post Box 1905, Bombay 400 001, Web-site (Hon.

:

Sec.)

e-mail:

(Hon. Editor) e-mail

Printed by

S.

V.

India

:

[email protected] [email protected]

Limaye, Printing

Works,

Ambekar Marg, Mumbai-400 031.

42 G.

ISBN 019 565774 8

D.

India

www.himalayanclub.com

To

Members

The World

is

of The Himalayan Club

a Fine Place and Worth Fighting for (Ernest

Hemmingway)

CONTENTS Page Message from Chief of

the

Army General

Staff Trails

From

A New

Past

To Future

M.

Dr.

S.

S.

Padmanabhan

Gill,

President

Harish Kapadia, Editor

Beginning

xiii

xv xix

THE FOUNDATIONS The Founding of HC The Change. The Word Himalaya

G. L. Corbett

3

H. W. Tobin

5

Sir G. Corbett

6

Himalaya, not Himalayas

Soli

Himalaya

Kenneth Mason

as a

playground

Himalayan Nomenclature

Soli

Mehta S.

9

Mehta

9

12

NOSTALGIA Mountains and

rivers of

the

Himalaya: then and now

Jack Gibson

17

Murray

To Live and Learn.... Memories of early Kashmir climbing

Dr. Earnest

Recollections of an Editor

Margaret Body

W. H.

Neve

22 28 33

EXPLORATIONS Sikkim

thirty years

ago

J.

Destiny Himalaya

The Zemu Gap Picnic on a glacier

A

C.

French

45

H. Paidar

48

H. W. Tilman

53

Stephen Venables

58

-

Karakoram journey

THE RANGE Moderate mountains

for

middle-aged mountaineers

The most spectacular

Holdsworth

67

Romesh D. Bhattacharji A. D. Moddie

76

Mavis Heath

84

R. L.

flight in India

Babar's crossing of the Zirrin Pass,

80

1506

Hidden Himalaya vn

PIONEERING EXPEDITIONS On the Summit of Nanga Parbat Makalu - The happy mountain The South Face of Annapurna

I,

1970

Hermann Buhl

87

Jean Franco

93

Christian

Doug

Everest South-west Face climbed

Bonington

99 110

Scott

THE CLIMBS The ascent of Trivor Kangchenjunga Solo The Abseil Jannu - My Way

Noyce

Wilfrid

121

Roger Marshall

127

Voytek Kurtyka

134

Tomo Cesen

138

NANDA DEVI Nanda Devi Three mountains - and

Charles

Nanda Devi, 1961 Nanda North Face

Hari Dang Terry King

159

Ballad of Bethartoli

John Nanson

170

S.

Houston

145

148

THE TREKS Some

scrambles on the Dhaula Dhar

From

Kalindi Khal to the

Bhyundar Pass Three months

in

J.

0.

M. Roberts

179

T.

H.

Braham

185

upper Garhwal

and adjacent Tibet

Gurdial Singh

191

Ladakh, 1979

Aamir

203

At Thangman Glacier

M. H. Contractor

212

Broad peak and Chogolisa, 1957

Kurt Diemberger

215

Rescue on Devtoli, 1974

Harish Kapadia

226

V Saunders

236

N. Chukerbutty

247

Lute Jerstad

251

H. B. Gurung

256

Dorjee Lhatoo

260

Ali

ACCIDENTS AND RESCUES

Accident on Panch Chuli

V

A.

SOCIOLOGY AND SCIENCES Folk-lore in the

Rupkund region

Therapy mountaineering Aspects of the

snowman

Climbing Sherpas of Darjeeling Pahari Topi: 'where did you get that hat?'

W.

Vlll

M. Aitken

266

THE STORIES The two

A

griefs

Prophet of old

The hunt of

a Urial

Philip Woodruff

273

G. C. Clark

278

M. Das

282

P.

Henry Osmaston

288

Hugh Rutledge

Kenneth Mason

293

'A. K.' Rai Bahadur Kishen Singh

Captain Ward

294

Khan Sahib, Mian Afraz Gul Khan Mangal Singh, Kumaoni

Captain Ward

296

P.

E.

Thompson

297

Hawkins of India

P.

J.

Chester

299

The Har Ki Doon

J.

T.

M. Gibson

302

Three pairs of boots

PERSONALITIES

BOOK REVIEWS Exploration of the Shaksgam

and Aghil

valley

ranges,

by Kenneth Mason

Francis Younghusband

305

Coventry

306

Plant-hunting on the edge of the world, by

F.

Kingdon Ward

B. 0.

The gods are angry, by Wilfred Noyce Return to Sikkim -

Tibet,

A

G.

Sutton

Muslim H. Contractor

by Heinrich Harrer

308

310

Himalayan Tragedy,

by Nari Rustomji

A dream

J.

Soli S.

Mehta

312

of white horses,

by Edwin

Drummond

M. H. Contractor

316

Harish Kapadia

318

T

Braham

323

H. W. Tilman

326

Peter

Lloyd

327

M. Gibson

Aamir

Ali

329

Kenneth Mason

Trevor

Nanda IN

Devi,

by John Roskelley

MEMORIAM

Wilfrid

Noyce

Eric Shipton

H. J.

Adams T.

Soli S.

Carter

Mehta

H.

Braham

Jagdish Nanavati

Chettan

T.

IX

G. Longstaff

335

337 341

CORRESPONDENCE The

origin of

"Kangchenjunga"

Major Nandu D. Jayal and Guiness book of records Meola my name

Lobzang Chhoden and F. M. Baily

345

Gurdial Singh

349

Bruno Meola and Harish Kapadia

350

ILLUSTRATIONS Front Cover:

Aq

Tash (7016 m) rising above the

Back Cover: Looking Pass

to

Murgo,

'the

gateway

Saser La.

trail to

on the Karakoram

to hell',

trail.

Photos: Kaivan Mistry. Frontispiece:

Arwa

Spire,

(Inset) Editors of the

Arwa

Valley, Garhwal. Photo: Harish Kapadia.

Himalayan Journal, (1928-2000)

Pencil-sketches from Himalayan

Honeymoon, by Bip

Pares,

Hodder and

Stoughton, 1940. Sketches of members and Sherpas of 1938 Everest team,

by Christopher.

Appearing between pages 32 and 33 1.

Panch Chuli (22,650 ft.) from Base Camp, Sona gad. Right to ft. Points— 20,710 ft., 20,780 ft., 21,120 ft.

left:

Summit— 22,650 2.

Uja Tirche (20,350 4,000

3.

ft.

Himal from

Bethartoli

5.

Zemu Gap from glaciers, 12th

Zemu Gap from

7.

Snow 12th

the

ft.

on the

ft.).

and Tongshyong

1936.

Tongshyong

col between Talung

May

Kharak (12,000

the ridge between the Talung

May

6.

the Lata

is

ft.

ft.) from Camp IV at 19,000 August 1950.

glacier, 8th

4.

glacier,

13th

and Tongshyong

May

glaciers,

1936.

from

the east,

1936.

Head of Tongshyong Kangchenjunga on

glacier,

right,

glacier. Is this Boustead's 9.

The rock face

left.

Uja Tirche at 17,400

II,

The Panch Chuli (22,650

Upper Sona

8.

The north ridge on

ft.).

From Camp

N. E. Face of Jonsong

Spur from south-east ridge of to head basin of Talung

Col leads over

Zemu Gap?

Peak from Camp

I.

10.

Composite photograph of North face of Chombu.

11.

N. W. face of

Chombu from Tha Chu

Valley.

Appearing between pages 96 and 97 12.

Views north into

Snow Lake from upper

Brakk (Snow Lake peak) pass hidden 13.

the big

Lupke Lawa

Biafo glacier.

pyramid

distant

Khurdopin

left.

to its right.

Tower' (5979 m) on Biafo-Solu watershed. South summit on

'Solu left,

is

and main summit on

right.

Camp

14.

North face of Makalu showing route with

15.

Makalu, 27,790

16.

From

17.

The South face of Annapurna from base camp which was at 14,000 ft.

18.

the

ft.,

west face; Makalu

summit looking down across

The face

is

VI

25,120

II,

in centre.

ft.,

on

left.

the south-east-arete to

Peak

3.

about three miles away.

Haston on fixed rope on

ice ridge

— note

method of safeguarding

oneself with sling

below

Camp

19.

Climbing the

ice cliff

20.

Bonington at

Camp IV

21.

Bonington climbs fixed rope on flanks of

22.

Clough on

23.

Climbing fixed ropes on ice ridge.

24.

ice ridge.

ice ridge.

Clough warms mild

V.

hands over gas stove at

his

Camp

VI after getting

frost-bite.

25.

Everest South-west Face.

26.

Doug 1975.

Scott on the

summit of Everest

To his right

is

the

emblem

at 6.00 p.m. left

by

on 24th September

the Chinese Everest

Expedition in the Spring of 1975. 27.

Dougal Haston on Summit

directly

hand corner of 28.

Aerial view of

the last leg before the

summit with

behind him and the deep gap the

in the

the South

bottom

left

photograph being the South Col.

Nanda Devi

with

Nanda Devi East on

the right.

Appearing between pages 224 and 225 29.

From Camp

30.

Mani Mahesh and peaks

I,

looking south towards the Arete of 'Cream Roll'. in

Chamba from below 'Two-Gun

June 1937. XI

Peak',

and

Matte rhorn' from Dadh, October 1937.

31.

'Toral Peak'

32.

The Dhaula Dhar 'Matte rhorn' from Dadh, October 1937.

33.

June

27,

1957

the



'

Hermann Buhl ascending

South-east ridge of

Chogolisa, view towards summit. Accident occurred on cornice out

of sight below right arm. 34.

Camp

Evening at

22,800

111,

ft.,

on the west face of Broad Peak,

looking towards Masherbrum, 25,660 35.

Broad Peak, 26,414

ft.,

ft.

showing route and camps: view from

Ridge of Chogolisa. Left K2, 28,250

ft.,

Gasherbrum

right

S.E. IV,

26,000ft. 36.

Nanda Devi peaks seen from

37.

West face of Nanda Devi.

38.

Dharansi Pass.

39.

Climbing 'Pathway

to

Devtoli.

Heaven', en route

to

the

Nanda Devi

Sanctuary. 40.

'The Curtain Ridge', en route to the

41.

Route

42.

Rescue

43.

Waiting for helicopter.

Nanda Devi

to Devtoli. in the Sanctuary.

Appearing between pages 320 and 321 44.

Rishi Gorge.

45.

Geoffrey Latham Corbett.

46.

Wilfrid Noyce.

47.

Sir Francis

48.

Charles Granville Bruce, 1866-1939.

49.

Willy Merkl, 1900-1934.

50.

Prof Kenneth Mason.

51.

N. D. Jayal.

52.

Jack Gibson, 1908-1994

53.

H.

54.

Roy

E.

Hawkins.

55.

Soli

S.

Mehta.

Adams

Edward Younghusband, 1863-1942.

Carter.

xn

Sanctuary.

MESSAGE On

the occasion of the Foundation Day of Himalayan Club, I convey my greetings and best

wishes to

all

Members.

Over the years, the Club has rendered service in promoting mountaineering

yeoman

and continues to contribute actively in organising expeditions and sporting activity in

in India

our mountains.

am happy

know that on this occasion, a compendium entitled A Passage to Himalaya' I

featuring

some

to

of

Himalayan journeys

the finest writings being released. This both the sport and is

tribute to practitioners of the past. fitting

on a

is

its

I wish the Himalayan Club many more years of useful service to the glorious sport of Mountaineering.

U (S

X^ Jan 01

Padmanabhan)

General

From

the President of

TRAILS T*HE

The Himalayan Club

FROM PAST TO FUTURE

IDEA OF FORMING

Himalayan Club germinated

the

when

surroundings of Shimla,

Sir Geoffrey Corbett, a

took upon himself to give shape to the club.

It

was

in the apt

member

of ICS

the initial efforts of Sir

Geoffrey Corbett, Major Kenneth Mason and the Chief of the

Army

then that saw the Himalayan Club to

is

by Corbett

its

inception. This story

Staff

well told

in the first article here.

Like any other newly born organisation, the Himalayan Club too had to

undergo teething problems. Gradually, the office bearers and the local

were appointed

secretaries

at suitable

roadheads from where an expedition

would normally venture

into the mountains.

queries that people from

all

As

fame grew, so did

its

over the world sent

to the Club.

To

the

tackle and

disseminate the voluminous amount of Himalayan information and archive

commenced

material that the Club had accumulated, Himalayan Club

publishing several journals, primarily the Himalayan Journal, which

is

considered the ultimate source of Himalayan information today.

Over

the years the Club's activities gained

momentum, sponsoring and

aiding international expeditions, conducting slide shows, seminars, and proliferating the vast

Himalayan amphitheatre

mountaineering achievements. With

which

instituted,

had risked

this

to

to discover.

and honour

identify

aim, the Tiger badges were

outstanding Sherpas.

felicitated

world

for the

The Himalayan Club has always been quick

in particular

those

their lives to ensure the success of an expedition,

shown extraordinary courage

in the face

of the gravest of

bestowed with the Tiger Badge would gain

among mountaineering

instant

peril.

who

and had

Any Sherpa

fame and adulation

countries the world over.

With the mushrooming of more and more

local branches across the

globe, the Himalayan Club soon gained the status of a truly international organisation, fields of

known

the world over for

There are hundreds of

work

its

immense

Himalayan exploration 'through science,

relentlessly, solely

Each

year, the

contribution to the

and

sport.'

selfless volunteers all across the globe,

due

to their love for the sport

which has kept the Himalayan Club fraternity.

art

at the forefront

of the mountaineering

Club assembles some of the xv

who

and the Himalaya,

finest

mountaineers

and speakers from different parts of the world, lectures at various places, for

At the turn of

this

members and

century the Club has to look

looking for a complete facelift

changing needs, the Club has now modified several of

mountaineering film

After Independence,

Tensing

in the

when I joined

its

the

with

its

library

housed

in

Delhi

in

started with Soli

1961, after training with

Institute,

it

was

functioning

still

people like Trevor Braham later

moved

to

who had Mumbai

I must 'Mumbai Group'.

India International Centre.

at the

yeomen work done by what

to the

it

glory slowly began to fade as the

Its

in Calcutta left, including

Club

guided the Club for years. Luckily the Club was

pay a tribute

make

exclusiveness and

armchair mountaineers.

Himalayan Mountaineering

between Calcutta and Darjeeling.

Englishmen

reduce

to

is

enthusiasts, including

to

The primary

festivals, inviting guest speakers, etc.

concern of the Club presently

more open

earlier rules

its

memberships, mountaineering scholarships, holding seminars,

for granting

It

now new premises, and Mumbai. Responding

at the future. It is

terms of procuring

in

building an international standard climbing wall in to

and deliver

to address

the general public alike.

I

call the

Mehta, K. N. Naoroji and Brian Ritchie. Soon there

were others led by Jagdish Nanavati, who remained Hon. Secretary for 21

He

years!

subsequently served as President of the Club for 8 years.

Harish Kapadia also deserves credit for taking over from likes of Kenneth Mason and Soli Mehta as editor and continuing with the

Now

Himalayan Journal.

his

must compliment Harish and

Himalayan Journal,

done on the

mountaineering world recognises

Club

is

in safe

Hon. Secretary,

Tanil

On

known

occasion

this

expand out and

we

to

It is

they are

we must more

necessary

if

look forward to the

Himalayan

professionalism. like

now

salute tnem.

visible

one has

We

taking

The

proud.

all

The

future of the

Divyesh Muni

it

as the

new

it

the vigour

forward with

full

it

had

speed.

The Himalayan Club must grow,

changes without resorting

to

unwanted

to flourish in the 'information century'.

as a

new dawn

in the era

of

and challenges, along with a deep-rooted

concern for environment protection, for one and its

I

have made some positive changes

new millennium

travel, exploration,

Editor.

Rishad Naoroji and others.

revived the Club, but given

And

our young people.

will consider

publicity.

We

before.

Kilachand,

Hon.

tremendous work they've

which makes us

its

hands today with people

They have not only never

the longest rein as the

is

his colleagues for the

all.

primary aim, the Himalayan Club surges forth on

future.

xvi

With

this

its trail

agenda as

towards the

While I

have

I

am

to learn

an old member,

and hope

once General Patton lead that

new

you it

I

am

honour

a

new

continue to do

told his troops:

into the battle'.

will be an

to

At

so.

recruit to the

management.

While assuming command,

'Gentleman,

it

will be a pleasure to I

can say

team

into the

this juncture, in a different vein,

to lead the

Himalayan Club and

its

century.

Dr. M.

xvii

S.

Gill

From

the Editor

jS\

A NEW BEGINNING f f

Tll/HAT, ANOTHER BROUHAHA planned for the Millennium ?" T This was the expected reaction from friends who had attended many

too

'dos'

72 year old Club cannot

by now. But a

we decided

century without fanfare. So

to present

enter the

new

our members and others

with a collection of mountain literature as a memento. Printed here are selections from the best writings of the

Himalayan

Journal. But one must remember that the present volume has 350 pages. And these were selected from 56 (yes, fifty six!) volumes of almost same number of pages each. So the selections are choices made by a team of editors and finally If

what you

suggesting

what we have here

most

like

in the

these selections,

Electricwala has

and pen

to

I

am

grateful to

all

after guiding the Indian

as

President, has

its -

am

when

cannot be helped. For

Dam

S.

Aamir

for bringing in fresh ideas.

running around with paper

President of the

S. Gill, for writing the preface. Dr.

M.

S. Gill,

Mountaineering Foundation vigorously for 6 years

now

taken over as the President of the Himalayan

With

the largest

busy schedule as the Chief Election

his

democracy

celebrations and this publication lot

it

despatches.

in

ever could find time to do anything

do a

-

thankful to the ever-dependable

supporters and specially to the

a rare distinction!

Commissioner of

a fairly representative selection.

now done enough

deserve a mention

Himalayan Club, Dr. M.

Club

I

is

missing here

is

Aitken and

Ali, the brilliant writer Bill

Huzefa

HJ

his heart

is

in

else.

I

have always wondered how he

But he has guided the Club, the

with enthusiasm,

proving that

man can

it.

The Himalayan Club (HC) was founded on 17th February 1928 in the room of Field Marshall Sir William Birdwood, then the Commander-inChief of the Indian Army, and he was elected the First President of the Himalayan Club. And now, on 15th February 2001, a special meeting of the committee of the Club is to be held in the room of General S. Padmanabhan, Chief of Army Staff of the Indian Army, who is elected as the first Patron of the club.

over a

new

The

HC

has turned a

full circle

and turned

leaf.

Harish Kapadia xix

The Founding of

HC

G. L. Corbett

The Change

H.W. Tobin

The Word Himalaya

Sir Geoffrey Corbett

Himalaya, not Himalayas

Soli

Himalaya

Kenneth Mason

as a

Playground

The Naming of Peaks

in the

Himalaya

Soli S.

The Himalayan Club was conceived on Hill in

Shimla during a

Corbett, the

Mehta

first

talk

Mehta

the Mall,

between two British

below Jakko

officers. G. L.

Secretary of the Club explains

how

the

The Club immediately settled down to establish norms for visitors to the Himalayan range. The name Himalaya itself was explained and rules for naming new peaks were established. The first editor, Kenneth Mason, foundations of the Club were

laid.

and his successors established a high standard of publication.

^^v THE FOUNDING OF THE HIMALAYAN CLUB G. L.

CORBETT

MR.ClubDOUGLAS

FRESHFIELD

the Asiatic Society of

Bengal by Mr.

me

Himalayan was formally suggested to Drew and Mr. W. H. Johnson. And

tells

goes back so far as 1866, when

Mr. Freshfield himself, writing that at

in

F.

that the idea of a

it

The alpine Journal

in

1884, advised

our knowledge of the Himalaya might thus be extended. "The formation

Calcutta or Simla," he said, "of an Himalayan Club, prepared to publish

would The idea must have recurred to many, but it never took shape, not because a Club was not wanted, but because in this land of endlessness it is only now and then that the two or three are gathered together. The thing had hung in the balance for years when a chance talk at Simla tipped the beam, and the Himalayan Club was born on the path behind Jakko on the afternoon of the 6th October, 'Narratives of Science and Adventure' concerning the mountains,

be the most serviceable means

to this end."

1927. I

wrote

first to

Major Kenneth Mason of

had long cherished the hope of a Club;

to

the Survey of India,

who

also

Major-General Walter Kirke,

then acting as Chief of the General Staff; and to Brigadier E. A. Tandy,

seemed no reason why was with me heart and soul; Kirke that he would do anything he could to help; Tandy that he would help in any way he could. So encouraged, I went ahead. The Viceroy, Lord Irwin, the Commander-in-Chief, Field-Marshal Sir William Birdwood, and Sir Malcolm Hailey, then Governor of the Punjab, were among the Surveyor General of India.

the time should

first to

the

whom

I

now be

Survey of India;

who

was

diffident, for there

Mason

told our plans. Others

still,

replied that he

were Mr. T.E.T. Upton, Solicitor

to

Edwin Pascoe, Director of the Geological Major-General Kenneth Wigram and Brigadier W. L. O. they say, count for something among Gurkhas; Mr. G.

Government of

Twiss

I

fulfilled.

India; Sir

Mackworth Young, Army Secretary; and Mr. J. G. Acheson, Deputy Foreign Secretary. Mason meanwhile had consulted Major E. O. Wheeler of the Survey of India, and Captain

J.

G. Bruce, 6th Gurkhas. These were the

founders of the Himalayan Club, and

it

is

to their

confidence and sound

judgment that the Club owes its constitution. There were three others who had no claim to be members of the Club, but whose interest and advice

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

4

meant much

to us: the

Secretary, Mr.

J.

Foreign Secretary, Sir Denys Bray; the Education

W. Bhore, who included

in his

Department the Survey of

Mr. George Cunningham. was Denny Bray who determined the quality of our founder members: "What you want," he said, "is a solid core of men who have done things."

India;

and the Private Secretary

to the Viceroy,

It

We

proceeded deliberately, remembering always that

There were three things

that counts.

to

be decided:

it's

the first step

What should

the

Club

What should be its objects? Who should be asked to become founder members? The name of the Club was soon settled. "The Alpine be called?

Club of India" had been suggested, but seemed

whose

likely to scare those

was not high mountaineering; nor had we need to look for a name beyond our own great range. Almost from the first we thought of ourselves as "The Himalayan Club." It was agreed that our objects should be based on the famous definition in the Rules of the Alpine Club. But it is shikar that first impels nine-tenths of those who go to the Himalaya; and though we were unwilling to admit shikar as a specific object of the Club, we thought that our objects should recognise that knowledge of the Himalaya is extended through "sport," which would cover mountain climbing and interest

ski-running as well as shikar. In this

"To encourage and

assist

way we

Himalayan

arrived at our definition:

travel

and exploration, and

to

extend knowledge of the Himalaya and adjoining mountain ranges through science,

art, literature

and sport."

The list of those who should be asked to become founder members, was anxiously and carefully compiled. Our intention was to include everyone who had "done things" in the Himalaya; and if anyone was inadvertently omitted, I hope he will forgive and join us now. On the 20th December, 1927,

Mason and

I

sent out our circular letter, and then

apprehensively for the replies.

We

had never dared

to

we

waited

hope for such a

From all over India and beyond, and from the back of beyond, from Europe, Africa and America, replies came welcoming the Club and response.

making varied and valuable suggestions. Almost everyone replied, and almost everyone who replied became a founder member. Our 127 founder members contribute to the objects of the Club much that there is of Himalayan knowledge and experience. The Club was formally inaugurated at a

meeting held in Field-Marshal Sir William Birdwood's room

at

Army

Headquarters, Delhi, on the 17th February, 1928.

While we were still intent on our first step, we learnt that "The Mountain Club of India" had been formed at Calcutta on the 23rd September, 1927.

Mason and spirit,

and

I

it

took an early opportunity to meet Mr. W. Allsup,

was agreed

that the

its

moving

two Clubs should go forward with mutual

THE FOUNDATIONS

5

goodwill, and that the question of fusion should be considered

inaugural meeting of the Himalayan Club

At the

later.

was decided

it

to

ask the

Mountain Club whether it would be willing to amalgamate. A general meeting of the Mountain Club on the 14th December, 1928, agreed to amalgamate "for the benefit of the common aims of the two Club," and we are now one strong and united organisation. Allsup to our regret has now left India, but the combined Club will not forget how selflessly he advocated amalgamation.

We owe much

too to the Alpine Club, and in particular to Colonel

founder members, and

From

to

who

Alpine Journal,

E. L. Strutt, the Editor of the

is

also one of our

Mr. Sydney Spencer, the Honorary Secretary.

the first and throughout

I

have been

in close

correspondence with

them, and their ungrudging help and wise advice have never failed me.

Members of the Alpine Club who come to a warm welcome and all the assistance that

And it:

so the Himalayan Club

is

the the

scientist that

our knowledge of the Himalaya, its

peoples and their

expand; the

artist that its glories

may dream

of the

first

may

how

to

(HJ

Vol.

enjoy

life

rocks and glaciers,

may

living,

inspire fine pictures.

its

continually

The mountaineer

ascent of a thousand unclimbed peaks, the shikari

men

in India, hard

on the high

My own

and

hope

self-reliant,

is

that

who

may know

it

will

hills.

/Av

1929)

1,

its

way of

of record heads shot in nalas yet unknown. help to rear a breed of

we hope great things of map may be filled in; the

founded, and

the geographer that the blank places on his

animals and plants,

Himalaya may be sure of Himalayan Club can give.

THE CHANGE H. W.

TOBIN

UNLIKE

THE PREFACE

to

volume

xiii,

the presence

and

matter of this editorial requires no explanation but only apology for the shortcomings of an inexperienced editor. That issue, ably edited by

Wilfrid Noyce, worthy successor to Kenneth Mason, was, as he termed 'a

coming

alas,

to life'

number.

And

it

was

in truth a

promising

the swift evolution as independent states of India

brings in

its

train the early repatriation of nearly all active

it,

rebirth. But,

and Pakistan

members of

the

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

5

Himalayan Club. And the hitherto simple access

new

in the

states.

to the great

enjoyed only by those

India's northern borderlands will be

Consequently, unless, or

mountains of

who

will

mountaineering

until,

is

work taken

up seriously by Hindu, Moslem, Sikh, and others, the very raison d'etre of the Club will be no more. Nationalization of the Club or a

volume

is

\iv

tor all of us

given so

its

almost certain to be a final issue, which

members, and perhaps more especially

much

of their time and their talents to

a

member

its

hand

it

(HJ

better qualified

to another nurse,

will fall

Vol.

it

seems

its

that

a tragic thought

who have

creation and

The

life.

should be

in the

with up-to-date experience of mountaineering in and

from India, so the now officiating editor was only

someone

is

So

for those

that future production

Committee had hoped and planned hand of

mean production of

successor will

national editor and a national publication.

Journal by

it

became seems

to 'hold the

baby' until

available. Instead of his being able to

that the duties of

performing the obsequies

on the present incumbent.

14,

^/^V

1947)

THE WORD HIMALAYA Sir

GEOFFREY CORBETT

WORD Himalaya THE Hi-ma," snow, and

is

derived from two Sanskrit words,



means The Abode of Snow. Words similarly formed and similarly pronounced are "Devalaya," Abode of God and "Shivalaya," Abode of Shiva. In northern India, Himalaya denotes the whole range, or rather ranges, stretching from Chitral to Assam, "like a measuring rod of the earth." But in Nepal and east of "a-la-ya," abode; and





Nepal, each group of snow-covered peaks

which

is

it

is

called

a contraction of Himalaya, and a separate

group rather than

to the individual peak.

Himala or Himal,

name

Thus Brigadier

is

given to the

E. A. Tandy, late

Surveyor General of India, says that the Everest group is called Maha Langur Himal in Nepal, and that Mount Everest itself has no Nepalese name. Similarly Colonel Ganesh Bahadur Chattari, who directed the recent survey operations in Nepal, considers that the Tibetan is

name Chomolongma

applied generally to the whole Everest group or Himal, and not

particularly to the highest peak.





THE FOUNDATIONS

7

The common Anglicised pronunciation is Himalaya. But in recent years among superior folk to say Himaliya or Himaliya.

there has been a tendency I

happened

year to be a

last

member

of a committee of the Indian legislature

which included representatives from

all

parts of India,

and we suspended

work one morning to discuss the right pronunciation of the word from which the Club takes its name. There was considerable argument and divergence of opinion, which I should summarize thus: Northern India

r

..

Bengal

..

Southern India

at

Army

Hindi-Himalay.

Urdu-Himaleeya.

..

Himala or Himal.

..

Himaliya.

Colonel C. L. Peart, Adviser of Examiners

(1)

{ (2)

..

in

Languages and Secretary

to the

Board

Headquarters, was good enough to go into the

question, and he has sent the following note:

"There

is

no doubt

pronounce the

all

that Tibetans

first 'a'

and Hindi and Urdu-speaking Indians

long, though the last

named

stress

it

more than

the first two.

"The

real difficulty lies in the transliteration

Several Tibetans questioned by the Indian the

word

of the

as 'Himaliye' passing quickly over the

'Himalai' and 'Himalay.'

It

last

two

syllables.

Member of the Board pronounced 'i.'

Hindus pronounce

will be noticed that these renderings

it

have the

effect of making all the syllables of the word almost of the same length. The Muhammadan rendering is 'Himaliya' and less frequently 'Himala.' These renderings have the support of the standard Urdu dictionary, the

Farhang-i-Asafia.

"The rendering given by only be supported a,

the final soft

Sanskrit.

Army

Read

if it is

'a'

in

Platts

and other authorities, 'Himalaya,' can

read in the Hindi or Sanskrit way, that

being the sound that follows

many

final

is,

Himalay-

consonants in

any other way, say under the Hunterian system or the

system, the word would read Himalaya, which of course

"Plans' rendering,

if

read in the Hindi way,

is

is

wrong.

probably the correct

way

same as the commoner Tibetan and Hindu pronunciations given above. The difficulty of writing the word so as to ensure that the last two syllables are pronounced in the Hindi way is overcome for us by the fact that English people already pronounce these two syllables almost in that way. of writing and pronouncing the word and

the

we should follow Tibetans and Hindus in their Muhammadans is only reasonable, as the former are

"That not the

is

renderings and the inhabitants,

and therefore have presumably the proper pronunciation of the name.

If

— A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

g

that

so,

is

only remains for the Survey of India to bring the English

it

pronunciation into line with the Hindi pronunciation as given by Platts

and others, by placing an accent over the written in English,

i.e.,

"Under our present Army system which

of the word as already

the

word would be

written 'Himalea.'

an excellent rendering but would, no doubt, be violently assailed."

is

Peart's note to Professor A. B. Dhruva, Pro- Vice-

showed Colonel

I

first 'a'

'Himalaya.'

Chancellor and Professor of Sanskrit

at

Benares Hindu University.

He

writes: " 'Himaliya, with the accent

authorized Urdu or is

correct so far as the accent

also

on the second

is

so far as

it

on the second

Muhammadan

But the Urdu pronunciation

vowel a between

"The Tibetan 'Himaliye'

is

be the

concerned, which in Sanskrit and Hindi

is

syllable.

slurs over the

syllable, is said to

pronounciation, and the pronunciation

/

and

is

defective in

v.

a corruption of the Sanskrit 'Himalaya', the

a on each side of y being changed into i and e according to well-known laws of sound and change. The Muhammadan 'himaliya' nearly corresponds to the Tibetan 'Himaliye, syllable.

and 'Himala'

The omission of a

after

/

in

is

the contraction of 'aya' into one

some mouths

is

due

to the

absence

of accent on the third and fourth syllables. "In the Sanskrit pronunciation the accent falls on the second syllable,

much

with a slight accent on the final soft a, just so

pronounce

it

distinctly.

as

is

required to

Since Hindi and other modern Indian languages do

not require the final a to be pronounced distinctly or even indistinctly, there

is

only one accent, and

it

is

on the second

syllable.'

The sum of it all is that Himalaya is a Sanskrit word, and there is no doubt about the correct Sanskrit pronunciation. The English equivalents of vowel sounds are these

the



Hi- as in "him" -ma-

as in "father".

-la-, |

In is

as in "fur" or French "le".

modern Hindi

the final -a

is

ordinarily not sounded, and the world

pronounced Hi-ma-lay. I

have reached

this

Malaviya and Pandit

(HJ

Vol.

1,

1929)

conclusion with the help of Pandit

Brijlal

Nehru,

who

assure

me

that

it

Madan Mohan is

correct.

THE FOUNDATIONS

^/^^ HIMALAYA, NOT HIMALAYAS MEHTA

SOLI

1HAVE

BEEN

meaning

to

about this for some time Rahul in his book "The

write

Ram

now, but a recent paragraph by Prof.

Himalayan Borderland" places I

quote

"I

the subject in

its

proper perspective.

:

have used the collective name Himalaya (Him, snow, plus alaya,

home)

in place

of the

commonly used Himalayas, which

and a grammatical monstrosity. Indeed,

to use the

is

a double plural

word Himalayas

is

as

absurd as referring to Englishmen as the Englishes or using the word alphabets for two or

Himalayas phrases.

jars

It

is

corruption. In

more

letters

and characters of an alphabet. Moreover,

on ears accustomed

curious that all

it

is

euphony of Sanskrit words and

to the

only

English that the

in

name

suffers a

the other languages of the world, including other Western

languages like French and Russian,

it is

what we

in India

have called

it

from time immemorial."

(HJ

Vol. 32,

1972)

y^V

THE HIMALAYA AS A PLAYGROUND KENNETH MASON OF THE EARTH MANY PARTS They low low

today are in an unhappy state of

unrest.

A few parts are

are the

of the earth are

parts,

left unspoilt;

in altitude

and low

in outlook.

the loftier regions of the

among them. From time immemorial men have been

Himalaya

able to quit the

anxieties of their daily life in the plains and seek relaxation, pleasure, and

peace among the mountain solitudes.

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

10

The Himalaya

are

becoming

better

known

to the world.

The days when

they were visited only by survey officers, travellers, and sportsmen, escaping

from the heat of the plains, are gone. Every year more secrets are revealed, more hidden paths are trodden; and every traveller, maybe quite unconsciously, reaps where his predecessors have sown. Every new achievement has a long history of preparation behind it. A great summit

may be to

its

seen from the plains and fixed; a surveyor locates the approaches its beauty and pass it by; perhaps a

base; travellers remark on

mountaineer, unprepared to

Between

may

come

grips,

to

may

and the day when the summit

this stage

play about

its

many

reached

is

skirts.

years

elapse.

found Kamet; Adolf and Survey of India, in 1875, and Pocock surveyed its western flanks. Detailed reconnaissance began in 1907. Bruce, Mumm, Longstaff, Morris Slingsby, Meade, Kellas, Morshead, and possibly others, Richard Strachey, as long ago as 1848,

Robert Schlagintweit were next to see fixed its position and height accurately

it;

first

Ryall, of the

all

played their part, before Smythe led his party to a well-planned victory

in

1931.

So

is,

it

and so

None become nation.

it

should be, with other great peaks of the Himalaya.

the personal property of any one

Each subscribes

man,

still

less

of any one

his contribution to the ultimate object.

and nationalism have nothing

to

do with the matter.

A man

Nations

of one nation

may show the way, a man of another nation may reach the summit; a man may help towards success from an office in Simla ocjn London;

of a third

without the Himalayan porter no success

is

possible; all have contributed.

There has been talk of 'poaching'. Poaching consists of snaring things from another man's property. It is not applicable to the great mountains of the Himalaya. No man and no nation has a prescriptive right to climb any of the summits, except with the permission of those to

who

whom

they belong;

consideration than

shown his competence has a better claim to one who has not. In many forms of international sport

friendly rivalry

giving place to a passionate nationalism. There

though one

is

has

is

no

place for this in the Himalaya. There should be friendly co-operation between

mountaineers of

all

nations, though,

international high-climbing parties

One records.

curse of Himalayan climbing It

was held

for

many

owing

may be is

years by a

to

human weaknesses,

inadvisable.

the straining after high altitude

humble member of

the Survey of

who placed a pole on the summit of Shilla in Spiti, 23,050 feet, in 1860. He did not know the altitude, and we do not know his name. The modesty of the man who achieved this feat should be a lesson to modern

India

record-seekers.

(HJ

Vol.

7,

1935)

THE FOUNDATIONS

11

y^v THE NAMING OF PEAKS HIMALAYA

THE

IN

ATTENTION IS CALLED to the letter from Brigadier H. Surveyor-General of India, dated the

J.

Couchman,

October 1936, regarding the

1st

invention of names for peaks and other features of the mountains to the north of India, the full text of the letter

The Surveyor-General asks

that his letter

published in the Honorary

is

Secretary's Report for the year on p. 196, and

it

should be carefully studied.

should be brought to the notice

may

of travellers and will be grateful to explorers for any suggestions they care to make.

Names where

possible should be given in the local vernacular,

and English names should be given very sparingly. The words

local

vernacular are important. In an uninhabited area, such as parts of the

Karakoram, the use of

Balti or

Ladakhi should, of course, be preferred

to

the language of Kashmiri shikaris or Darjeeling porters. In his letter the

Surveyor-General asks that proposed names with sketches or annotated copies of Survey of India

maps should be

sent to

him

either direct or

through the Himalayan Club. Full reasons should be given for the proposed

names, with their meanings

names

will not

It is

to

in

English and the language adopted. Personal

be considered.

be noted that the Surveyor-General

for the adoption of

is

the sanctioning authority

new names. Geographical names have been given by

explorers in the past, a few of them with the consent of Surveyor-Generals, others without. class

is

when

a

The only knowledge

new

the Survey has of

traveller goes to a region

name is not known; in that case he sometimes suggests name has been sanctioned by the Surveyor-General

a

interests

name

of geography that future travellers should

as widely

known

some of

and reports

try

the latter

that a certain

a

new

it

is

one.

more

Once in the

and make the accepted

as possible in the district, so that that

name and

no other becomes current among the neighbouring people.

With the approval of the Surveyor-General, a small committee has

some time

names of mountains in Karakoram, and it is hoped to publish the results of the work of committee in the next Himalayan Journal. past been investigating the

for

the this

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

12

^^v Himalayan Nomenclature For the information of mountaineers climbing in the Himalaya and the Karakoram (perhaps the Hindu Kush) some guidelines on naming unnamed peaks have become increasingly necessary. The Editor of the Himalayan Journal therefore wrote a

letter to the

Surveyor-General of India, and for

the benefit of present-day readers reproduces

below the correspondence: 5 Oct. 71

'The Surveyor-General of India

Survey of India

Dehra Dun

(U.P.)

HIMALAYAN NOMENCLATURE Dear

Sir,

Volume IX (1937) of the Himalayan Journal,

In

the editor printed

a letter from the Surveyor-General at the time, Brig. H.

No.

letter

Mason.

As

I

291-T of 1st October 1936, enclose a copy of that letter. d.o.

editor of the

increasing

trend

J.

Couchman-

to the editor,

Himalayan Journal, I have felt concerned at the of expeditions towards naming peaks

indiscriminately, particularly with personal names. to reprint this letter as a

I,

therefore,

again provide guidelines in this connection to the leaders.

fresh letter shall

to print

it

in the next



it is

all

the

towards accuracy

more necessary in

that

You may

or even issue a this

matter and

volume.

The Himalayan Journal, as you know, references to climbing in the Himalaya,

Kush

own

on the policy of the Survey of India on

be pleased

wish

reminder to future expeditions and to once

probably wish to add some comments of your

I

Kenneth

is

one of the foremost

Karakoram and it

the

leads and guides a

Hindu

move

nomenclature, spellings and heights.

Leading directly from the last statement, it must be noted that the average climber in India suffers greatly from the lack of good maps.

do not wish, here, to argue on the pros and cons of the official decree and such restrictions, but would prefer to suggest to the I

powers-that-be through you, of the issue of sketch maps (as can be

found

in journals, but infinitely

more accurate) on

a sufficiently

THE FOUNDATIONS

13

large scale as to assist the practising mountaineer in his endeavours

and also guard against his temptation to reckless naming of peaks and their heights. The areas required are comparatively few, e.g. Kashmir, Kulu, Lahoul, Chamba, Garhwal, H.P. and Sikkim. such a suggestion should

If

fall

on

share the effort in every

way

fertile soil, I

we would

behalf of the Himalayan Club that

wish to say on

gladly undertake to

possible.

With kind regards Yours faithfully Soli S.

Mehta

Hon. Editor, Himalayan Journal.'

The following letter No. d.o. 291-T of 1 Oct. 1936 received from J. Couchman, D.S.O., M.C., Surveyor-General of India.

Brigadier H.

'As you are perhaps aware, the question of the entry of names invented by explorers and others for peaks and other features of the

on maps published by the

muntain systems

to the north of India

Survey of India

one on which there has been occasional controversy.

is

'The practice of the Survey of India

names should be entered on itself responsible, unless

least

indigenous origin.

in the

case of

Mount

It

in the past has been that no maps, of areas for which it considers

its

they have been found to be of local or

Everest, but

highest mountain in the world especially

when

at

has admittedly departed from this practice

the result

it

will

be generally agreed that the

entitled to special treatment,

is

was so euphonious.

In the absence of a

name, the old practice was to allot a symbol, and a number. This practice has, however, been

local or indigenous

usually a letter

abandoned on our maps

for

many

years except in the case of

which, as probably the second highest mountain,

is

K2

perhaps also

entitled to special treatment.

'This practice has had

two

results,

unfavourable. The favourable result

one favourable, the other is

that there has

been no

temptation to give personal names to peaks, the embarrassment of selection of the person to be so honoured has been avoided, and the situation, not

unknown, of the name of a peak being changed because its owner had lessened, has not occurred.

the reputation of

'The Survey of India will always be grateful to

its

predecessors

for this result.

'The unfavourable result

is

that

owing

to

absence of local or

indigenous names in these sparsely inhabited areas our maps are undoubtedly deficient in names. With the everincreasing growth of

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

14

Himalayan

travel this defect

is

becoming of increasing prominence.

'The position has therefore been examined, and that the

it

has been decided

embargo on invented, other than personal names, should be

removed. 'Invented

maps

names

be accepted by the Survey of India for

will

its

taking into consideration the following points: (i)

(ii)

(iii)

Lack of

local

names

Suitability of the

When

in the vicinity.

names.

applicable,

degree of currency among

the

climbers and explorers that they have already obtained. (iv)

Personal names will not be accepted.

'Suitability is difficult to define, but entirely fanciful or

names

will not

such as those

in the

Karakoram and

considered for adoption

at

'You will no doubt agree that

its

doing

so, either

the

Sikkim Himalaya,

will be

once. this

brought to the notice of travellers, and in

humorous

be acceptable. Well-known English names of peaks,

by publication of

I

change in policy should be would request your assistance

this letter or

by a reference

to

contents.

'The Survey of India will be grateful to past, present and future explorers for any suggestions they

language of the names

we

may

care to make.

As

regards the

should prefer that English names be

confined to the more popular climbing centres. In the lesser-known regions explorers are requested to suggest

names

freely after

consultation with the local guides or coolies-nalas, cols, glaciers,

and peaks

may be named

after

some

local pasturage or other existing

name, or may be invented with reference,

some

other distinctive feature. Such

in the local

say, to shape, colour, or

names should normally be given

vernacular and should be pointed out to the local people

so that they

may

the

more

should be given sparingly

readily gain currency. English

in areas

which are

names

likely to be unimportant

from a mountaineering point of view. 'Explorers are requested to report their proposed

sketches or annotated copies of Survey of India

maps

names with to

me

either

direct or through you. In sending in reports full details should be

given of the reasons for the proposed names, with meanings in English, and the local language adopted.'

(HJ

Vol.

9 and 31, 1937 and 1971)

Mountains and

Himalaya

:

rivers of the

then and

now

Jack Gibson

W. H. Murray

To Live and Learn Memories of an

early

Kashmir

Neve

climbing

Dr. Earnest

Recollections of an Editor

Margaret Body

Each mountain has an

history and as a mountaineer spends

much

time in the range there are nostalgic memories. This allows for introspection and the history of the range

observations. For Gibson, Garhwal

Kashmir was

attractive.

was

Murray uses

is

recreated by their

the playground, to

his

Neve

pen with grace whilst

And no sooner do you complete Maggie Body firmly take over. I was most impressed when I first heard her lecture on the writing about the various ranges.

the writing, than editors like

recollections of chasing authors

mountaineers chasing a mountain.

all

over the place;

like

y^x MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS OF THE HIMALAYA: THEN AND NOW JACK GIBSON

Then we

Now

trod soft along pacdandies;

on black topped saraks.

telas ply

The hills that then were green with trees Are barer now and scarred by land slips. The wood carved, stone roofed mountain hamlets Are changed to cement and corrugated iron. Pilgrims by tourists

now outnumbered

Pray with their feet no longer, but

Ride packed

The

By I

buses belching fumes.

in

river's blue

is

turned to grey

blasted rock and bulldozed debris.

miss the peace of yesteryear.

And

yet,

and

beggar's diminished,

yet,

The bear-scalped

farmer, goitered shepherd,

Children dying of disease,

Women

in difficulty

with child birth

Have schools and hospitals within their Wheels can replace the back for loads, The river's water will be stored,

And

roads defensive and for trade

Have changed

MY

reach.

the

ways of

life that

was.

FIRST EXPEDITION in the Himalaya, fifty years in 1937 when we were the first to climb on

John Martyn

ago,

was with summit

to the

ridge of Bandarpunch, and then to cross by the Kalindi pass from Gangotri to Badrinath.

This range had already been crossed by Shipton and Tilman,

but by another route unsuitable for laden porters.

We

from Mussoorie

who looked we engaged other load places when these returned,

after us

to

and carried loads

carries first in Mussoorie, in Harsil.

We

had with us throughout,

Naini Tal, the Sherpas Tensing and Rinsing at

high altitudes, and

and then

to take their

paid the porters Rs. 114 a day to carry up to 50 lbs and cover

17

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

18

up

to 16 miles.

There were,

we were

who would

told, those

carry up to

20 miles a day for 12 annas! As far as I remember we paid the Sherpas Rs. 2Vi a day, and the two months' expedition cost us each Rs. 80

lbs

700. In 1955 the

first

known

ascent of Kalanag,

Black

to us then as the

Peak, with Sherpas Pasang and Chetan and varying numbers of porters, the

Kalanag expedition

lasting about

40 days, cost us about Rs. 950

each member. The expenses of climbing were increasing, but were

-

for far

still

less than they are today.

now were

Other great differences between then and footwear.

Warm

and

boys mostly climbed

light thermal in

in clothing

grey flannel trousers.

We

all

walked

in

Boots for climbing were heavy and nailed with clinkers and, get them, tricounies. a pair of Henke's I still

to

It

was not

much

till

later that

I

gym

if

shoes.

you could

was able

to

import

Vibrams where moulded rubber took the place of

have these as

I

and

underwear had not been invented and

nails.

cannot find anyone with large enough feet (size 11)

want them. Any takers?

We

had crampons, but not those with spikes

we had no pitons. Climbing rope in those days was bulky and heavy and we never had enough for fixed ropes. Ice axes of course we carried for hard snow and ice. forward

My

at the toes,

last

and

expedition was in 1973, but as

this, like all

but three of

my

was with school boys, and these others were between 1937 and 1940, 1 have no qualifications to write

sixteen adventures into the Himalaya, three

of mountaineering 'now'. in

My

only experience has been watching training

rock climbing under Colonel Balwant Singh Sandhu

of Mountaineering tied to or

at

Uttarkashi. There

hanging about the climbers

I

at the

was astonished

— apparatus

Nehru

at the

that

Institute

ironmongery

enabled them to

climb vertical slabs or overhangs that would have been impossible early days; but that with

you have only

modern equipment

been insuperable

climbing journals

to read reports in

difficulties

in

my

to realise

can be tackled that would have

in the past.

Another great difference between then and now

is

speed of approach.

Then we had to get to our mountain on our feet. This would take a week or more and involved carrying food for both arrival and return, and this meant employing more porters. Today you can go far into the mountains by bus or jeep. This has the disadvantage and acclimatized as

The

we

used

great thing today

adventure to trek or climb

is

that so

many more

in the hills;

the rivers in canoes or inflatable rafts.

Adjutant of the Joint Services

that

you may not

arrive as

fit

to do.

Wing

are

and not only

When

I

moved by

the spirit of

to trek, but

come down

did this with cadets and the

of the National Defence

Academy

in

NOSTALGIA

19

October 1950 from Devaprayag, and then with other cadets

down

the Jamuna,

become

as popular as

Devaprayag sunk but

was

I

is

it

Hardwar.

to

1951

in April

never expected that White Water Running would

I

afraid

it

I

now.

come down

to

Ganges from

the

the boat (an inflatable raft) could not be

might be capsized.

know about

of rocks, but did not

wanted

I

knew

I

we could keep

reckoned

waterfalls.

looked carefully

I

of the river but could find none marked. To

make

sure

clear

at the

map

wrote to the

I

Survey of India, the Forest Department and the authorities of the Ganges Canal and asked them

None of them decided

did, but

if

We

had

to

falls

below Devaprayag.

and waited for a suitable occasion. This came

to find out

Dushera holiday and we was.

knew anything of

they

none of them could guarantee there were none.

I

at the

from Dehra Dun where the N.D.A. then

set out

go round the Siwaliks by Roorkee and Hardwar

as the

bridge across the Song at Doiwala had not yet been reconstructed after the rains.

We

got there in time to enquire about buses up the Ganges valley

were told

for the next day and

we

to

be ready to

hours

and we

full

to the water, to the

not believe their eyes. At

down

go

they

in

long survive. The

were soon

first

boat float to

in a

we weathered

men

to carry

Prayag where the Bhagirathi and hanging on

their dip

inflated the rubber floats, launched the boat

we planned

-reached Devaprayag at

to chains

we

being washed away by the swirling current. Here

to prevent their

let the

We

started.

Alaknanda meet and where pilgrims take

life

by 7 a.m. Accordingly

afternoon and enlisted the help of a gang of

in the

down

the boat

was

the bus

till

about 2.30

and

start

lined up early the next morning, only to have to wait exasperating

it

first

they thought

how

to see

far

and

The

set off.

we were going to it got, and when

locals could

return by bus

they realised

we would

not

100 yards were something of an adventure as

we

made

plain that they thought

it

rough patch with water breaking over the sides; however

that

and began

jackets, though

to feel

more

confident.

We

were

all

wearing

had we been upset the danger would have been

less

from drowning we supposed than from being badly bashed about. All the

same they were psychologically comforting.

We

swished

down

the gorge

through magnificent scenery, here and there between precipitous black cliffs,

and

at

great black

the water

humps,

was most

in others

it

occasionally got stuck, finding

main

current.

The

other places between high banks of shelving white sand.

movement of

Here and there

it

interesting.

At places

it

welled up in

swirled round in whirlpools in which it

difficult to get the boat

we

back into the

rushed over some great submerged boulder

and you found yourself dropping as much as three

feet

on the other side;

or going round a cliff enclosed corner you were thrown against the rocks

and had cliffs

all

but

you could do

came

to

to fend the boat off.

Twice we crashed

no harm, and each time our confidence

into these

in the

boat

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

20

We

increased.

dark

had covered about 21 miles by the time

— an average speed of about 7 m.p.h.

and eddies.

In places

were fortunate

in spite

began

it

to

grow

of delays in whirlpools

we reckoned we were going

good

a

15 m.p.h.

We

being able to land on a gentle shelving sand bank leading

in

to a little village.

Unprepared

for the delays

on the road

we had hoped

to

reach Rishikesh before night and had brought no beddings with us, and

we had

if

they would have been, like us, wet through.

quilts in the village, spread

We

borrowed two

one on the sand and the other over us and

huddled as close together as we could. The top one did not quite stretch

from one end

dew

fell

and there was a certain amount of tugging remember because I was at one end. It was cold and but it was much less cold and uncomfortable than it

to the other

during the night.

I

heavily,

would have been without

We

the quilts.

were off again early the next morning, expecting

by lunch. But instead of getting places

we

let

easier, the river

down on

the boat

to reach Rishikesh

became more

difficult. In

the end of a rope, one of us remaining in

it to ease it over rocks while the rest, on the side, hung on to the rope. Just below Laxmanjhula we had our most exciting moment. We saw a big drop in the river ahead and decided to land. In spite of frantic efforts to row to

the shore the current took charge and carried us into a fierce rapid.

We

estimated that the waves were three to five feet high and they filled the

boat so that

we were

sitting in

water up to our waists. Here

I

had better

describe the construction of the boat, an inflatable naval landing craft that I

had bought from war disposals.

of

wood wired

two lower

together so that

floats,

one

at

each

it

side,

Above, forming the sides of the

was covered by

Its

deck was of heavy

would

roll up.

and rested on the

boat,

into the boat. This sheet prevented the water

away. While fresh

from

I

tried to tear

it

up

I

floats

were two more

a rubber sheet to keep water

slats or battens

These were fastened

when

floats,

to the

inflated.

and the deck

from beneath splashing up

we had shipped from

getting

shouted 'Bale, bale her out'. The Adjutant,

a parachuting exercise, thought

I

was using

the expression

'bale out' in the Air Force sense. 'Don't, Don't, he shouted. 'Cling on.

Cling on'. Fortunately

soon emptied

itself

we

all

clung on, and the sheet removed, the boat

of water, and

we had

importance of inter-service understanding. The

learned something of the rest

of the day was peaceful

and beautiful, and as we slipped past the temples the people worshipping or bathing turned to look at us.

Though

the

voyage had turned out successfully,

I

hardly expected to

However the winter passed, misgivings were dimmed, the blood stirred in the warmth of spring and April provided another holiday for Holi. We decided to go down the Jamuna from where repeat such an adventure.

it

is

crossed by the Mussoorie-Chakrata road to the headworks of the

NOSTALGIA Jamuna

At

canal.

that time of year there

21

was not

a great deal of water in

were many rocks above the surface.

the river and there

places to ease the boat over them. At one place

at

down what looked

a harmless rapid

the force of the water turned

on

life

jackets and

of our clothes.

It

came

I

lost

we were overtaken by

Another upset

tied the boat up,

the boat got stuck

over and spilled us into the

it

no harm, but

to

my gun

had

to get out

fast

on a rock and

We

river.

and we

all lost

had

most

took us some time to repair the boat and collect what had

floated ashore, and the gorge.

when

We

we were going

in the

climbed the

cliff

house, two miles away, where

darkness before

we

got out of

dark persuaded us to abandon ship.

and found someone

we were

to

We

guide us to the

expected to dinner.

I

wrote

in the

Guest Book of our host: Jagut Shamsher Jang Bahadur

Kept a good

I

and a good larder

Sood and Ranu came to dinner Out of the night, and drank and

ate

Dry every

plate.

The next day we not',

cellar

Gibson, Uppal, Ombir, Sinha,

Till

bottle

and clean every

retrieved the boat and completed the voyage.

took us through magnificent scenery and to anyone

wake I

I

who

does follow

can promise almost unlimited excitement. But don't

suggested you should go, and I

T would

wrote, 'seriously advise anyone to repeat these voyages, but both

end

make your

will before

an attempt to describe the pleasures

in

One, a vanity, has been

making

in

are diminishing, but there are

still

first

I

tell

in

our

your mothers

you do

so.'

have had from expeditions.

The opportunities

ascents.

for this

many unclimbed peaks and numerous

new ways of getting up those already climbed, and one must always remember that mountaineering is largely a matter of luck with the weather. Valuable,

think,

I

is

the sense of satisfaction and achievement in reaching

one's objective, and this

with you, be I

it

is

young beginners you take

particularly so for the

a summit, a pass or just a trek.

have had enormous fun skiing, a sport that has not yet been

developed

in India. In the

often find, early in the day

summer,

when

heights above 14,000

ft

fully

you can

the sun has softened the hard surface of

the snow, conditions that are perfect.

mountain

at

I

suspect the time

may come when

huts, like those in Switzerland, are widely built for skiers

and

climbers.

Above

all I

movement,

have enjoyed just walking

in the

mountains: the rhythmical

the changing scene, the birds and animals and flowers. If

you

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

22

cannot afford the time or equipment for

There

difficult climbing, just

go walking.

no finer or better health-giving way of taking a holiday; and

is

remember when you do so not to leave litter, and refrain from spoiling and shrubs to make a fire. Take a stove and fuel with you. 'Then' there were few expeditions to the Himalaya and little damage was done in trees

burning the plentiful supplies of dry wood. 'Now'

we must

think of

all

those others.

(HJ

y^X

1987)

Vol. 44,

TO LIVE AND

LEARN...

MURRAY

W. H.

MY

ACTIVE CLIMBING LIFE

having come to an end, I thought to some vivid memories of past days. I went so far wrong road as to make a list of what these might be: the

regale readers with

down this moments of

and

their direct opposites

'Number your

insights:

'not

great danger, the hairbreadth escapes, the suspense of



exploration

red-letter

by summits (no time

when

there)'.

The long

second thoughts. Not only had much of

it

new

relaxation brings

days by campsites', said

Tom

Longstaff,

gave

me

been said before, but

all

length of the

list

mountaineers had had such experiences of their own, therefore had had

them more vividly than by hearing them again from me.

My

plan had been a mere beating about the bush, an evasion of the real which was: when had mountains taught me in a long life? What, if anything, had I learned of real value? Real, not just for me but hopefully

issue,

for others too?

once

to

The second, I

I

had of course learned a multitude of things.

mind, and two are enough for first its

thing

I

will explain these two, but first, let

'Nothing

is

impossible for the to

rose at

had learned was the value of commitment, and the

corollary, that all obstacles are imposters,

The words sound

Two

this short discussion.

me

glib,

me

say that

man who

I

and none impossible.

do know the aphorism.

doesn't have to do

spoken perhaps by one

it

himself.'

who had

not yet

discovered commitment's secret.

When

I

began climbing as a young man, one of the

to learn, if only

first

things

I

had

by slow degrees, was a proper irreverence for the pundits

NOSTALGIA of

my own

country, that

and

my

ice'. In

when

is,

me

they told

was impossible, or

time, that a rock-route

23 as they did

from time

else 'unjustifiable

early years on Scottish mountains,

began

I

to

under snow

to appreciate

the truth of Fridtjof Nansen's words, spoken out of his Arctic travels: 'The

which can be done at once, the impossible that which takes But I still had to learn their truth more thoroughly.

difficult is that

a

little

longer.'

In 1939, at

had found a friend

I

Westminster.

He

me

told

climb one particular peak

awesome bedroom

spoke of

its

hung on

his

feet of

unbroken rock

obstacles, his I





he was 14 his ambition was

to

Muztagh Tower. When he eyes shone. Sella's famous photograph

Karakoram

in

wall.

John Hartog, then a schoolboy of 17

in

that ever since

took one look

the

at that

monolith, nearly 10,000

— the thought came me despite lessons thought knew by Mercifully, embarrass held my tongue and swallowed my laughter — did not want impossible!

the

involuntarily,

to

heart.

I

I

the boy.

The north wall of

the Eiger,

which had

I

to

I

been climbed, looked

just

by comparison stumpy and practicable. Yet John was no wild-eyed youth.

He had commonsense and eyes and a quality of

an orderly mind. Behind his glasses were quiet

stillness.

a first-class brain, and

I

liked him.

seemed able

He knew

to relax in that

already that he had

awareness.

When

grew up, he would act with authority without seeming aggressive would also, I felt sure, grow out of his Muztagh folly.

The war with Germany

carried us off.

he

— and

When we were demobbed,

John

Oxford and soon became president of the OUMC. His boyhood dream was still with him. Sella's photograph still hung on his wall at

went

1

to

college, and

climb to

still I

my

discounted

equal to his Muztagh. taken

at

Two

all

thought of his acting, for he could not

standard on rock and (I

ice,

had not seen

and

I

reckoned

years

later,

return,

Michael Ward, being closed, a

Tom

I

photographs

was climbing with friends in Kumaon. Within a China invaded Tibet. That event sharply reminded

Bourdillon and me, that the old approach to Everest

new one might be opening, because Tilman,

autumn of 1950, had been allowed Houston's American party.

A new

to

go up the

Pathar, at six miles' range.

I

that

same

glacier with

its

west side from 18,000 feet on Kala

asked him what he thought. His reply was

unequivocal, characteristically terse: 'Impossible. I felt, I

Khumbu

reconnaissance of Everest from Nepal seemed to us an urgent

need. Tilman had photographed

1.

standard not

other angles).

month of our

as

my

his collection of other

was not unduly dismayed.

I

Oxford University Mountaineering Club.

knew

that

No

route.'

Confounded

no one could say such

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

24 a thing of

any obstacle without 'rubbing his nose against

nose was not six miles long.

am

I

unable to

same thing (inwardly) of

not been saying the

Meantime, the Himalayan Committee of the

side (seen

from the col

RGS

and

east of

Pumori)

up the

possible, even could one get

AC

2

glacier... the

I

backed Tilman.

report of the

do not much fancy

'I

Had

Muztagh Tower?

the

— they had read Mallory's

That was hardly surprising

and Tilman's

it',

criticise his opinion.

it

Khumbu

would be

western glacier and the

slopes above revealed one of the most awful and utterly forbidding scenes

came

ever observed by man.' Tilman's emphatic words therefore clincher.

They would

grant us no money.

£500 of our own, and on (The

News Chronicle had

that basis

I

So we each agreed

as a

to put

up

went ahead and organized.

offered us £40,000 on condition that

we

took

along a staff photographer, and a reporter with freedom to write as he

We

chose.

turned that

were unwilling

no

down

to suffer.

At

as likely to result in ballyhoo of a kind the last

moment,

the Times gave

Throughout,

strings attached, but too late to be of practical use).

we

£5000 with

we

had good moral support from the RGS.

One month

We

before

asked him

we set off, Eric Shipton had arrived back from China. He told me that he too had seen Everest's west side

to lead.

from the Pumori Col. and agreed with Mallory and Tilman from the

Khumbu

homeland...

Pumori

— but would come because he'd love

The upshot was, of

in late

we climbed on

course, that as soon as

September, and looked

full

on

— no route

to visit the Sherpas'

to Everest's

to

west face, the

route to the South Col lay plain before our eyes.

No

less plain rose that

major obstacle, the

to us all like a death-trap.

Hanging

Khumbu

icefall. It

seemed

glaciers draped the flanks of both

its

containing ridges. Judged by Alpine standards, the avalanches falling from these must surely rake the icefall from side to side.

I

could already see that

debris scarring the Nuptse wall had shot out to near the icefall's centre.

Could we long as

justly ask Sherpas to

we watched and

the advice given to

reconnaissance:

southwest side

We made

me

by

'My guess

much more

prone to avalanche.'

I

go there? Doubts

waited, no other ice-blocks

Tom is

Longstaff

filled fell. I

when he

that you'll find the ice

our minds. But

then remembered

first

heard of our

on the mountain's

viscous than that on the north, therefore less

mentioned

this to Eric.

He was

naturally uncertain.

three probing climbs to search that icy chaos for a safe route

through, and in late October began our final ascent of the whole icefall. 2.

The Royal Geographic Society and The Alpine Club.

NOSTALGIA Nearly a month of dry weather had reduced

25 snow-cover.

its

It

was now

in

an extremely open, rickety condition. The glacier seemed to have been

moving down upon a badly days.

It

unco-ordinated jerks. Less than two hours up,

in

looked as

if

shaken by earthquake. The upper glacier overhung the

lower, and between them a great

blocks the size of houses.

A

chasm had opened, jammed

I

here?'

felt terrified. I

tight with ice

glassy bridge spanned the nearer part of this

chasm. As we roped carefully across feet.

we came

shattered area, which had greatly changed in the last five

I

could feel

He muttered

Shipton did too.

trembling beneath our

it

me, 'We shouldn't be

to

agreed wholeheartedly. Quite apart from the blue depths waiting

The farther we went, became badly 'shot', with dark cracks running in every direction. When an ice-axe was thrust hard through, it was apt to meet empty space. (We were glad not to be wearing us, I feared still more more tortuous grew the

below

the Nuptse flanks above.

the

route.

The

glacier

crampons). At one passage through seracs, a giant

pillar, as tall as the

Tower of Pisa, leaned so far out that we expected to see it topple at any moment. We crept past, holding our breath. At last we faced the final wall. After two abortive attempts, a route to the top was cut by Tom Bourdilon. We had made it the way looked clear to the South Col. But not quite

—a



vast crevasse at our feet barred the full breadth of the glacier.

could do no more, and turned back. not be ours

— not today — but

its

We knew now

that the

day would come.

We

We

mountain could

had dispelled the

psychological barrier of 'the inaccessible' and the negative attitudes

engendered.

We

had found the key and could pass

it

on.

Our

upper glacier basin and to make a supply route up the would need aluminium ladders and much fixed rope.

to gain the

In

it

successors, icefall,

one long day of nervous tension, we had climbed up and down

without incident. Nothing had fallen from Nuptse.

No

serac had toppled.

Lrngstaff had been right as usual. Subsequent history has shown the whole obstacle

— so intimidating on our

first

an imposter, not impossible. Nonetheless, principal killers.

After that,

I

A

ascent it

my

to

be like every other,

has been one of the mountain's

wise climber has to keep

ought to have learned



alert at

lesson

every move.

— but my grasp of

it still

fell short:

We

live

and

learn, but not the wiser grow.

Pomfret's one-line shaft might have been aimed straight

at

me. Thus,

when John Hartog told me that he soon hoped to have time and money to make his attempt on the Muztagh Tower, I gave no positive encouragement. In 1956, now aged 34, he invited Tom Patey, Ian McNaught Davis, and Joe Brown, to join his team. That they were able to climb the mountain

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

26

notice that summer, with

at short

was due every

minimum

reconnaissance and no hitches,

He had

entirely to John's twenty-year research.

known photograph of

the mountain

in his

from ground and

possession

air at

every

Never

angle. Every written report had been collected, filed, and analysed.

before had an unclimbed peak of the Karakoram been so thoroughly studied

man

by a

trained to research from his youth. His

was

the first attempt by

any nation, yet he knew already that his best approach was by the Muztagh

and Chagarin glaciers, and

At

his

his first attempt, the twin

been a wrong tendency their great skills

most hopeful route the northwest

summits were climbe^ There

to give all credit to

and known names. The

ridge.

has, since,

Brown and Patey because

truth is that while they all

of

had

need of each other, the Muztagh had been Hartog's peak. His, the chosen

commitment, and so

route; his, the long-term

ascent.

He was The

conception.

principally, his, the first

the vital initiator, the linchpin and energy source in

route as climbed

time in Asia (AJ 1956,

HJ

was

1957).

It

technically the hardest

made

done

its

at that

history for another and better

reason: following the ascent of Everest and eight other 8000-metre peaks

by ponderous expeditions, mounted

at

high cost and manageable only by

use of army-type logistics, the Muztagh

seemed

new

to clear the

goal

It

air.

— not height

came

as a pointer to the future.

It

directed the climbing world's attention to the

for

its

own

sake as before, but to high standard

climbing on lower peaks, done alpine-style, by small, swift parties, and with costs cut from £100,000 or more to £4000 or

less.

The Muztagh story had begun with a schoolboy's dream. John Hartog was so unassuming that I forbore to scoff, but confess I had thought his dream impractical. This is an old, old story, which we all have to keep in mind that dreams are more potent than reason: that if you can dream a thing you can attain it too, as often as not. The pages of the HJ through the years give endless testimony. Dreams are for action.



That truth has a universal application, without

we dreamed

that Everest

limit.

When I was

young,

might be climbed one day without oxygen, and

were derided by the physiologists. We dreamed of space travel and planets, and were derided by the physicists. And so it plane. This year, in a debate broadcast from

to the is

moon

on every

Oxford University,

I

heard

who dreamed of man's union with the deity derided by the biologistphilosophers. We may all be slow to learn, but slowest of all are the men those

of science, raise

it.

A

when

they lack vision.

do not seek

I

to

abrogate reason, but to

camel cannot pass through the eye of a needle. Vision can.

There are many doors closed

in this

But for mankind, of which we through will always be found.

world

all

to a

handicapped

man

or

woman. Ways

are part, no doors are closed.

NOSTALGIA That brings

me

make our very

commitment.

to

first

When

27

three friends and

expedition to the Himalaya,

I

thought to

we were dreaming

in

Garhwal and Kumaon, but were not yet committed. Dearly as we wanted to go, we wondered: Could we raise the money? Dared we jeopardise our jobs? Did we know enough about Himalayan conditions? We dithered and delayed, but not too long. The great change came when with sudden resolve, we put down our money and booked our passage to India. A simple but vital act. We were committed. Our change in fortune was then so rapid, much of it through prompt help from members of the particular of

Himalayan Club, Until one

is

that

I

felt

moved

committed there

is

is

one elementary

this record:

truth,

all

acts of initiative

ignorance of which

countless ideas and splendid plans: that the

committees oneself, then Providence moves

moment one

and kills

definitely

too. All sorts of things

occur to help one that would not otherwise have occurred.

whole

A

from the decision, raising in one's manner of unforeseen incidents, and meetings, and

series of events issues

favour

all

material assistance, which no his way.

I

man

could dreamt would have

What you can

The Himalaya has commitment,

Vol. 50,

come

have a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: do, or

dream you

can, begin

Boldness has genius, power, and magic

(HJ

3

draw

hesitancy, the chance to

back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning creation, there

down

time to set

at the

is,

in the

finally taught

me

that

in

it.

it.

man, given single-minded

long run, not subject to impossible obstacles.

y\

1994)

MEMORIES OF EARLY KASHMIR CLIMBING Dr.

ERNEST NEVE

(No mountaineer who has

visited

Kashmir during

the last half-century

has ever appealed to our veteran member for advice or help in vain. Dr. Ernest Neve joined his brother Arthur, who had already been at the in Srinagar for four years, in the winter of 1886. They learned to know and love the people and their land; they carried hope

Mission Hospital

Scottish

Himalayan Expedition, (Dent, 1950).

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

28

and health to every remote village in the State; and, long before any Himalayan Club came into existence, they were the two fountain-heads of information to which all mountaineers went for advice. In the memories that follow, Dr. Ernest barely mentions his own achievements and claims no repayment of the debt so many of us owe to him and to his brother. - Ed.)

ARTICLE, 'early climbing' must be taken to end with the War EJ THIS 1914-18. Even so, impossible to draw a sharp distinction between f

it is

travellers

and explorers, such as Schlagintweit and Shaw, surveyors, such

as

Godwin Austen and Montgomerie, and sportsmen and

as

Mummery

and Bruce. All

in the early

climbers, such

days contributed to our knowledge

of routes, passes, and mountains. It

was during and

after the Indian

first

heights,

and names of many

and

that the Great Trigonometrical

lofty

and impressive peaks north of the Indus

Kashmir were then determined, and

in eastern

first

Mutiny

undertook the scientific survey of Kashmir. The position,

Survey

in

1861

Godwin Austen

discovered and surveyed such glaciers as the Biafo and the Baltoro.

This important work should have revealed the enormous potentialities of

Kashmir Himalaya for the Alpine climber. Yet, in spite of the splendid work done by the Government Survey, there still remained areas off the main valleys north of the Indus almost unvisited, and much further exploration was accomplished by such expeditions as the Forsyth Mission to Yarkand in 1878. W. H. Johnson in 1866, and Freshfield again in 1884 proposed the founding of a Himalayan Club, but it was not till 1927 that the Club was born and nursed by Corbett and Mason. the

In 1882, little

little

when my

brother Arthur

first

mountaineering for sport. In his

went

first

to

Kashmir, there was very

year he

made an

interesting

journey into the Astor valley and climbed the Alampi pass, obtaining

Nanga Parbat which he thought infinitely more impressive snow slopes and ice-cliffs of the eastern face of Mont Blanc.

a fine view of

than the great

Descending

to the

Indus

at

Katsura, he entered the wonderful gorge, where

below Rondu the peaks tower up

to the south to

on the other side Haramosh reaches 24,270 journey Arthur began those

first

and matured, were recognized

feet,

while

On

this

glaciological observations which, amplified

in

by the award of the Back Grant,

knowledge of

over 19,000

feet only 7 miles away.

1911 by the Royal Geographical Society 'for his

important contributions to our

Kashmir

the physical geography and glaciology of the

Himalaya'.

The was

first

that of

large-scale exploration after

Younghusband.

my

In 1887, inspired

arrival in

Kashmir

by the example of

in

1886

his uncle,

NOSTALGIA

29

Robert Shaw, he traversed the whole length of Asia, and from Yarkand crossed the main K'un-lun range by the Chiraghsaldi pass. to correct a topographical error in the

map

He was

able

of the Yarkand basin; for he

observed that the southern tributaries of the Yarkand river came down, not

from the Muztagh range, but from an intermediate one which he crossed by the Aghil pass; and that between the range and the Muztagh lay another long tributary of the Yarkand

On

river, the

Younghusband had stood entranced by

the Aghil pass

magnificence and glory of the view their to

snowy summits and

18,000

feet.

Shaksgam.

— peak

after

the

peak stood before him,

beetling crags reaching heights of from 15,000

Following down the Shaksgam valley and turning the

corner of the Sarpo Laggo, incredible height.

K

2

again

What an experience

came it

in sight, rising to

must have been

followed his daring crossing of the Muztagh pass, with

an almost

for him! its

Then

adventurous

and perilous descent.

Younghusband

visited this region again in 1889. Since that time he has

always been the most influential supporter and a valued adviser of the

numerous expeditions which have

visited these regions,

whether for

climbing the higher peaks, or for exploring and mapping the Muztagh

He was

range.

My

a pioneer himself of that fascinating country.

memory is of Conway, Eckenstein, and Bruce, who in 1892 way to Gilgit, and after some practice climbs reached the Hispar by a cross-country route and then traversed that glacier, some of them crossing the Nushik pass and others the Hispar pass. The latter went down the Biafo glacier to Askole and on to the Baltoro glacier, which has since been the operation ground of so many subsequent expeditions. Conway made

next

their

climbed 'Pioneer Peak'

(c.

23,000

feet),

with

its

glorious view of 'the

Muztagh Tower'. He would have liked to attempt Masherbrum, 26,500 feet, but the weather was too unsettled. From the north the summit of Masherbrum appeared fenced round by ice-cliffs and crags.

The extent to which this district has been subsequently explored is well known. My brother and I met most of the travellers in Kashmir. In July 1899 Dr. and Mrs. Workman visited the Biafo glacier and climbed on the Skoro La mountains. They mapped the great Chogo Lungma glacier up to its

sources.

Drew had

described this glacier thirty years before. In 1909

was the base from which the Duke of the Abruzzi made his attack on K 2 which presents an unbroken series of precipices and overhanging glaciers. Two attempts were made: the first, up the eastthe Baltoro glacier ,

south-east ridge, only reached an altitude of 16,000 feet; on the west a fairly

high col on the watershed was climbed. Judging

be impracticable, the

Duke

this side

of

K

2

to

next surveyed the upper basin of the 'Godwin

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

30 Austen

glacier',

and from the south-eastern ridge of 'Staircase' he examined

the northern side of the mountain; then, abandoning

K

2 ,

he moved

south branch of the upper Baltoro ice-field and set up a small the seracs

to the

camp over

by the Chogolisa saddle. From here, on the 18th July 1909,

hours of climbing

in soft

snow, he succeeded

after

reaching an altitude of

in

24,583 feet on 'Bride Peak', or Chogolisa. This was,

at that time, the

highest altitude reached by any climber. Farther east,

De

Filippi's great expedition of

1913-14 was splendidly

organized, with very careful provision for scientific research. Dainelli was the geologist and naturalist.

and the upper equipped

The upper Shyok

tributaries of the

party,

Yarkand

river

valley, the

Depsang

were surveyed by

plains,

this well-

to be omitted owing to was subsequently surveyed by Kenneth were given in the finest series of volumes

though the upper Shyok valley had

the outbreak of the Great War; this

Mason. De Filippi's results which has ever been published of

this region.

These were the high lights of my pre- War memories in Kashmir; but were many other journeys of great interest. If I mention my brother's, it is because the Editor pressed me to do so. In the autumn of 1895 Arthur crossed the Deosai plateau and visited the Shigar valley, making interesting observations and notes on the geology and former glaciation of the district. there

He ascended

the Nushik La from the south, hoping to descend to the owing to the lateness of the season, he judged the seracs and berg-schrund impassable. In 1897, starting from Kel in the Kishanganga valley, he made what was probably the first crossing by a European of the Barei pass, and descended through the little village of Paloi to Chilas.

Hispar, but,

In 1902 Arthur

known

was especially

attracted

by the Nun Kun.

Two

well-

climbers, Bruce and Lucas, had previously visited these fine twin

peaks, but had not had time to outflank the seracs. also skirted the massif and had photographed

and the Parkutse La. With limited time

at his

only able to reach a height of 18,000

feet.

The Workmans had

from the Rangdum valley disposal, Arthur Neve was

it

He

discovered, however, a

practicable route between the precipitous North Peak and the

Dome

Peak,

which looked quite easy. There appeared to be a good site for a tent at a point just above 17,500 feet, and it was here that Dr. Sillem, in 1903, acting on my brother's advice, placed a little base tent for some days and from it climbed to the great snow plateau between the two peaks. accompanied by Cecil Barton, my brother revisited Nun Kun. had an experience which might have had brave results. It was the end of July. The Gulmatonga river, above the junction with the Shafat river, was swollen by melting snows. Barton and two of In 1904,

It

was on

this trip that they

the strongest porters roped together tried to cross and

were almost swept

NOSTALGIA

31

away. They finally emerged on the other side, wounded and exhausted.

Rangdum

This happened some distance below the

Ascending from the Suru

river

where

it

monastery.

tunnels under the rocks at

Camp in the Sentik, my brother, with provisions, an a Mummery tent, crossed the Barmal,

Tongul, and establishing a Base

two days'

three porters,

found an excellent of D41.

By

11

line

up

and the weather so threatening their highest point they

of

Barmal La, and then attempted the ascent

to the

o'clock he reached 19,000

Dome

Peak.

These

activities

were

feet,

that the attempt

level with the

but the

snow was so

had

be abandoned. At

snow

had an interesting sequel; for

to

plateau at the west foot

in

1906 the Workmans

returned, and ascending by this route they placed a higher

from

plateau, and

In

1902 Arthur had,

in

camp on

climbed 'Pinnacle Peak', 22,800

this point

soft

the

feet.

Alpine Journal, pointed out a needed

the

correction to the map, regarding the destination of the great glacier flowing

westward.

When

once more

the

Workmans

disputed this correction

region, proving that the great

enters the head of the In these

Nun Kun

climbs

my

which these expeditions can be and obtained

first

Nun Kun

some

with a length of

15 miles

1

brother demonstrated the

effected.

He employed

economy with

seventeen coolies,

and eggs from Suru. The whole cost of two of them was under seven pounds.

flour, sheep, fowls,

the tour for the

The

brother returned in the

Barmal glacier flows from the outlying

Nun Kun massif, and Wardwan valley.

buttresses of the

my

and carried out some survey work

in 1910,

ascent of

Kun was achieved by Count

Calciati's party in 1913.

His beautifully illustrated book with delightful reproductions of his photographs of

this

mountain from

his

camp

at

20,666

feet,

views, was not published until 1930. Nun, however,

and of other

still

awaits

its

conqueror. In 1907 Arthur visited the

Karakoram. He travelled up the Nubra with

Captain Oliver, the Joint Commissioner for Ladakh, through Panamik and as far as

Gompa.

It

was from here

that Collins of the

Survey of India

in

1911 ascended Shelma and other peaks in order to triangulate Teram Kangri.

Oliver and

my

brother then turned up the Saser and

made

a careful

examination of the Murgisthan, or Mamostong, glacier and the mountain

K 1.

32 .

The

details of this little controversy are given inthe

Geographical Journal, Vol.

1920, pp. 124-7, in a paper entitled 'A Note on the Topography of the

Massif

in

Ladakh', which

I

wrote

at the time.

— Ed.

lvi,

Nun Kun

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

32

my

In 1908

brother joined Longstaff and Slingsby on a journey by

Dras, the Suru, and the Indus valleys to Kharmang, and over the Ganse

La

to

Khapalu. The view of the Saltoro spires

is

Ascending the Saltoro valley and turning up

one never

K

they looked right up the Bilaphond glacier, with the peak

Struggling over moraine they

camped

to

be forgotten.

a lateral valley to the north

at Ali

11

in the clouds.

Brangsa, over 17,000

feet,

and next day reached the Saltoro pass before midday. Before them lay a vast glacier,

which according

to previous accounts should

northwards

to Central Asia.

This was proved to be the Siachen glacier,

downwards

continuation

by Longstaff.

Sir

to the

much

advice and assistance. Longstaff 's excellent

sketch-map of the great Siachen glacier and

its

neighbourhood was a

valuable contribution. His tracks were followed by the

I

its

Nubra being subsequently demonstrated Francis Younghusband had shown much interest in this

expedition and had given

when

have been flowing

their surveyor,

Workmans

in 1911,

Grant Peterkin, made a careful survey of the

have noted some journeys

far afield in

Kashmir; but both

glacier.

in the Pir

Panjal, and in the mountains to the east and north of the Vale of

Kashmir

there are peaks which, although of quite secondary importance so far as

Himalayan standards of

altitude are concerned, are nevertheless of interest

who

to the climber, especially to those

more

cannot afford the time or

and extensive climbing. The summits afford an

distant

variety of glaciers, ice couloirs,

snow

slopes,

money

for

attractive

and rock.

Haramukh, towering up above the Wular lake, has several summits. 2 The 'Station Peak', the lowest, can easily be approached from the west by a long ridge, and was used by the Great Trigonometrical Survey in 1858. From it Colonel Montgomerie first observed K 2 In 1887 my brother and I successfully reached the summit of the western peak. It was not till 1899, however, that Geoffrey Millais and I made the first ascent of the .

outstanding eastern peak (16,900

feet).

We

used the Erin valley route, and

turning up a small valley on the right above the village of Kodura, pitched

on the western

a shelter tent at 15,000 feet

a.m. next morning,

we reached

made by Bruce some

the

years later

arete.

Then, starting

at

4.30

summit before midday. An ascent was from the eastern side. He found it an

interesting climb without any special difficulty.

Kolahoi, 17,799 is

2.

highest of the peaks near the Vale of Kashmir,

amount was made by Kenneth Mason and me in 1912. has been climbed several times since, generally by the same route, but

of snow. It

feet, the

also an interesting climb, varying in difficulty according to the

The

For a good

first

ascent

illustration of the

vol. xi, 1939, p.

185.

Haramukh massif from

the air see

Himalayan Journal,

u

3.

The Panch Chuli (22,650 ft.) from

Camp IV at

1

9,000 ft. on the Upper Sona glacier.

8th August 1950.

life

5.

Zemu Gap from

the ridge between the Talung glaciers, 12th

W«*>

6.

,

.re*-*

Zemu Gap from

May

and Tongshyong

1936.

^

the

Tongshyong

glacier, 13th

May

1936.

f&

7.

Snow

col between Talung

and Tongshyong

glaciers,

from

the east, 1 2th

May

1936.

4$&

8.

Head of Tongshyong

right,

Col leads over

to

glacier, Spur from south-east ridge of Kangchenjunga on head basin of Taking glacier. Is this Boustead's Zemu Gap?



,

«r

*

*W

.

-

9.

/V.

£.

Fare ofJonsong Peak from Camp

I.

10.

Composite photograph of North face of Chombu.

11.

N.W. face of Chombu from Tha Chu

Valley.

NOSTALGIA

33

once by a new route, the southern face, by Hunt and Brotherhood In the Pir Panjal range, Tatticooti, 15,560 feet,

Barton and the writer made the at

12,850

feet,

we descended

first

to the

we followed

the highest peak. C. E.

and climbed a 600-foot

with occasional traverses

summit. The Brahma Sakal peaks, beyond Konsa Nag,

end of the Vale of Kashmir, are

still

Camp

at the south-

unclimbed. The highest of the

three, 15,523 feet, is the nearest to the lake.

from a base

3

ascent in 1901. Pitching a shelter tent

to the eastern glacier

couloir to the north-east arete, which

east

is

in 1935.

The

writer attempted this in

on the snow-field about a mile beyond Konsa Nag.

No

was encountered until within about 200 feet of the summit, which was formed by a smooth surface of up-tilted strata at an angle of about 60 degrees; this afforded no foothold. The north side is sheer precipice. Further exploration may reveal a possible route from the south-east. special difficulty

Various other summits were climbed by

my

brother and myself in the

decade before the Great War, 'Sunset Peak', Rajdain, Sachkach; but there are

many

(HJ

Vol.

others

12,

still left

to

our successors.

^A^

1940)

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN EDITOR MARGARET BODY

THERE'S NOTHING

LIKE

cutting your publishing milk teeth on

was given Eric Shipton's maps to sort out and that was my introduction to the literary climbing world. The Shipton title in question was Land of Tempest (1963) and the maps that exercised us, as well they might, were of the Patagonian leecap. And from that experience I learnt the first basic fact of publishing climbers: they don't usually know where an icon.

I

the hell they've been.

Working with Eric Shipton on

Land of Tempest and

Untravelled World was a somewhat unnerving experience.

young 3.

to act the

bossy old party which the job soon turned

Himalayan Journal,

vol. viii, 1936, pp. 103-6.

I

later

was

me

That

far too

into,

and

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

34 he

a distinct impression that publishers' offices

left

were not

his natural

So our encounters were vague, delightful but disconcerting. I remember him telling me the famous story of how he absentmindedly left habitat.

Mallory's ice axe

handed brought

round

it

outside his Chelsea house and

in the street

in to the police

it

how

a passerby

and how the very intelligent local constable because he knew he was a mountaineering

to Eric's

gentleman. Nowadays they'd be measuring the length of the blade and discussing whether or not

was an offensive weapon. Working with Eric

it

was on top of the job, but was so charmed by him that I hardly noticed. Shipton,

As

can't say

I

I

I,

like

every other lady,

mapping problems, I was blessed with a marvellous calming whose finest hour had been drawing maps for Monty in the war and was now architect to the headquarters premises of Midland Bank, not far away from Hodder's office at that time on the edge of the city. So whenever I needed him, he'd just declare a site meeting and for the

cartographer. Uncle Alec,

come ambling round

When

I

to sort

me

out.

got an interview for a job at Hodders in 1961

rummaged round

the house to see

which of

their

I

books we had

naturally at

home.

There were only two. One was the Moffat translation of the Bible. Hodders

was always a good religious house. The other was The Ascent of Everest which we were all given at our school in Coronation year, along with a royal blue propelling pencil with ER2 on it. The propelling pencil ceased propelling some time ago. ER2 is still going, but one could hardly describe it as like a train. The Ascent of Everest however, had an evergreen revival three years ago to mark its fortieth anniversary and who would have thought in 1953 that so many people since would have climbed it by so many routes, skied

down

it

and parapented off

The reason Hodders got

to publish

it

as well.

The Ascent of Everest was because

Hugh Ruttledge and the book of the Everest 1933 expedition, the one on which they found Mallory's ice axe which Eric Shipton did his best to lose again thirty years later. Hodders also supported financially the abortive 1936 expedition and as a they had served a prewar apprenticeship with

consolation (quite a good consolation) got to publish Shipton 's

Nanda

Tartary, and the

Map, Upon That Mountain, Mountains of Everest Reconnaissance 1951 book before I got my mits

on him a decade

later;

Devi, followed by Blank on the

they also published the Bonington of his day, Frank

Smythe, and the medical missionary/climber Howard Somervell.

somebody wrote

a novel or

made

a

It's

time

Chariots of Fire-type film about

Somervell.

So when

the 1953 Everest expedition

scene by the worthies of the

was being offered

Mount Everest Committee,

to the publishing

there

was Hodders

NOSTALGIA row waving

in the front

was heard was

cheque book. Some wag

at the Garrick Club Hodder and Stoughton £10 a foot to get to So you can work out the advance. The actual publication

to say that

the top of Everest.

their

cost

it

famously rushed job for those days of hot metal presses. They

a

climbed the mountain

at the

end of May, and John Hunt didn't

in Llanfairwaterdine to start writing the

of

my

Hodder

first

impressive for

The came

first

staff of

make

could

Ed

to

first

in the

shops

Northumbrian called

November

in

down

sit

August (with the help 1953, price 25

print

Hodders received a Christmas bonus of £10 a head.

who

hero of '53

be drawn. But by I

The

I

work with him was

to

until

was 80,000 copies, which was pretty 1953. But they ended up with 639,000 copies in circulation

shillings (£1.25).

and the entire

book

boss, a redoubtable chain-smoking

and the book was

Elsie Herron),

I

35

now

up as

it

I

into Antarctica

had the nerve for

went along, just

I

Cambridge once

who by

myself met was Ed Hillary

like they did.

for a literary lunch.

my

Trained by

it.

It

the time

more maps of nowhere

-

to

Uncle Alec,

remember taking

I

was February and the week

before his arrival the whole country was paralysed by the sort of heavy

snowfall everybody expects in February, everybody that

were stuck

Rail. Trains

Well,

I

thought,

if

I'm

in drifts for

to

except British

is

twenty-four hours. That sort of thing.

be stuck in a snowdrift with an author,

I

couldn't

have picked a better qualified one than Ed Hillary. For someone

who

pipped Fuchs to the Pole there can't be such a thing as the wrong sort of

know what

snow. He'll

However, thaw

set in

I

to do.

needn't have worried, the day

and East Anglia was now flooded.

two hours early

for Anglia

when push came

TV

to interview

to shove, the local floods

we

set out for

We

Ed

them

-

before the lunch began. But

High

Street. That's

what a nice man Ed Hillary was and also sat there drinking gin for

There

is

the

all

two hours and waiting

when

for his

no contest for the most venerable of

all

moment

we

to perform.

I

ever met

to find a

first

all

discovered legs, as

the climbers

Everest (never mind climbing the thing) before the



terriers to

I

he had hollow

that

which was Captain Noel. Captain Noel had been trying went along

cameras

were out photographing firemen carrying fox

safety through thigh deep Thetford

the

Cambridge

in

were more compulsive viewing

than the hero of Everest and the South Pole and three of

Cambridge

had arrived

way

to

world war and

as photographer with the first British Everest expedition in

1921 and the Mallory and Irvine expedition in 1924.

I

met him when he

was ninety-nine, stone deaf and addicted to the telephone. 'Is that Miss Body,' he would boom down the phone to whoever picked it up on the

Hodder switchboard.

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

36

was

I

trying to bring out a paperback reprint of his

Everest which

Through Tibet

to

had discovered languishing on the Edward Arnold backlist

I

when Hodder acquired the imprint in the late 'eighties. (Up until 1933, when Hodder took over, all the main Himalayan books were done by Edward Arnold, though today their reputation is as an academic press.) Doing business with Captain Noel was not

As

easy.

well as being

stone deaf, he was notoriously suspicious of anyone trying to do a deal

with him.

decided

I

Kent

part of

I

had better pay him a

up around him. He wore a woolly hat but he

He

lived in the flattest

like

Compo

and

silting

sat in a wheelchair,

had the massive shoulders of a man who had blacked up and

still

way

forged his

from

visit.

an ancient bungalow with the debris of a lifetime

in

across forbidden passes disguised as

'a

Mahommedan

India'.

After we'd done our business he wheeled himself into the kitchen

where he had put out some cheese sandwiches on a plate which, Smith, he had prepared earlier. I put on the kettle. I noticed

like Delia

a

few

cat

bowls about the really revolting floor and, trying to find an easy topic on which to communicate, I asked after the cat. A great grin crossed his face and he wheeled himself in

what

I

frame and

in

flying.

'Oh

editor.

And

who

it,

shouted something

and

dived straight for the sarnies on the table, sending

I

I

picked those disintegrating door stoppers up off the

two of them. But

my

show me maps and photographs and said to Younghusband...'

It's

most memorable author Author

visits

reward was

to

the

have Captain Noel

paintings and say things like 'As

occasions like that

on the back of the neck with a sense of

Maclnnes with

filthy

them down and put them together again and back on

ate

all

Captain Noel. 'Never mind,' said the determined

cripes,' said

floor and dusted -

opened

through the door and the open window hurtled no less than

three large cats

plate

to the kitchen door,

took to be Tibetan, rattled his stick back and fore across the door

history.

It

make was

I

the hair stand

up

one of

my

certainly

visits.

of quite another sort were up to Glencoe to see Hamish

whom

number of books on mountain rescues (for more lighthearted expeditions, notably in the company of such worthies as Joe Brown, and Don Whillans. The first time I went to see him we were trying to fix a date on the phone and I thought he said he couldn't do that week because he was building a bridge for Monty Python. I put it down to a bad line. But I

did a

years he led the Glencoe team) and also accounts of his

I'd

reckoned without the fact that

at that

time no star of large or small

screen could climb more than ten feet off the ground in Scotland without

Hamish superintending what appeared

to

the activity.

And what

he was doing was building

be an enormously rickety moss-trailing bridge across a

NOSTALGIA Monty Python

ravine for to

to reach the

Holy

37

Grail, but

be solid and tensioned and secure enough

one

to satisfy the

of John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam,

that in reality

combined

had

insurers

Graham Chapman and

Eric

Idle.

What

I

remember about that first book was that when he showed Whillans, whose famously laconic dialogue featured pages, Don's response was 'There's too much bloody swearing,

also

Don

the script to largely in

its

youth...'

Perhaps inspired by verbatim reporting of also wrote one novel.

Death Reel,

called

the hero (he in a

was

life

Not many people know

with

Don and was

that. It

Joe,

Hamish

a ripping yarn

West Highlands with at the crunch moment power but with the heroine

set in the

called Cliff) drifting without

small boat towards the anthrax-ridden Gruinard Island.

I

remember

at

moment we realised we had lost a day in the plot. So while Hamish sat down to write himself out of this problem, I braved the Highland the last

midgies to go out and pick

all his

raspberries for freezing and the next day

he was off on the 1975 South-West Face of Everest expedition, of which he was deputy leader. In best

Hodder

Bonington and

tradition

we

merrymen

his

first

published the book about

how

Chris

didn't quite get up the South-West Face of

we published the story of how they did knew my way round the maps and topos.

Everest and then three years later it

in 1975.

At

least

by then

I

Chapter 14 was the problem for Chris. This was the summit push, the

most important chapter

in the

book. Chris couldn't write

it

at first

hand

because of course he wasn't on the summit push, so he had asked both

Doug

Scott and Dougal Haston to write their accounts for inclusion in the

book. Without any colluding they both wrote exactly nine pages of typescript

about

how we

got to the top and dispatched them to their leader. Chris

took one horrified look and posted the two versions straight on to me, saying

I

was

to

choose which one

when apologising

to use

and then he could blame

me

to the other illustrious climber.

This seemed to be a spread out on the kitchen table job to compare, contrast and discuss, as they say in

exam

papers.

When

realised a very simple thing, they had each described their

length by rope-length, so alternately

and

it

all

all I

needed

fitted perfectly.

to I

who just happened Doug wrote back at length

to

did

this,

I

lead, rope-

do was scissors and paste them did what

cosmetic tidying round the edges, and then of them

I

own

I

I

thought was a

little

sent the chapter to the pair

be climbing together

in

Washington

State.

with his opinions on the expedition and

life

and whither mountaineering, but generously approving what I'd done with

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

38

the material. Elliptical as ever, Dougal scrawled one sentence around the

edge of Doug's

epistle: 'Please reinstate the third rope-length

above the Rock Band.'

I

of the traverse

did.

was much The team members had to sign an expedition deal was first access to the team diaries for use

In those dying days of siege-style expeditioning everything

more

structured than

it is

contract and part of the in the expedition

today.

book written by

the expedition leader or designated other.

One of the better diarists on Everest 75 proved to be the youngest climbing member of the party who observed: 'For a mountaineer surely a Bonington Everest Expedition

can

is

one of the

last great

imperial experiences that

This of course was the opinion of Pete Boardman

offer'.

life

whom we

signed up soon afterwards, largely on the strength of that sentence.

Hodders published both The Shining Mountain and Sacred Summits and I

T

think perhaps the best

learnt

f

hat Pete had

his first '->ook. This

and

is

won

is

moment

in

my

the John Llewelyn

a prize

which

given for writers of promise

in

is

publishing career was

Rhys Prize

when

for Literature for

not limited to climbing literature,

any

literary field, at that time,

under

remember Bernice Rubens who was chairman of

the age of thirty.

I

judges saying

her adjudication that they had given the prize to Pete

in

because he had written a very good book and probably didn't think he did

know

into sustained

George B.

it all

right.

He

the

know it. I He was

took his writing very seriously.

in a big way and liked to model himself on He could have become the Noyce, the Shipton of our

metaphors

Schaller.

time, had he lived.

After Everest 75 there was an avalanche of expedition books which the line

I

tended to pursue

else with a great deal

at

Hodders. Ken Wilson,

more umph, used

to describe

my

who

is

did everything

authors as 'Maggie's

Teenage Ninja Climbers'. Though teenage was giving the benefit of various doubts to the likes of Jim Curran and Kurt Diemberger, two, whose names

one usually

tries to

avoid uttering

in the

same

breath.

Expeditions were no longer siege-style, so they didn't need so

much

money. The days were past when Barclays International saw Bonington up Everest, or Jardine Matheson saw him into China, or the illstart-up

fated

K2

expedition was launched with coloured balloons in the press

pack which rather bemused everybody because the sponsors were the

London Rubber Company.

What

usually happened

now

with wannabe expeditions was they started

with the extravagantly headed notepaper, then

if

they were really keen,

they got on to the expedition tee-shirt, and the expedition postcard.

somewhere along

the line they wrote to Hodders. That's the

way

I

And

acquired

NOSTALGIA Stephen Venables arrived in

my

Saunders

who

who was

and a

was convinced was

I

tie.

And

the twin of

then there was Victor

Tony Saunders because It was quite a relief

Venables' book.

in

was only one of them. Because,

there

Mick Fowler who

the only climber before

office wearing a suit

what he was calling himself

that's

39

delightful as he

is,

one

is

confusing

who could declare a site meeting at the drop of a hard hat. And there was Andy Fanshawe. The last time I saw him he gave me a lift in a very small car which was full of muddy spaniels enough. Victor was another architect

who'd been left there for a couple of hours and were delighted to see us. 'What a good thing you like dogs, Maggie' he said. And Alison Hargreaves who used to come in to the office with her two very self-possessed small children who would draw mountains on the back of spare printout paper with mummy waving from the top of every one. And Mick Fowler who proposed writing his book after Hodders had been taken over and turned into

something quite

else.

don't do climbing books

new

Mick Fowler,

just couldn't say to

I

sorry

sold the idea to

we

my still

bits.

of them

all

I

Hodders any more. So

The Secret Life of a Taxman. They are probably

masters as

looking for the dirty

But of

But at

was with Mr. Bonington,

it

as he then was, that

had the longest working relationship and the most satisfying,

in that

I

Chris

has always had a professional journalist's attitude to his prose and was

happy

perfectly

to

crux of each book,

churn I

a shift system. Chris

get up and start

work

my

but get into

out a'nd see

it

would go up and is

best

at five

first

for the

scribbling

all

Row

Row

walk

in

evening and work

my

Though

if

So he'd

Wendy was

off in

late.

Everything

up High Pike with

case, run in his,

Industries) and then back to

vegi bean salads.

At the

it.

thing in the morning, I'm not.

the dogs and Louise and Alison and Frances (the heroic

of Nether

over

and we'd work

or six but knock off by three. I'd start by nine,

stride in the early

would stop midday

me

stay in Nether

component

Keswick

for the day,

we just

might nip down to the pub and have Cumberland sausages on the

Once ground take

was asked

I

in the

him

to Bristol, Cardiff

I

We

and Swansea', said

home and

quiet.

on the road. They were thin on the

promotion department and editors had

'and then you can go ho',

to take Chris

parts

one of Wendy Bonington's

see your

Gower

to chip in.

my managing

'You can director,

aunties afterwards'. 'Right

said.

where we called into George's book shop underwhelming experience and then Chris was

started off in Bristol

which waj

a fairly

interviewed over lunch by the original freeloading journalist everything on the menu, ending up with a liqueur.

I

had

to

who had

keep an eye on

the time because at 3 p.m. Chris had an appointment with the local intrepid

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

40

female reporter to take her climbing on the Avon Gorge. The week before she'd gone parachute jumping with the SAS or something. This week she was going climbing with Bonington. So I had ordered a taxi to pick us up at

the restaurant at ten to three.

The

The Avon

taxi arrived.

Gorge',

I

said,

and off we went corkscrewing

we ended up Avon Gorge.

round the one way system of the posh end of Bristol and outside a very discreet private hotel in Clifton

What

did he think

'No, no',

I

said.

we wanted

do there

to

'He wants

climb

to

corkscrew we swooped and out

at three it'.

he didn't leave

it

on the

o'clock in the afternoon? the one

train,

I

were awaiting

had been nursing

way

Gorge where

to the grass at the foot of the

passed Chris the day sack which

I

called the

So back down

the intrepid female reporter and her film crew

that

-

all

us.

the while so

or in the book shop, or in the restaurant

And Chris tipped the contents out on the grass. Out fell his mothy old red longjohns, his boots, a large quantity of climbing irons. But no rope. And he was leading a beginner. 'Oh gosh,' he said. 'Wendy packed the sack. Never mind, 1*11 just borrow one.' And off he loped with an ingratiating grin plastered between his whiskers. He was back in five minutes with a rope which he'd borrowed off some innocent lads along the Gorge 'for just half an hour'. I expressed amazement. 'The camaraderie of or in the taxi.

the crags,' he explained airily.

What

a splendid phrase.

So they roped up and put on their mikes and set off up the climb with cameraman and sound recordist in attendance at a respectful distance, and I settled down to wait at the bottom. After a while the two climbers disappeared up into some bushes and then the rope stopped twitching and the

even

to

my

untutored eye

it

looked

'Is

local

there a road at the top?' the

TV

team, but

I

supposed

And

less than riveting television.

sound recordist was muttering that they'd dislodged he couldn't hear what they were saying either.

their chest

cameraman asked me. So we piled all the

so.

I

the

mikes so

said he

was

the

surplus gear and

Chris's suit into two cars and corkscrewed up to the top, but not before I

had had

this fleeting vision

to the police station

as Chris

Bonington and then had

worry about them

To

of two

and reporting

little

this it

lads I'd not yet

met

setting off

chap who was passing himself off

away with

their rope.

But no time

a non-practitioner

it

is

disconcerting

how

different a climb looks

from the top looking down, compared with from the bottom looking Picture the scene on that nice polite grass at the top of the the

to

yet.

cameraman, the sound

recordist

and the

editor, tiptoeing

peering over and calling 'Chris, Chris, are you there?

Is

up.

Avon Gorge: along the rim

there

anybody

NOSTALGIA there

Rather like a somewhat unrewarding seance. Eventually,

?'

-

41

found them,

The camera

under the

sitting just

The

rolled.

lip

we

of the gorge interviewing each other.

intrepid female reporter climbed

up over the edge.

Everybody kissed everybody. Well nearly everybody. And Chris gave the genteel dog-walking ladies of Clifton a cheap thrill by changing out of his climbing longjohns and back into his suit there on the grass. The suit was because

we were scheduled

to

do an interview

in

Cardiff in an hour's

time. 'Just

time to catch the

'What about the

rope,'

'Oh gosh', he

said.

So back down

the one

train,'

he said, throwing

me

a pacifying glance.

said.

I

way system we corkscrewed and

there by the

gents loo at the bottom, looking distinctly foolish by now, and not talking to

each other, were the young lads off

two hours

earlier.

We

whom he'd conned the rope over We took them to the nearest pub.

restored their rope.

We

plied them with pints and a signed copy of the phoned Cardiff and rearranged the publicity schedule.

That was when

I

what

realised

I'd

sometimes a softer option than being a

latest

book, and

always suspected, that editing

publicist. I'd

I

is

had an early intimation

some years before when I had to lead Norman Croucher, the so named climber with no legs below the knees, into the trap for This is Your Life. The set up was at the Sobel Centre climbing wall in north London and I remember the occasion not so much for Eamonn Andrews (as it then was) sidling up on us with his Big Red Book as for it being the first time I encountered Ken Wilson in the flesh. You tend to remember moments like that. of this aptly

Some

ladies

when

they get to their mid-fifties go in for something

HRT, Hormone Replacement Therapy. I had my own special treatment prescribed for me which was AWK, Amalgamating With Ken. For a brief heady time after Hodders took over Diadem, and before Headline took over Hodders, we worked in harness very well. Ken did his thing, I did

called

mine,

we

for the

batted ideas between us.

And

occasionally

equivalent,

Himalayan Climber. The idea

Ken's, and the execution and the design.

knock the

text into

As

Ken

far as

is

pictures colliding.

pomp

we

collaborated, as

Bonington picture autobiography Mountaineer and the Doug Scott

shape to

fit

concerned

So

I

the spaces

in

each case was of course

My

job in proceedings was to

Ken had

occasionally

left for

it.

text is the black fuzzy stuff that stops the

went along with

a dustpan

and brush behind the

of the lord mayor's show, sweeping up the surplus bits and enjoying

the experience hugely.

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

42

Working with Chris on

this sort

of magazine format book was

fine.

He

could produce the words easily and didn't mind them being massacred to

Working with Doug was

Words do come he has weighed each one and understandably grown partial to it. We did not make progress. Doug's three expeditions a year schedule didn't help. At crunch time we congregated

fit

the length.

come

not

at the

easily with

Wilson

Doug and when

stately

a different kettle of fish.

they

pad outside Macclesfield

to force the last chapters

Doug and Ken are two people equally convinced of the their own thinking. Which of them was the irresistible force

out of Mr. Scott. Tightness of

and which the irremovable object

I

wasn't always too certain, but the

conjunction was what American climbers used to

call

awesome.

Doug is the only person I know who buys king-size duty frees at the many airports he travels through during his jetsetting year, and then untravels them and makes them up into twice as many roll-ups. By day three the strain

up

all

was

telling

and there were fragments of ex-Rothman

over the various boilings

down

of the

Ken he was properly who wouldn't have smoking in the house. So

prepared to stand up to

with his head stuck out of the French

and I

I

worked on

in

text.

awe of Ken's wife

to

claim

windows of

that, like

Gloria,

he had to smoke these things the

room

in

which he

the text in the lulls between the editorial storms.

have always been able

roll-

But while Doug was

some

sort of lady vet,

And I

so

edited

Himalayan Climber through the Scott backside. Editorially, it seemed to work just as well as addressing the shaggier end. But the whole experience was exhilarating and the book was remarkably good stuff. And that, as ever, was the object of the exercise.

(HJ

Vol. 53,

1997)

Sikkim Thirty Years Ago

J.

Destiny Himalaya

H. Paider

The Zemu Gap

H. W. Tilman

C. French

Picnic on a glacier -

A

Karakoram Journey

Whenever you

Stephen Venables

are tired of going 'high',

remember some of the Be it be

lovely trips like the one described here by Venables.

Tilman looking across the thirty years

a

further' that

little

Zemu Gap

or the French talking about

ago (and that was 50 years ago!),

Sikkim

the sport and

it is

human knowledge

'always

are taken.

the call of the wild. Paider was pulled by his destiny to the Himalaya from a prison, with tragic consequences - nothing can stop you when the call comes. It is

y^v SIKKIM THIRTY YEARS J.

C.

FRENCH

September 1908 rM had never before

had

I

my

glimpse of Sikkim and the Himalaya.

first

seen the eternal snows. Though, like most other

I

members of the Himalayan Club,

I

have travelled and camped north, south,

and within the Himalaya, and pitched shall

AGO

I

forget the rapture of that

of the mules which carried

my

my

tent near giant peaks,

impression.

first

modest

kit

And

sounded

sweet music. The was no railway to

like

jingle started at Siliguri railway station, for there

Kalimpong

in those

days and motor-cars were

though slow, were sure.

by the

terrific

monsoon

A

still

never

the jingle of the bells

curiosities; but mules,

huge tree-trunk across the

track,

brought

down

even a complete gap, caused by the same

rains, or

agency, in a hill-side road, occasioned only a few minutes, delay, while the

mules scrambled round or above the obstacle; and the two days on the road to Kalimpong were well spent. Birds, beasts, and flowers, a semitropical luxuriance in vegetation,

and the most wonderful butterflies

in the

world kept a new-comer's attention constantly engaged, while the crashing of a herd of wild elephants in the forest stirred the enthusiasm of a novice in shikar.

was warned to beware of a one-armed Bhutia robber He was said to inveigle unwary travellers into talk, and then suddenly stab them with a knife stuck in the end of his wooden arm- 'a horrid man', as my informants justly remarked. As I At Kalimpong

who haunted

I

the Jelap La.

proposed, however, to keep a the wild

game which

I

rifle

constantly in

innocently believed to

my

hands, in readiness for

swarm

in the forests

and

mountains of Sikkim, the idea of a one-armed knife-man did not disturb me. Off

I

went from Kalimpong

to the

merry music of the mule-bells, past

whose caretaker was a white-bearded little Sikkim town of Rhenok. I posted

the travellers' rest-house at Pedong,

veteran of the Mutiny war, to the a letter there, and to

send the

Then came to winter

was amused

letter off

to hear a local resident adjure the

promptly, and not keep

it

to see

postmaster

what was inside

it.

the long pull up to Gnatong, 12,000 feet up, an abrupt change

from the summer of the Sikkim 45

valleys,

and a most refreshing

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

46

one from the steamy heat of

my home

Bengal. Next day

in

rode to the

I

Jelap La, a principal pass into Tibet, through a scene reminiscent of a vast Inverness-shire moor.

A

British sergeant telegraphist, stationed at Gnatong,

came with me. He had been with what

is

known

in the

Near East

Lhasa

the Mission to

of stories and reminiscences. In particular

full

in

remember

I

1904, and was his

account of

as the 'Desert Telegraph', the mysterious

swiftness of the dispatch of news. Shortly before there had been a murder

Tibetan town of Phari, some 50 miles away. The people of Gnatong were talking about it before he got the news by telegraph. in the

I

was lucky

my

in

day

at

Jelap La. In a clear cloudless sky the giant

peaks of the Himalaya stood out like a row of mighty sentinels, and straight

ahead Chomolhari, the sacred mountain of Tibet, shimmered

the flawless beauty of

its

then virgin snows. In 1931

I

climbed 20,000

in

feet

mountain, to the frozen lake which

lies at the foot of the peak of hope no one will challenge the figure of this height, as I accomplished the climb in a way which would surprise the Alpine Clubon a pony. A stout little local animal took me right up to the frozen lake, much to the amusement of the Tibetans who came with me. After my first sight of Chomolhari in 1908 I returned to the plains of Bengal with my head full of the glories of the Himalaya and of the strange mysterious

up

this

eternal snow.

I

lands of Central Asia. But, as

was usual

in those days,

my

traveller's

ambitions were considerably coloured with aspirations to hunt and shoot

whose home was in those parts. Trips in the Himalaya, except for shikar, were still considered eccentric. The Frenchman's proverb about England still held good: 'It's fine to-day. Let's go out and kill something.' the great horned beasts

My

next

trip to

Sikkim was

in 1910.

Darjeeling to Gangtok, a journey which

Then

I

I

took three days to ride from

now

takes half a day by motor.

by way of the Tista Sikkim in those days. I

started for the northern frontier of Sikkim,

valley and

Gyagong. Food was cheap

in northern

bought a sheep for the equivalent of five shillings

good mountain mutton

it

a high rock overlooking the boiling Tista river.

execution for criminals.

I

These Bhutias,

It is

in the

in spite

Gyagong, there

is

a traditional place of

neighbourhood. The Bhutias,

of their alleged inclination to

They form

who

inhabit

from the execution rock.

thirteen thieves to death

all

English money, and to

heard that some years previously thirteenTibetan

beggars stole some things those parts, hurled

in

way

was. At Tangu, on the

summary

justice, are

which came from Bhutan three hundred years ago. Of fine physique and proud of their lineage, they despise their a very fine

lot.

a clan

Tibetan neighbours of the north. Though surly and independent

if

not

properly approached, they can at will assume fine and even elegant manners. I

noticed this

trait

particularly

for 'a small advance'

when they came

from the pay due

to

to

them

me, cap

in hand, to

ask

for the use of their yaks

EXPLORATIONS

my

for

47

baggage. In their local affairs they were ruled by a magistrate

called a Pepun, elected by them.

They

was a most serious

affront,

When

I

left

Tangu

for

To

to

meet

in

general assembly,

turn one's back on the

Pepun

and the delinquent could be called upon either take the Pepun's place and assume the duties

pay a penalty or else to and responsibilities of his office to

used

all

as in the ancient Athenian constitution.

— another resemblance

Gyagong, on

my way

to ancient Athens.

to the frontier,

I

was

preceded by a procession of Buddhist monks and worshippers blowing the long trumpets, some of them 6 feet in length, which are a feature of Tibet, to scare

was

away

evil spirits. In

my camp

gloomy gorge of Gyagong I more from wing-tip, and cook's fire. Next day I camped on the in the

struck by the huge mountain eagles, ten feet or

which circled round the tent Sikkim and Tibet, near the Cho Lhamo Lake, in a warm and sheltered spot where the temperature at night was only ten degrees below zero and the wind, though it cut like a knife, did not actually lift things from the ground. I nearly missed this delectable spot, for I had ridden ahead; my Bhutia 'guide' missed the way, and I had the bright prospect of sleeping out in one of 'the coldest and windiest places on earth'. Next morning a herd of ovis ammon, the great wild sheep of Central Asia, came and inspected my camp from a neighbouring bluff some 500 yards away. With glasses I enviously admired the fine horns of the leader of the herd, 'the father of all the flocks of earth'. I could do no more than admire, for I was recovering from a recent accident, a compound fracture of my left leg caused by the kick of a pony on the polo field. My leg, though all right for riding, could only hobble at a walk. The ovis ammon seemed to know all about this, an example of the mysterious sixth sense so often displayed by animals, which seems to show them unerringly the absence of danger. But what would General Kinlock and other classic exponents of Central Asian venery say to a story of ovis amon, shyest and most wary of beasts, the 'blue ribbon' of the Himalayan chase, paying a visit to a camp? frontier of

Nowadays, of course,

this

shooting talk

is

out of date.

The modern

photography or cinematography of wild life. But shikar is not inappropriate of old-world reminiscences such as these. Also, of course, the animals to which I have referred are not real ovis ammon they are sport

is



sportsman's ones. Zoologically their

name

is

ovis Hodgsonii. But their

horns are large. It was during this trip in Sikkim in 1910 that I heard about the 'Abominable Snowmen', the subject of so much journalistic attention nowadays. An entry in my diary kept during the trip describes them as 'men who live on the edge of the snows. Sometimes they catch (human) men, who live and hunt with them forever. They seem to be like our

fairies.'

The voluminous correspondence on this subject has not mentioned in his book on Sikkim published in 1898. He

Colonel Waddell's account

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

48

mentions seeing seeing tracks

Sikkim

east

in 1896.

He was

advanced the explanation that as far as

no bear

I

am aware

known

is

snow on

that

— and

who

When

in

Sikkim

The brown bear of



the

unknown

in

Sikkim. So the

their place in the

correspondence

Sea Serpent and the Loch Ness Monster.

at the

Magistrate

in north-

goes very high, and even the large black bear,

'Abominable Snowmen' need not yet yield to the

Donkhya La

have been a keen shikari

I

inhabits a rather lower range, are

columns

the

were made by Snowmen, and they were bear tracks. But the difficulty is

so high up in the mountains.

Western Himalaya,

who

in the

told that they

in the

end of October 1910

Midnapore

I

returned to

District in Bengal,

I

my

post as Joint

was consulted on

trips

Sikkim by two fellow members of the Indian Civil Service in Bengal, Messrs. Buchan and Cullis. Buchan was a younger brother of Lord in

Tweedsmuir, the present Governor-General of Canada. Next year they crossed the Guicha La to Tongshyong Pertam and the Talung glacier.

Blackwood's Magazine of 1912 contains an interesting account of trip.

Soon afterwards Buchan

died,

and

in

1915 Cullis was killed

this

in action

with the Rifle Brigade in France. Their premature deaths deprived the Indian Civil Service of two singularly brilliant and promising members. In Darjeeling before the

me many In

1912

amnion.

I

met Mr. Douglas Freshfield, and he

told

returned to the northern frontier of Sikkim and shot an ovis

I

On

this trip

I

met Captain Noel, who subsequently took cinema

pictures of the attempt on

me

War

things about his great reconnaissance of Kangchenjunga.

Mount

Everest. In

Upper Sikkim

in

1912 he told

of his hopes of an attack on that great peak. But mention of Captain

Noel and Mount Everest introduces the modern chapter of Himalayan activity,

and may serve as a

fitting

conclusion to these memories of bygone

days.

(HJ

Vol.

11,

^^^

1939)

DESTINY HIMALAYA H.

PAIDAR

ABOUT noon when we arrived at Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim. ITWeWAS were coming down from glacier, the high mountains round the

Zemu

ignorant of what was happening in the wide world. Next day



it

was

the

EXPLORATIONS 3rd September

was

the

—we

learnt that Britain

was

49

at

war with Germany.

That

end of our second Sikkim Himalayan Expedition of 1939. Grob.

who was

of Swiss nationality, could leave for Europe and, because of the

kindliness and help of the Political Officer of Sikkim, Mr. B.

could take with him

J.

Gould,

our photos and films, but Schmaderer and myself,

all

being Germans, had to be interned.

we landed

After several changes of camp,

Dehra Dun,

at last at

Premnagar, near

of the Mussoorie Hills. That was in October 1941.

at the foot

was not until May 1943 that Schmaderer made his first escape, with Schuemmer. They made their way along the Jumna, but near Rajgarhi they were recaptured and brought back, after three weeks' absence from It

the

camp.

March 1945, twenty-three internees were ordered to be transferred to camp in Rajputana, among them Schmaderer. To be sent away from the mountains which meant so much to him was more than he could In

Deoli, a

stand,

and he escaped again, having arranged

him, three days

later.

A

away

to the refuse-ditches a mile

away on some

driver called

covered buffalo

down

with

The

little lazy.

and

as if there

but the driver noticed nothing a

I

should escape and join

camp

and, on 27th March, having had the

pretext or other,

tins, straw,

seemed uneasy

that

cart called daily to take the rubbish out of

boarded

I

by

filth

my

and was The water-

this vehicle

comrades.

were something unusual with

at all



it

was

gates were opened and

I

rumbled

out.

his load,

everybody

a very hot day and

Luck was with

me. Before the refuse-ditches were reached, the driver stopped, unharnessed his buffalo,

Two

The sun was

and disappeared!

no one was due

at the ditches until

hours later

I

met Schmaderer

in the

home was made for the

hot, his

4 o'clock.

I

Swarna Nulla, and

near,

and

jungle. that

same

we reached the Jumna by way of the Kara-su saddle. The first ten days we did our marching by night, in case of arrest. About what we took to be the 14th April we reached Nelang, a village high in the Jadhganga valley, and it was the end of April when we stood on the top of the Taganight

la (c.

18,000

feet), a

pass on the border of Tibet and India.

The winter

of 1944/5 was a hard one, and from 10,000 feet onwards paths and slopes

were snow-covered.

Our

tennis shoes

our rations were melting like snow of 16,000 feet to cross before

we

However, we reached Pulling and none too clean. unwilling to

we met

sell

were

in shreds,

in the sun,

we had no

boots,

and we had another pass

reached habitation.

at last, a

small village, typically Tibetan

The people were not very

friendly and at first

were

we needed so badly. But there and accompanied him down to Par, a more

us the fat and ghur (sugar)

the Raja of Tulling

congenial village where

we

stayed eight days, making the acquaintance of

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

50

Dzong-pen of Shang-tse, who travelled with a tea caravan to Shipki. put our few belongings on one of his yaks, and accepted his offer of

the

We

escort to Shipki, travelling through barren country to a pass leading to the

Ob, a tributary of the

On

Sutlej.

our march

we

visited Ri, a picturesque

place in an amphitheatre opening to the south on a wild and narrow gorge,

with a monastery and an old chorten with beautiful paintings on the walls.

From Ri we went

Chuse gompa down to Sarang, crossing the Sutlej feet) from where we marched down was the end of May when we reached Shipki, high

via

and climbing the Shiring-la (17,000 to

Mai-yang, and

above the

it

Sutlej with the rock

and ice-walls of Riwo Phargyul

in the

background.

On

1st

June

we

Nam-gya on

arrived at

that Aufschneiter

and Harrer had been,

We

decide between going

1944.

had

to

Indian territory again, to learn like us, escorted to Shipki, in

down

the Sutlej valley, with the

possibility of being interned again, or try Tibet a

have known different

was

war in Europe was and Schmaderer would still be that the

alive, but as

If

we

could

would have been was, our anxiety

it

we escaped down

away, and so that night

to get

second time.

over, our plans

the slopes to the

suspension bridge crossing the Sutlej, and in the early hours of the morning

we camped

in the

neighbourhood of Tashigang. Four days' forced marches

took us to Lari, the

had in

to carry

what

17,000

it

means

feet,

first

village in the upper Spiti valley.

we

our entire belongings so to take a load of

60

All the

way we

got plenty of first-hand experience

70

to

lb. at

and reminded us of our porters and

altitudes of 16,000

their

and

heavy packs on our

1937 and 1939 expeditions.

we

Schmaderer's idea was that

should follow the Spiti for some ten

days and then go eastwards to Gartok, but

this

proved

to

be wrong.

We

made up the Spiti valley as far as Dankhar, hanging like an eagle's nest among steep cliffs, and thence to Kibar, where the people told us the best way to Gartok would be via Sum-gyl. So we turned back to try this route, and bought a donkey

to relieve

At Sum-gyl we met

traders

Indus. Asking about the

way

our weary shoulders.

who were on

to the Bibi-la,

and dangerous, but our hearts were

set

their way to Trashigang on the we were told it was impassable

on trying

the mighty mountains of the Lidi valley, so

of the villagers' forebodings

to reach

we decided

—they even offered us

Nepal and see

to try

it,

in spite

rations for our return

journey!

Next morning when the waters of the Sum-gyl

We

crossed and four hours later pitched camp.

meal when from behind a small by another, and

later yet

hill

another

a



man

river

were low we

were preparing our evening

mysteriously appeared, followed

at last

twenty-seven

men

in all,

who

— EXPLORATIONS formed a

a half circle

around us

if

After an hour

told us that

and accordingly back we had

We

very ominous manner.

on no account could we proceed we did not return to Sum-gyl there would be trouble

spokesman came up and

Trashigang and

in a

51

to go.

next tried the road to Tibet without success, from Bartiok, and then

decided

to

abandon

objective

So up was our

plans for Nepal, and turn west for Kashmir.

all

we went again, by now the middle of July. where we found the inhabitants had all moved

Lari

the Spiti valley first

to

better grazing grounds,

to higher

and

and food was therefore not obtainable. However,

a farmer at the next village, Tabo, who had sold us cheese and tsampa before, and so Schmaderer decided to stop at Tabo and bargain for some food, while I continued to pitch our next camp, half-way between

we knew

Tabo and Poo. I went off about 11.30 and two hours later was climbing the little hill which leads to the camping-ground. From there I looked back over the route I had come, and about 2 miles off I could see three tiny dots moving, That must have been about the time Schmaderer was in my direction. murdered, because the three dots never materialized no one came to join me. After four or five hours of waiting I became very anxious, and went back to Tabo. I could find no trace of Schmaderer's footprints, his army



boots, heavily nailed, and everyone

had bought I

his provisions

and

left

questioned them, so often did Early next morning

again.

It

I

I

asked told

Tabo on

receive the

same

arose, loaded the donkey,

I

was not an easy path

to follow,

the



same story he As often as

reply.

and

disappearing as

and then

in the waters of the river, to the great

who had

to

place, there

me

the road for Poo.

it

set off for

Poo

does every

now

despondency of the donkey, in one

be forced through the flood. Under overhanging rocks, is

a steep bridge to ascend, dangling and

with the hungry waters of the Spiti rushing below, and

donkey over

swaying it

in the air,

was hard

to drive

However, at noon I reached Poo, to find that no one knew anything of Schmaderer he had not reached that village. A few women who overheard me sat down and started weeping, which alarmed me, as it is only customary in that land to weep for the dead, but I got no clue and had to return to Tabo. There I got the same replies as before, but with a new suggestion: could my companion have been drowned by the river while crossing it? It seemed incredible that a trained man like Schmaderer could have been drowned in water that was only knee-deep,

the frightened

this.



however

fiercely

reason to ford

it

it.

was flowing; moreover, there was a bridge and no However, I searched both banks widely, and the

neighbourhood generally, and investigation decided

done

after three

in this matter, and,

I

was

sure,

days of

fruitless inquiry

and

Something had to be the people knew what had happened.

had better return

I

to India.

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

52

time

In fourteen days'

The

trees

grazing on the heart;

I

whom we

were green and the apricots were

new

grass.

was beginning

to

set

I

up

a

had struck up a friendship on the

Tashigang was much nicer than

Pulling-Shipki march. June.

way

reached Tashigang, meeting on the

I

Tibetan from Sargong with

my

tent

ripe,

it

had been

in

and the sheep were

each evening with a heavy

doubt that Schmaderer would return and the

troubles and anxieties of the past fortnight be ended.

one day a Tibetan arrived

In the late afternoon

him

I

learnt the story of

fireside of the Tibetan

my

at

Tashigang, and from

we

friend's disappearance, as

sat

by the

from Sarong.

The informer was a resident of Lari and had picked up the tale on the way through Tabo. Schmaderer had been murdered in Tabo. He had let the natives see his money and valuables when he paid for his provisions, and they had then and there murdered him and robbed him.

names of the murderers,

demanded money,

When

I

asked

accompany me to Rampur and report the matter there. When I told him I had no money, as it had all been with Schmaderer, he disappeared and was not seen again. The friendly Tibetan from Sarong warned me not to trust this man and on no account to stay by myself at night, and one way and another I thought it would be best to push on to Poo' on the road back to for the

the Tibetan

to

India.

On

arrival there

I

told

my

story to the schoolmaster,

and the headman of Poo, Devi Chand. Tibetan as

Sonam

They

Neg Dharam Bag,

identified the suspicious

Chhering, a very bad character, a robber and a

were strongly of the opinion

that

Accordingly

possessions of value. Superintendent of Police

at

thief,

and

he was after any remaining money or I

placed a

Saharan, where

my

I

full

report with the

rested for a fortnight after

my

was up I was told that immediate action had been taken by the Deputy-Commissioner of Police, Kangra, while on inspection duty at Spiti. The culprits had been arrested, though two of them escaped afterwards, and one man, Raqzin Chherrup, was brought to Kangra, put into jail, and charged with the robbery and murder

journey there via Chini. Before

of Schmaderer. it

had been

By

A

rest

police-inspector of Rampur, Parshotam Dass, told

forty years since such an offence

the end of August

Camp Premnagar was

I

was

in

Rampur where

waiting for me, and

I

me

had been committed. the escort

from the

returned to Dehra

Simla, arriving on 6th September.

Nearly a month

Deoli, Rajputana, a sad blow, as

I

later

I

Dun

C.I.

via

was restored

to

missed the mountains, valleys, and

Premnagar camp so badly. During our internment we had monotony of seven years' imprisonment, and the greatest privilege was to be allowed excursions, as we were. In

woods of

many

the

privileges to relieve the

— EXPLORATIONS September 1946 when the

which

I

three

etc., in his

The

natives

saw

possession while he was

men followed him

repatriated,

to the steep

at

the

money, gold coins,

Tabo, and after he had

and narrow bridge on the way

There while he was talking they pushed him over into the

to Poo.

him with stones from above, and drowning him

killing

we Germans

got another light on Schmaderer's murder,

believe to be the true one.

I

and watch, left,

from Deoli were

Italians

returned to Dehra Dun. Here

53

in the Spiti,

river,

where

His valuables were found by the Inspector on the

they threw his body.

Tibetans at Tabo, and this story was told to a fellow internee while on

nomad he encountered who came down every

excursion, by a

year from

This story he had heard seems to record the ending of

the Sutlej valley.

Ludwig Schmaderer,

a fine mountaineer, and

my

friend and

comrade of

three expeditions. Peter Aufschnaiter and Harrer had escaped from Dehra to

Schmaderer and Paidar, vide

They

are

(HJ

Vol.

Lhasa.

still in

15,

H.T., vol. xiv, using

much

Dun the

to

Tibet just a year prior

same route

to the frontier.

Ed.

y^X

1949)

THE ZEMU GAP TILMAN

H. W.

WHEN

DARJEELING in April 1936 with some unexpected my hands I made a short journey to the glaciers south of Kangchenjunga, I had with me four Sherpas whom I was trying out with IN

time on

a view to taking

them

to

Pasang Phuta, Nuri, and



Pasang Kikule, Nanda Devi later in the year The first two were old hands and the others

Tilly.

complete novices with no experience of ice and snow. I

intended to try to cross the

and according

to

344-50, which

I

little

to prevent

article,

found by chance it.

In

May

19,276

feet,

from the south,

Geographical Journal,

vol. lxix, pp.

in the Darjeeling Club, there

seemed

1926 Captain Boustead, the author of the

crossed the Guicha La, went

Tongshyong, and crossed the gap

main

Zemu Gap,

an article in the

to the

down Zemu

the Talung glacier,

up the

glacier and back again.

The

were encountered on the two glaciers, which apparently resembled a road near the front line on one of the unquiet days on the difficulties

Western Front.

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

54 However, from

from the Guicha La

a photo taken

the ridge separating these

two

Zemu Gap,

between the Guicha La and the necessity to

come under

looked as though

it

glaciers could be crossed in a direct line

so that there

would be no

which was said

the barrage of stones and ice

to

play constantly on any party reckless enough to traverse these glaciers.

There seemed

to

be no insuperable

I

very nearly gave orders for

I

expected to return

by nature,

We

I

went

down

my

the

Zemu

gave no such hostage to the

difficulties

about crossing the gap, and

mail to be forwarded to Lachen, by which glacier. Fortunately,

being a pessimist

to fortune.

Guicha La by the valley

route, instead of the ridge-way

by Phalut, for the sake of the food which could be obtained thus lessening the

we were

since

amount we had

in a hurry,

made

to carry.

we

left

in the villages,

on the

1st

May, and,

march to Chakung, so avoiding This means rather a brutal first day,

a double

sleeping in the hot valley at Singla.

but

We

hired two ponies to carry our loads as far as Chakung.

We

left at

8.15 and arrived at 4.45 in the afternoon.

The

foot of the

Guicha La was reached on the 9th May, and we camped weeks and wood fuel for that night. Rice and atta

there with food for three

had I

to

be bought and carried from Pamionchi. In the afternoon of that day

left the

porters and

was fortunate

the Talung and

Tongshyong

the

Zemu gap

we

crossed next day,

is, I

went on up

to the

spy out the land, and

even

glaciers looked easy, but

is

at this

visited,

I

distance

and which

the lower col about a half-mile north-west of

On

it,

however, there

is

a cairn.

what

1

crossed the pass in an hour and a half from camp. The weather was

thick and

on the descent

it

began snowing heavily, but

snow slope down company with his

is

fairly steep,

load.

From

right

had taken the to cross.

The

and Nuri, one of the novices, parted

we

the foot of the slope

terrace of rock and grass covered by

moraine above the

I

we wanted

precaution of a compass-bearing to the saddle

the

to

The snow saddle between

roused misgivings. This Guicha La that

believe, the recognized pass.

We

Guicha La

to get there just before the mist.

snow of unequal

bank of the Talung

crossed a wide

depth, and reached

Here the clouds

glacier.

lifted,

momentarily revealing the opposite bank and our proposed col beyond

We

crossed in an hour, climbed the steep moraine, and toiled up a slope

it.

covered with grass and juniper, finally camping about 500 feet above the glacier at the highest water.

A

large herd of bharal

was

seen.

From what we saw of the Talung glacier it appeared wide and openroomy enough for us to avoid anything but an avalanche on a Kangchenjunga

scale,

had there been any slopes

avalanche, which, except

at the

to

head, there were not.

provide such an

EXPLORATIONS

55

The next morning the climb of 700 or 800 feet to the saddle in deep powder snow was tiring. The descent to the Tongshyong was over gently sloping neve, and we reached the glacier at 11 o'clock. As we crossed the perhaps half a mile wide,

glacier, here

it

started

snowing again, and we

steered for the foot of the ice-fall at the foot of the tributary glacier leading

up

to the

Zemu

maps represent is

Gap. Both Marcel Kurz's and the quarter-inch Survey

this as lying in a

bay

at the

not correct, for the tributary glacier

Tongshyong almost

head of the Tongshyong. This

coming from

the gap enters the

angles and half a mile or

at right

more

short of the

head.

This off

it

we were

steep and intricate, and

first ice-fall is

and take

to the left

to the rocks

—rocks

forced to traverse

which

had purposely

I

avoided on account of their slabby nature lower down. The easiest

would be up about 18,000

a scree slope feet,

still

time and trouble to find accommodation on a

The snow

men behind to the

fell

little

up

later

patch of rock

still

was very soon

all

middle of the glacier

and pushed on alone I

second one, and waited for the

clear

under

was

fine,

I

to reconnoitre.

left

the

Taking

worked up through an easy ice-fall, the men on the lip of a very bad crevasse.

of powder snow to break through, the going was heavy,

and they did not join

We

it

froze on the tents, so next morning, which

lot

at

throughout the night.

to follow

There was a

way

camped

nearly level with the top of the ice-fall, taking a lot of

of snow-trouble that was rather wasted because

snow, which

We

further to the left or north.

me

until eleven

o'clock.

roped up and crossed the crevasse and camped a

little

higher

at the

The heat and glare on this new snow, shut in between two high rock walls, was terrific, and it was essential to get some drink and some shade before having a look at this formidable obstacle. Owing to the nature of the ground and crevasses there was not much room for the two small tents, which were too close under the Simvu slope for comfort. Small avalanches kept hissing down, but all seemed to come to a respectful halt about ten yards from the tents. At an occasional foot of the last and steepest ice-fall.

louder roar the Sherpas would leap panic-stricken from their frightening

me

that

I

did the same.

It

reminded

me

tent,

so

of people popping their

heads out of a dug-out to ask, 'Where did that one go?'

These alarms ceased about three o'clock, and now, feeling stronger, kicked and cut up the

ice-fall for

about 100

feet.

Here

I

came upon

I

a

doubtful bridge over a large crevasse leading to an amazingly steep icewall which would obviously take a long time to climb, and, after casting

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

56

about vainly for an easier alternative,

bad

was

bit there

we had caught

me

we could

ice, a

when

work

the sun got to

was doubtful whether

snow

final wall

it

frail

this

a big staircase

Above

that

From

— and here

it

it

we

could see the It

was

this top plateau,

was beyond

the strength

got safety over the two bad crevasses, so

down while

turned and hurried

I

However,

cut.



a short slope of

perhaps 200 or 300 yards away up a gentle snow slope.

way could have been weak party, even had we

we

not hold.

bridge over a deep crevasse

led to yet another bridged crevasse.

Pasang and

We

beyond

snow covering would

would support a laden man

expect a

lower

the

100 feet high and very steep, but, from a camp on

at least I

we hacked

job which took us two hours.

Followed the crossing of a horribly

of our

that

kick steps, but there only a few inches of snow over ice and

realized that

soft

knew

appeared impregnable.

it,

next morning and together

of steep

thirty feet

I

top of the gap a final ice-wall which, whenever

a glimpse of

Pasang joined

up the

at the

morrow. Though

this for the

I left

seemed imminent, because

loath to give in, defeat

the going

was good.

packed up and went down, taking the rocks on the north side of the ice-fall

which we had funked on the way up



because to get off the rocks on to the Tongshyong glacier

justifiably, too,

we had

to

rope

down.

Camp was

pitched on the glacier, and in the evening

towards the head of I

had read

that

The Zemu Gap

it.

half believed a mistake had been

I

I

walked up

differed so widely from the account

made and

that the

genuine gap lay concealed behind some corner near the head of the

Tongshyong. There was, however, no other break

in the

mighty south-east

ridge of Kangchenjunga, and the low, easy col at the head of the glacier

obviously led over into the wide bay

at the

head of the Talung.

Is

it

when Captain Boustead was Zemu Gap?

possible that, in the thick weather prevailing

had been mistaken for the

here, this It

was

a glorious

morning on the 14th when we walked down the

Tongshyong. The rough surface of the glacier was now buried under a

smooth carpet of frozen snow, and we walk

glacier

I

the Talung and perhaps stones

(though course

We

we

it

strolled

down

have ever had. The Tongshyong

neither

would be impossible

proceeded

fall

to get

to get hit.

down

down

from

any), but

to the junction of the

having some trouble bank, and went

do

saw nor heard

it

enjoying the easiest

is

probably narrower than

its

steep containing walls

by steering a reasonably central

It is

not less than 500 yards wide.

Tongshyong and Talung streams,

an exceedingly high and steep moraine

the Talung

Chu

to

Mangen,

in the Tista valley,

EXPLORATIONS where we arrived on the

There

19th.

57

not space, nor would

is

value, to describe the route in great detail, for the country

one who goes there

Passanram



at

seems good

will take the line that

the line of least resistance. valley, but

The

forest

is

is

much

such that any

— probably

him

to

be of

it

very dense until opposite the

one repeatedly comes upon traces of native hunters

times a faint path, marks of a kukri, a snare, bridges. The bridges

are the key, because at

many

points one

becomes

bank or the other

impassable, and the river cannot be crossed without a bridge.

We

started going

down

we found

a snare and a dead

were driven off bridge.

buck

in

left

path, but late that

we camped. Here

At midday of the second day we

it.

bank and found both a snow bridge and a natural rock

this

We camped

Pandim stream,

was no

bank, where

the right bank. There

evening a single pine-log took us to the

that night

called

two miles

(it

took four hours) short of the

on Kurz's map the Ranghep Chu. The

gave us a ten-hour bush crawl along the right bank, midges, and leeches doing

On to

picked up a track which took us to rickety three-span

where an hour was spent roping the loads

be atrocious until

the right built,

bank

until

we

over.

The going continued it, and went down

spotted another bridge, crossed

4 p.m. Here there was another bridge, only recently

and we crossed and camped. Only a mile had been made good.

Crossing

we

day

their best to enliven the proceedings.

we

the 17th

bridge,

third

tree-ticks,

this

bridge was a false move, as no progress was possible, so

recrossed and picked up a path. At 10 a.m.

we came

to

what

is

probably Bontong on the map, a maize-field but no dwelling-place. Sakyong, the first village,

was reached an hour

later.

From here there is a we camped by the

indescribably poor one}\ and after a long day

about 4,000 this

low

feet, in a

Vol.

9,

1937)

at

were higher up. Passing through Laben and

Ranglu, after which the path improves,

(HJ

river, at

cardamom-field. There seemed to be fewer pests

level than there

the 19th.

path, an

we

reached

Mangen

at 3

p.m. on

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

58

^^>x ON A GLACIER — A KARAKORAM JOURNEY PICNIC

STEPHEN VENABLES

DICK RENSHAW and visited the Malangutti glacier in IN:he 1984 Shimshal valley. Bad weather prevented any really significant I

climbing and our stockpile of heavy, unused equipment ruled out the kind of long distance wandering which would have compensated for the lack of

good summits.

In

1987

I

hoped

to rectify these mistakes, travelling light,

covering long distances, whatever the weather, and seeing some of

immense

this

glacier wilderness to the southwest of Shimshal, right at the

heart of the Karakoram.

from Skardu, head for Snow Lake and walk out Of course the idea was not original. In 1937, at the end of the historic Shaksgam expedition, Shipton had crossed the Lupke la and walked out down the Braldu glacier and out over the Shimshal pass. Two years later, with Scott Russell, he discovered a new pass on the northern Karakoram axis, the Khurdopin, but they had reluctantly to forego the descent on the far side and return quickly by the well trodden Hispar, after hearing the devastating news that Europe was at war. Forty-seven years passed before two Canadians, helped by Shimshali porters, made the first actual crossing of the pass, finding a way down the wild Khurdopin glacier to the Shimshal valley. I had not heard about this journey when we set off the following year and we only knew about Ian Haig's ill-fated 1986 attempt from Shimshal. After a series of illnesses and accidents, he collapsed on the descent to Snow Lake. Two of his porters made an incredible journey without maps, equipment or food to Skardu to seek help, put by the time a rescue party reached Snow Lake Ian had disappeared in an avalanche. His death, a year after two Cardiff climbers disappeared in the same area, was a salutary reminder that Snow Lake is a very remote

The plan was

northwards

to

to start

Shimshal.

serious place. In 1987 Dick was busy guiding in Sinkiang. However, an old friend and prodigious load carrier, Phil Bartlett, was keen on a Karakoram journey. Rumour had it that Jerry Gore and Duncan Tunstall were going to have a

snoop round the back of the Ogre, so we asked if we could team up, whereupon Jerry announced that he would give the trip a miss as it all

EXPLORATIONS

59

looked far too impromptu and disorganised. Duncan bravely threw in his lot with Venables and Bartlett, and met me for an 'expedition meeting'. After two hours he left with a list of things to do and we sent a similar to Phil.

list

We

We

all

met a month

later,

on 5

July,

and flew

to Pakistan.

were an incongruous team. Phil these days usually eschews hard

technical climbing, preferring the big Shiptonesque journey with the big

Shiptonesque rucksack. As middle age approaches apace, he loves to scorn the young, overdressed, over-equipped technocrats and clings obstinately

and cast-off clothes that give the appearance Worzel Gummidge. Duncan, a brash young yuppie from Shell, sees himself, in an ideal world, pulling his portaledge up some Himalayan big wall, dynoing up immaculate granite, dressed in designer pastel co-ordinates and plugged into the latest graphic equalizer Walkman. I, being an exceptionally tolerant, broadminded, balanced sort of person, fell somewhere between these extremes; also being a greedy sort of person, I hoped that on this Karakoram trip we could complete a long, ambitious to his old

of

home-bent

some high

ice axe

altitude

and do some reasonably technical climbing on

trek

the way.

With

that in

mind, Tunstall and Venables insisted that the expedition baggage included a modest quantity of titanium and alloy gadgetry. the

main

the gear

objective, but

on some suitably

The journey remained

we might have the chance to sacrifice imposing lump near Snow Lake, before starting

we hoped

that

the 'big push' north to Shimshal.

We

left Skardu on one of those wonderful (and last July, rare) cool, mountain mornings. Our jeep was piled high with luggage and eight porters who would carry to our base camp at the junction of the Biafo and Sim Gang glaciers. They were the nicest bunch of Karakoram porters I have had and we felt that the inevitable little labour disputes were a mere formality, carried out in a spirit of fun. My abiding memory is of one particularly clownish Balti sitting in the sun, with pink roses stuck behind

blue,

his ears, joyfully singing his

The

head

off.

up the Biafo is a wellWe had odd showers of rain and snow, but nothing drastic at our low altitude. Some days it was even sunny with fantastic views of the great granite towers of the Ogre and Latok group. We camped one night at Baintha, just below the Latoks. Higher up the Biafo, Duncan and I did a little HVS rock climb one evening above our camp. It kept the porters amused, so we called it 'Biafo Sideshow'. The following day, racing the snowfall, we coaxed the men up route up the Braldu river to Askole and

trodden classic, but for us

to the

we

Biafo

paid the

first

-

it

was

all

left

completely new.

Sim Gang junction. The approach had taken

men

for the traditional 9 stages plus

7 easy days but

one day's

rest.

For the

time there was no comfortable grassy ablation valley, but just above

we did find a home for the next

the glacier

boulder

be our

ten days.

with running water, which was to At about the height of Mont Blanc, it

site

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

60

was a pass

perfect place for acclimatizing before setting off for the Khurdopin

(c.

5750 m).

Martin

Conway was

in

1892 the

first

European

to cross the

and see the huge snow basin which feeds the Biafo

glacier.

Hispar pass

He gave

it

the

name Snow Lake (Lupke Lawa). Subsequent expeditions by the Bullock Workmans (approaching from Hispar) and the Vissers (approaching from Shimshal) failed to sort out accurately the enormously complex topography of the

snow basin and

the peaks to the north

which form the watersheds

between the Hispar, Braldu, Shimshal and Shaksgam

river systems.

was

It

only as recently as 1937 that Shipton's Shaksgam expedition started to unravel the complexities of the area.

The job was completed during

1939 expedition, when two Indian surveyors produced a remarkable

the

map

of the Biafo-Hispar systems, which has never been bettered. The expedition

— Sim Gang — covers nearly 200 square Forty eight

discovered that the catchment area of the Biafo

and the bowl of Snow Lake years until

later,

we

we found

miles.

hard to appreciate the immensity of that ice desert

it

started actually to

walk across

it

slowness landmarks moved closer. Our

Snow

food and fuel on

which we had now

glacier

the

was

to leave a

cache of

Lake, ready for the journey to Khurdopin pass,

identified.

the Biafo and climbed

and realize with what depressing

first trip

up

to

On

another grey snowing morning

we crossed

an improbable notch in the West Wall, the

Sokha la, which Tilman had crossed in 1937 on his way back to Skardu. The next day Duncan and I climbed up an icefall into another cwm on the West Wall, to check out the route onto a particularly fine granite tower. It was very gratifying to discover that, as we had suspected, there was a hidden glacier ramp leading to the upper part of the tower, promising a quick route ideal for our limited resources.

We

returned the following

afternoon. Panting up soft collapsing steps through the icefall,

not look happy and even his jaunty little.

fell

At the top of the

asleep to

Pk. 5979

— almost. We

m

was

left at

progress up the hidden ramp. traverse out left onto the

hat

seemed

where we stopped

icefall,

dream of favourite roadside

The ascent of execution

Panama

a

to

Duncan

to bivouac,

crags.

model of

huge

was

still

a

he quickly

tactical

planning and smooth

midnight, dead on schedule, and It

did

have wilted

dark as

central ice-field,

we

made

fast

pitched the short

which hung Eiger-like

As we soloed diagonally across this the sun brought our east face to life. At 7 a.m., when we stopped for a brew, the proposed route up the head-wall was starting to make noises. By 9 a.m. the whole headwall was dripping and throwing down troublesome blocks of ice, so we dug into the top lip of the icefield and settled down in comparative between rock

walls.

shelter for a leisurely

day of eating and drinking and marvelling

stupendous view out over the Sim Gang.

at the

EXPLORATIONS

61

We had been forced by bombardment to delay the attempt on the headwall but the weather was fine and we planned to start at very first light the next day, climbing fast up the depression in the headwall to a col on the ridge between the south and main summits, continuing up the ridge and returning to the bivouac by nightfall. Unfortunately the lightweight approach did not quite work out. The mixed climbing up the headwall was and time-consuming, and the line Scottish IV and V quite hard





pushed us too climbing

it

far left. After 9 pitches of wonderful, absorbing, intriguing

was already mid-afternoon, when we reached the ridge far too The connection to the main summit was a

close to the lower summit.

knife-edged horror, bedecked with dripping cornices. Duncan's style of climbing, which maximizes body contact with soggy dripping runnels, had

left

him with sodden

meant an unplanned bivouac and probable descend

to

feet.

snow

flutings

and

Continuing would have

frostbite, so

we had

sadly to

our prepared bivouac, leaving the unclimbed main summit for

another day.

At dawn the next day ominous cirrus clouds massed in the south. Later morning the first silver jellyfish floated out across the Biafo and by the time we rejoined Phil at base camp thick grey cloud was enveloping the Karakoram. that

The storm our tent

we

lasted nearly three days, putting

read

Don Quixote and

popular, but the highlight

ate

many

down

a lot of

new snow.

In

meals. Dal samosas were very

was 'Greasy Dune's' chip shop. Gastronomic

preoccupations became so intense that Phil almost

won

his bet that a time

would come when we stopped thinking and talking about sex. We also tried to raise the tone a bit by discussing philosophy and inevitably we talked over the imminent journey to Shimshal, deciding exactly how much to take and how much we could leave. When the weather cleared slightly and we packed up, a considerable dump was cached. Phil wrote a note offering the contents to any passers by, but I half hoped that I might come back this way myself in August to make another attempt on Pk. 5979 m.

We

left

our

camp

at the

Biafo-Sim Gang junction on 28 July and later. Much of the time the weather was

arrived in Shimshal nine days

bad, but by incredible luck crucial sections of route finding always coincided

with cloud clearings. After collecting the cache on

Snow Lake, our

sacks

weighed 29 kg and on the second day we only managed six hours, shuffling along in snow shoes and leaning heavily on ski sticks. After all the new snow, snow shoes were essential, but I thought that skis would have been much better. Phil disagreed and, true to form, was happy with a faulty pair of snow shoes which regularly discarded bits, shrinking drastically during the journey; and instead of ski sticks he brandished two seven foot poles from the Skardu bazaar. Our Balti porters would have been proud to see him on Day 3 poling his way up the 50 degree ice-wall to the Khurdopin

A PASSAGE TO

62 pass



HIMALAYA

a corniced saddle on the watershed separating the Braldu and

Shimshal river systems.

Because

it

was such

the pass and for the

we had decided on two carries to dumped food and spare gear at the the tent on the south side. That night it snowed agonies of concern that we might become separated a steep climb,

moment we

top, before returning to

heavily and Phil suffered

just

from our food up on the pass. Luckily the 300 m slope on our side was too steep to accumulate deep new snow, nevertheless the climb back up on Day Four entailed swimming through some alarming spindrift avalanches.

We camped

right on the pass at c. 5750 m. Snow drifted up against the and inside the fog thickened. Our recalcitrant primus stove went on strike and tempers flared while matches fizzled out in the humid oxygen-

tent

air. Eventually we resorted to priming Don Quixote pages soaked in paraffin.

drained

the stove with a bonfire of

Day Five dawned fine and very cold and the morning struggle with tent snow shoes was particularly character-building. So was the

poles and

descent onto the upper Khurdopin glacier

— only

a short slope but classic

windslap territory on the lee side below big cornices. Phil steered a

skilful

course; even so avalanches erupted menacingly either side of our track and

we were

very thankful to reach the big snow basin unscathed.

Duncan had now

forgotten

all

about designer climbing and was

thoroughly relishing our 'picnic on a glacier'. The descent to Shimshal

had

all

the excitement of a multi-day technical climb.

we

We

were committed

know and every day brought new vistas, new surprises, new problems to solve, new decisions to make. The upper snow basin led us towards a great icefall and that afternoon, on Day Five, we felt as though we were being sucked inexorably towards the brink of Niagara, to tumble down to the lower Khurdopin far below. After stepping in numerous crevasses on the brink, we escaped to the right bank to discover rocks and gullies bypassing the icefall. In the morning we continued, profoundly thankful for good visibility, to find our way over complex, loose cliffs and another gully down to the main glacier. The right bank was impassable, so we climbed through a fantastic jumble of tottering ice-blocks out onto the centre of the glacier. All that afternoon we climbed up and down over the great striated waves of ice that characterise the northern Karakoram glaciers, and it was only in the evening that we could to five

days through territory

did not

escape with relief to the

first ablation valley on the right bank, with its delphiniums and potentilla, and a solitary rusting cheese tin a poignant reminder of Ian Haig's journey the previous year. We camped at the first

hunters' huts, which suggested that there to

Shimshal.



would now be

a path

all

the

way

EXPLORATIONS There was a path

Day Seven

the

way

to Shimshal, but

had many gaps.

it

On

the ablation valley frequently petered out, leaving us to slither

across lethal to go.

all

63

mud

slopes, peering through

The next morning was

fine, so

we

murky

drizzle,

wondering where

lingered at the camp, waiting for

the sun to dry out and lighten the tent, before packing

up and suspiciously

We

had now reached the main Shimshal valley and were on the home run, eking out the last remnants of food, cutting up the final Mars bars into three with studied precision. After crossing the monstrous rubble of the Khurdopin and Yukshin glacier snouts,

weighing each other's loads.

we climbed up into another ablation valley that seemed to lead to the Promised Land of Shimshal. Suddenly the path and cairns stopped dead at a 100 m cliff of conglomerate. Apparently erosion had made this route obsolete. 'At last grade 4 at Dover', Duncan grumbled, as we stopped to put on crampons for the descent. An hour later the rope came out again for an excruciating, thigh deep river crossing to avoid rock bombardment on the left bank. On the morning of Day Nine we crossed back beyond the lethal scree slope by a wire cable and from there it was plain sailing to the green fields and 'Dastoghil Cottage' hotel in Shimshal, which we reached

Two

at

midday.

days

later,

incredible marble

four weeks after leaving Skardu, we walked out of the chasm of the Shimshal gorge to Pasu, where they grow

I said good-bye to Phil and Duncan, had completed a fantastic journey and, while friends on Spantik had been sitting out mediocre weather, waiting to start a huge technical climb, we had been continually on the move. However, I did have one niggling regret about the main summit of Pk. 5979 m, so in August I went back for another attempt. Steve Razzetti, a

the best apples in

Hunza. At Gilgit

who were due back

in

England.

We

to join me on a up the Hispar to Snow Lake, then out over the Basha valley, and so back to Shigar and Skardu.

compulsive Karakoram wanderer, was free and agreed return journey to Skardu, going

Tilman's Sokha

On

la to

August we drove up

Karimabad, en route for Nagar and the few days had been more settled, but there had obviously still been perturbation higher up. Reasonable weather developed into brilliant weather, with only one day's rain for over three weeks. With two men from Nagar to help with the luggage, we enjoyed an idyllic week's walking up the flower spangled ablation valleys of the 1 1

to

Hispar valley. The weather these

last

Hispar. Razzetti had secured a plentiful supply of narcotic combustibles for the trip, so he

was

heaven and was happy,

in sixth

porters and crossing the Hispar pass, to at

our old Biafo

Tower' as

We all

I

Dump, while

had decided

arrived at the

the food

still

I

the

after leaving our

for a couple of days

settled the score with Pk.

to call

dump on

intact.

I

mellow out

5979

m

or 'Solu

it.

morning of 23 August, overjoyed

spent the day doing

some

to find

serious eating and

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

64

preparing for the climb and set off in the afternoon. Because

one stove, which

was only

it

fair to leave

with Steve,

I

had

we

of bottled water for the climb. The icefall below the

litres

only had

to carry four

cwm

was

transformed. Fifty degree slopes had been tipped up to 60 degrees and the

monster crevasse which Duncan and

month at

was now

earlier

15

m

I

had just managed

wide, forcing a big detour.

ramp

11.15 p.m. and this time followed the hidden

hoping

to follow a line of ledges diagonally

main summit. I had was light enough

to the until

it

dark,

I

felt

to wait a

back

I

left the

right to

bivouac top,

its

across the headwall

left

couple of hours

to step across a

at the

top of the

ramp

to start the real climbing. Sitting alone in the

a bit apprehensive about the steep rock leading to the ledges

and wondered how well

I

would be able

to protect



it

(and get

down

the

five little wire nuts, one peg mountain) with only our remnants of gear and two ice-screws. But the rock was beautiful, I learnt how to backrope to be doing some real climbing again ... wonderful on a ledge, while a kite which had flown over from the Ogre hovered a few feet away, staring curiously at the strange intruder. The ledge system above did not require a backrope and linked up nicely in a series of enjoyable but wet snow and mixed pitches, leading to a hot, tedious, frightening snowfield and at last, a month later than planned, the summit. On the way down I used up all the gear on diagonal abseils, to minimise the unpleasant down climbing. At dusk, twenty hours after setting out, I arrived back down at my sleeping bag in the cwm and fell fast

and

was wonderful

it

also to

sit in

the sun

asleep.

Two

days

later

Steve and

I

left for

the

Sokha

la.

For a

man who had

never done any ice-climbing, Steve moved remarkably competently up a

50 degree hard ice slope, above 5000 m, in enervating heat, with a 27 kg sack on his back pretty good for a beginner! Then we descended the far side of Tilman's remarkable pass, winding down the Sokha glacier, enclosed between the daunting rock walls of Sosbun Brakk and other, unnamed, peaks. The Bullock Workmans suggested that this glacier defied nature and had no outlet, but in 1937 Tilman was a bit disappointed to discover that of course it flowed out into a river like any normal self-



respecting glacier.

On

the second night

we reached

that river

and camped

in a luxuriant

green valley, reminiscent of southern Kashmir, cooking the evening vegyburgers on a birch and juniper fire. In the morning we hurried on

down

to the

Basha

shady walnut

valley, to exquisite timber houses, hot springs, ancient

trees,

and fresh

fruit

prices by charming rogues. Another

and eggs, sold to us for ridiculous two days walking brought us to the

main Dassu-Skardu road and that night our jeep rum'jled across the Indus bridge and back to the bright lights of Skardu. The journey was over.

(HJ

Vol. 44,

1987)

Moderate mountains for R. L. Holdsworth

middle-aged mountaineers

The most spectacular

flight

Romesh

in India

Bhattacharji

Baber's Crossing of the Zirrin A. D. Moddie

Pass, 1506

Hidden Himalaya

Mavis Heath

Very few would have seen a complete vista of the Himalaya as

the range.

He

describes the various pleasures in different parts of

the Himalaya.

He

calls

it

suggestions for the 'middle-aged

mountaineers'. But beware! These pioneers were stern stuff.

-

roamed through much of

Holdsworth certainly has, having

For the more leisurely inclined, there

than observing the range from a flight

here from the air by

-

what

is

made of very nothing better

brilliant observations

a bureaucrat, Bhattacharjee!

^^x MODERATE MOUNTAINS FOR MIDDLE-AGED MOUNTAINEERS R. L.

HOLDSWORTH COMES A TIME

THERE when

for dwellers in the Indian subcontinent,

they have climbed their

own

particular Everests and are

no

longer young enough, or perhaps wealthy enough, to take part in a largescale expedition to

one of the few remaining 8,000-metre peaks, but when

the urge to spend their holiday in the high places

such as these there are

and 22,000

feet

still literally

is still insistent.

For

hundreds of mountains between 18,000

which are accessible without grandiose arrangements for equipment. I have long since reached this age and

stores, porters or

perhaps a few memories of such moderate mountains will be of interest to

some

readers of the Himalayan Journal

who

are approaching this stage in

their life. I

shall mention, in addition to the

climbing possibilities, the wild

the fishing, the Alpine flowers and the skiing,

me and may

additional attractions to

be also

to others.

In 1940, in the very worst days of the war,

possible that return,

we



we might

that

is, J.

find

Adolf Hitler

in

life,

which have always been

when

was more than

it

command

of India on our

M. Gibson, J. A. K. Martyn and myself, all at Doon School, Dehra Dun, thought it a good idea

T.

that time masters at the

have one more climbing holiday. We selected as our aim Mankial, an unclimbed mountain of nearly 19,000 feet in Upper Swat, where three of

to

our students had their stately that, if the

to

wage It

home

worst came to the worst,

guerrilla warfare

was an

Saidu Sharif.

at it

would not be

I

remember thinking

a bad base

from which

on the minions of awful Adolf.

entirely successful expedition

the battle of Britain had been fought and

Admitting the princely hospitality that

and on our return we found

that

won, and things were not so bad.

we

received

at

our host, the present Ruler, Aurangzeb Khan, both

Saidu Sharif from at the

start

of the

we reached the end of the motor-road with no more equipment than three Meade tents and a porter tent, ice-axes, crampons and a climbing rope, and made our way to a delightful marg

expedition and on our return,

67

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

68 just

below

From here, reinforced by we made a reconnaissance, to

the tree-line at about 9,500 feet.

very good young Sherpa called Rinsing,

point well above the glacier at about 15,000

we could

good close-up view of

get a

Easy slopes of neve would take us South ridge, the

first

part of

feet.

Here, for the

first

a a

time,

the upper part of one mountain.

to a pass,

which gave access

to a

rocky

which contained some gendarmes which

might well be beyond our capacity. To the west lay two wide couloirs by

which the South ridge could be reached by subsidiary rock ridges above

We

the last difficulty. 'go'.

We

decided that the

first



i.e.

water, at about 11,500 feet, and to use a bivouac

we

point where

soon as

the westernmost

— would

decided to place a comfortable camp, with cook and running

we had

camp

15,000 feet

at the

stood and which two Swati porters would evacuate as left

use the 11,500 feet

it.

We

thought that after climbing the peak

camp on our

climb went easily enough

return, as well as

we should

on the way up.

The

misty weather; this

in dry but, unfortunately,

precluded the view over Indus Kohistan to the Hindu Kush and Karakoram

which must be superb. We gave the first couloir a miss. It was strewn with blocks of ice and stones and looked most forbidding. The second couloir was steeper, but free of these danger signals. We cramponed up it,

finding the

snow

well consolidated on the ice both on the

on the descent, when owing

to

melting

it

way up and

might have been dangerous. The

subsidiary and the main South rock ridge gave us a pleasant but easy

scramble, which, in spite of having

left

the plains only six days ago,

we

enough to enjoy. Finding ourselves back at the 11,500 feet camp with more than an hour's daylight left, we packed it up and returned to the were

fit

marg, much

to

the disappointment of the

cook who had prepared a

magnificent supper.

A

week might very easily be spent climbing some of the peaks adjoining all of them in the neighbourhood of 18,000 feet and giving some more difficult climbs than we had achieved. After a day's rest at the marg

Mankial,

we walked up

to another pass into Indus

Kohistan before returning to the

fleshpots of Saidu. It

remains

summer, so

to

add

that there ^are

that milk, butter

always Gujars on the marg

in

high

and curds are available.

The wild life of Upper Swat includes markhor and Monal pheasant which we saw, and black bear, gorhal and, lower down, chukor and probably koklas, chir and kaleej pheasant. The flora

and

differs very little

below Saidu

Sharif,

from

that of

Kashmir.

is

There

only fairly abundant is

introduced, though the Swat River above 5,000 feet would trout water.

mahseer fishing trip, been

but trout had not, at the time of our

make an

excellent

THE RANGE Climbing to cross

in the Central

who

for those

69

Himalaya, west of Nepal, depends nowadays,

are not Indian citizens, on the vagaries of the inner line',

which you have

to obtain a pass,

the actual frontier with Tibet will

now

which

not

is

that easy,

and

cannot say

how

all

be a military area.

I

and passholders will be allowed to go. But starting from the east the following areas are full of climbs which can be done far Indian citizens

with no more 'bandobast' than that mentioned above. First

of

all,

my

in

opinion,

come

Arwa

the mountains of the

Valley,

above Badrinath and Mana. Here there are many peaks between 20,000 feet and 22,000 feet, which would now come under the category of 'an easy day for a lady'. Moreover, there at

19,000 feet which

'Kamet Conquered'

is

first visited in

I

for

its

camp Kamet expedition {see

an admirable place for a high 1931 on the

exact position) and again

in

1942 with

J.

A. K.

Marty n and three very young Doon School boys and from which in 1931 I climbed four of the peaks, none of them dignified with a name, but all of them providing delightful climbing, snow, rock and of this

camp

is

porter of a load of

The Arwa

ice.

The

accessibility

Mana

proved by the delivery by a new route by a solitary

two hens and no

less than

100 eggs.

glaciers give excellent and safe skiing, and,

if

you are a

fisherman, there are trout to be caught on your return in the

Gona Lake,

below and Kuari Pass, or above Chamoli, whichever way you

like to look

at

it.

There are no barhal

plentiful

in the

Arwa

Valley, though they used to be

on the Gangotri side of the range.

Further west we come to a fine group of mountains surrounding Bandarpunch and the Black Peak, both well over 20,000 feet which can be approached from three directions. One is from Rishikesh or Mussoorie, Uttarkashi and the Dodital Lake, which is stocked with brown trout-or rather over-stocked, since they have bred prolifically and there is not enough

food to support them. hours.

From

T.

J.

M. Gibson and

I

once caught over 50

Dodital you cross an easy pass

black and red



into the

comfortable Base

Camp

Hanuman Ganga

in the

upper Alps

— look

Valley and from there at

in

two

out for bears, both

about 12,000

feet.

make

a

Here the

flowers are both abundant and interesting, five or six species of primula, asters,

anemone and

party of 1946, Jayal,

we made

a fine rose-coloured cypripedium. In J.T.M. Gibson's

which included both Tenzing and

the late

Narendra Dhar

an attempt on the summit during the monsoon months and

got to within 1,000 feet of our objective before snow, mist and lack of time

prevented

us.

The peak was climbed

parties; in fact,

snow up

it

is

a

few years

virtually his peak.

the South ridge, with about

400

later

by another of Gibson's

The climbing

is

feet of easy rock.

mainly ice and

Above

the last

rocks there are two steep ice-slopes which are very exposed. The same

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

70 base

Camp would

feet,

and a

enable you to climb the

neve slopes below Chakrata, the

Camp The

skiing.

From

Valley and Jumnotri.

two higher camps

approach

third

peak give glorious

this

Jumna

at least

is

Peak, over 18,000

Bandarpunch, and the

Another approach

the

is

via

Hanuman-Ganga Base

are needed, possibly three.

Bandarpunch range, and

to the

route to the Black Peak, which itself, is

Hanuman

fine twenty thousander to the west of

in point

particularly the easiest

of fact higher than Bandarpunch

via Chakrata, the valley of the Tons, the Jumna's biggest tributary,

and the Harkidun, a high pasture just beneath the three or four glaciers

which feed the Tons. Here, in addition to the Black Peak, there are unclimbed peaks galore between 18,000 and 21,000 feet, some of them far from

easy.

The Harkidun, has been

made

a

like the

game

Hanuman Ganga,

has a wealth of flowers and

my

only barhal there, and there

sanctuary.

I

shot

snow leopard

are red bear and probably

as well, while

Monal pheasant

and snowcock abound. In the rich forest below there are black bear muskdeer, thar

An

and koklas and probably Tragopan pheasant.

interesting round trip

the Harkidun to the

and

which

I

Borasu Pass over 17,000

to cross the

Baspa

year there

late in the

the 15,000 feet

have done with Chakrata porters feet

Valley, descend the latter to Sangla,

where early

trout-fishing for fabulously large trout, cross

is

Buran Pass

is

and an easy glacier pass, from

—glorious flowers near

the top, including the

'blue poppy'

(Meconopsis aculeata), descend the Pabbar Valley (excellent

trout-fishing

above and below Rohru) and, recrossing the Tons River

at

The Chakrata coolies, excellent men on steep grass, scree and rocks, have an uncanny fear of snow, which they will meet both on the Borasu and the Buran in some quantity, though without any danger at all, and require some persuasion.

Tiuni, return to Chakrata.

Proceeding

further west

still

Kailash which contains virtually unexplored. is

best approached

It

we

jeep

are

I

—up

now

group of the Kinnaur feet

and which

from the east bank of the

from Simla and a road which

my own

Chini (which

to the fine

one peak of 21,000

rises abruptly

as far as the Tibetan frontier.

not driving

we come

at least

have been motored

is

now



I

Sutlej,

is

and

jeepable almost

was glad

that

I

was

the fantastically sensational road as far as

instructed to call Kalpa, presumably in case

Mr. Chou En-lai gets to hear of

it

and claims

it

as part of the People's

would advise any party of climbers destined for the Kinnaur Kailash range to spend a day or two at Chini-Kalpa, not only because it is a beautiful village in itself, perched on the west bank of the Sutlej, amidst deodars at 9,200 feet but because the present Deputy Commissioner is himself a keen and experienced mountaineer, Nalni Dhar Jayal (cousin Republic).

I

THE RANGE of the late

Nandu Dhar),

a

member

71

He

of our club.

will give

any climbing

accommodation and porters. Moreover, Chini-Kalpa is an admirable place from which to do bungalow-veranda mountaineering. The Kailash group rises abruptly, apparently within a

party valuable advice and arrange for

stone's throw, across the invisible depths of the Sutlej Valley.

from here

to plan routes to the various peaks,

It is

none of them

possible

easy. This

most worthwhile because, thanks to present-day variation of the known to Rudyard Kipling, you may be well on your way three days from Simla. An 'inner line' pass is most decidedly group

is

Hindustan-Tibet Road,

necessary.

A

further advantage of the Kinnaur Kailash group

monsoon, which more or

less

Immediately west of Kinnaur

Kalpa into

up

am assuming

I

possible to walk from Chini-

is Spiti. It is

that

Kashmir-^by more or

to

my

readers will have three

may be

linked

high level routes. But

less

I

weeks rather than three

at their disposal.

have entered and penetrated a short distance

direction

some

who

is

it

Spiti via the Spiti River. In fact, all these regions

—from Kumaon

months

for those

is,

beyond the reach of the peters out beyond Rampur Bushahr.

cannot get their holiday before July, that

—Lahul and

the

Kunzam

La.

into Spiti

To be absolutely

on the

fine cliffs, apparently of dolomite limestone

Spiti River, the

me much.

mountains did not impress

an apparently bogus peak of 23,000 feet

by the Survey of India. quite close quarters at

I

— admitted

have forgotten

where

it

is

its

to

from the other

frank, except for left

Spiti

bank of the

does contain

be bogus,

I

believe,

name' but have looked from

marked on

the

map. There are genuine

twenty-one thousanders on the Spiti-Kulu frontier but these are better reached from the Kulu side and, anyhow, do not look impressive.

What impressed me was

— about

the great height

the long, grim winters

13,000 feet

must be absolutely staggering, since

reaches of the Spiti River there

is

no

—of

the

The problem of keeping warm

highest permanently occupied villages.

tree

in the

in

upper

growth except for some scrub

willow, wild rose and shrubby potentilla. Spiti

snow ovis

used to have a great reputation for wild

leopard, and towards the Tso-Morari

ammon

and wild yak; but now

rifles are plentiful

it is

that

it is

probably a different

life,

including ibex, barhal,

Lake and

the Tibetan frontier,

a military area and that 0.303 story.

I

saw a herd of barhal,

with three or four magnificent heads, but no ibex.

not

Owing to the make a great

there are one or

excessive dryness of the country the Alpine flowers do display except near the very few running streams, though

two

interesting species.

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

72

I

Next comes Lahul, and though you can connect Spiti with Lahul, as by the Kunzam La and Bara Lacha La, access is far easier via Kulu

did,

and the well-known Rohtang Pass.

The Lahul peaks have now been

pretty thoroughly explored, both north

of the Chandra River (soon to become the Chenab) and south, where they

belong

strictly to the Pir Panjal,

from Lahul and Kulu. So I

I

not the Himalaya, and are accessible both

do not propose

to

go

do, however, wish to point out one mountain

the attention of previous parties. Go, capital,

Keylang,

if

feet.

From

in great detail.

think has escaped

you possess or do not require an 'inner

line'

pass to

bazaar and camping place with a rest-house,

Patseo, a considerable

12,400

I

marches beyond Lahul's

think, three

I

them

into

which

at

here turn east up the Patseo nullah, and, after rounding

mountain

a corner, a really splendid

the end of one branch of the

fills

comes down to about 13,500 feet and it is all steep above this. The map marks the culminating point as something

nullah. Its glacier

snow and ice more than 21,000

feet but

I

believe that

is

it

much

higher, since only those

peaks were triangulated which were visible from the road along the Bhaga

on the west and the infant Chandra on the

east.

This fine peak

from both roads. The mountain from the Patseo side should just 'go' provided that there

West of Patseo and of about 18,000

feet,

not too

is

much

view of the rest-house

in full

which are

is

is

invisible

very steep, but

bare

it

ice.

rise three fine

peaks

and would give a very

easily accessible

suitable training run before tackling the big peak.

The Patseo nullah

is

also

by Lahul standards. Like flora,

famous

Spiti,

for containing ibex with big heads,

Lahul

too dry to contain a rich Alpine

is

though here again near springs and the sparse streamsides some

interesting species are

on view, and the Rohtang Pass, more open

monsoon, has a splendid

display.

Snow

to the

leopards are reported and, only in

the south of Lahul, the red bears are said to have a beautiful golden coat,

though

I

never saw bear or leopard on

my two

visits.

Kulu has been very adequately written up, but I should like to a trip which I have never heard has been attempted. 2 West of Manali, peaks rise to over 18,000 feet and two or three passes lead to the

recommend

romantically

named

district

of Bara Bangahal. These passes lead to the

neighbourhood of Dharamsala

in the Kangra Valley and must be used by Kangra shepherds. It would be an interesting trip to traverse them. I once saw from a camp at only 9,000 feet, on the Manali side of these passes,

no

2.

less than ten red bears, of

which

I

shot one, and two black.

See 'Kulu Notes, 1963-64' and 'Odd Corners

in

Kulu'

in this

Journal.

The nullah

— Ed.

THE RANGE was subsequently created

73

a 'sanctuary' though

a sanctuary for poachers, since there

is little

it

will

never be more than

supervision.

Kulu also has its trout-fishing in the Beas and owing first to snow water and then to monsoon

its

tributaries, though,

rain,

May

April,

and

October are the best months.

Our next is

area of mountains separating Kulu from

Chamba

about

it

State, but since

except that

stag and,

I

it

is

I

Jammu

and Kashmir

have never been there and know nothing

reported to

mark

believe, also the markhor,

Kashmir

the eastern limit of the

we

will pass

it

by.

Kashmir is, for mountaineers, associated with the names of Karakoram, Nanga Parbat and the Nun Kun group. These are all big mountains and possibly beyond the reach of the middle-aged. But perhaps some people do not realize that above the Kashmir Valley proper the Great Himalaya comes down to heights of no more than 18,000 feet. In the east, easily accessible from Pahalgam and the Liddar Valley there 17,800

been climbed two or three times,

New

Doctor Neve. 3

Lake

is

the fine peak of Kolahoi,

looking remarkably like a minor Matterhorn.

feet,

first, in

It

has,

I

believe,

by Wular

the first decade of the century

routes might be invented. Overlooking the

Haramukh, which is under 17,000 feet snow mountain. It must have been climbed several times and may be approached by the Erin or Madmutti nullahs and by the Wangat trout stream and the Gangabal Lake. From a lake-side camp I once, with a well-known Kashmir fishing shikari, achieved what I still think must be a record. I climbed Haramukh in the morning by the rises the friendly bulk of

high, but

which

easiest route

is

a genuine

and caught a dozen sacred

trout in the evening, for

which

act

was promptly punished by a sharp attack of malaria. The history of these trout in the Gangabal Lake is interesting. It was stocked with brown trout about the turn of the century by a British Forest Officer, I believe. But then the Pandits of Kashmir decided, rather quaintly, that the lake was one of the sources of the Ganga and it was put out of bounds. of sacrilege

I

Fortunately for

all,

the trout not only thrive in the lake, but bred in the

Wangat stream which flows out of it and so made their way into the Sind River, which became one of Kashmir's first trout waters. The task of keeping anglers from the lake, owing to its formidable height of nearly 12,000 feet, had to be allotted to a Muslim shepherd, who, at the time of my sinful exploit, was a bit of a racketeer and made quite a bit by purveying very easy trout-fishing to unbelievers.

South of the Kashmir Valley 15,000 feet 3.

at

some

rises the Pir Panjal range, rising to

over

points and dropping to 9,000 feet at the Banihal Pass

H.J., Vol. VIII, p. 103.

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

74 and to

between 7,000 and 8,000

to

which used

feet at the Pir Panjal Pass,

be on the main route of the Moghul

rulers.

I

recommend

should like to

range as skiing or rather ski-mountaineering terrain of the very highest

this

Nowadays, of course, very few skiers will ski at all unless conveyed by funiculars or ski-lifts; but in case there are any so old-fashioned as not to object to climbing I will repeat that the Kashmir Pir Panjal is a 'ski-paradise', and there are some amusing little scrambles

quality.

to the top of their runs

and one formidable rockmass, the 'Pir Panjal Brahma would yield rock-climbing of severe standard and which is completely unclimbed. The Ski Club of India used to ski from Gulmarg on the slopes of Alpathar or Apharwat between the years 1919 and 1941, both at Christmas and Easter. Now, alas, only the Army uses it for Alpine warfare training, though the Khillan Hut is still, I believe, the property of the club and civilians have been and still are welcomed by the Army. I have myself not only ski'd all over Alpathar, but one Easter spent a week

to its highest points,

Peaks', which

in a tent at the

head of the Ferozepur nullah, skiing alone.

really splendid runs

one of the 15,000

What

I

my

took

I

and completed the

feet peaks,

suggest

that

is

month of May, when

some enterprising party should, preferably would still be snow in abundance down

whole range from Khillanmarg

to take a

coolies and to place

it

at

camp along

might remain

in the

foot.

in the

to the

to the Banihal.

It

cook and a few

the range with a

convenient points just below the tree-line. The

camp would move each day sideways and eastward it

100 feet or so on

there

tree-line, traverse the

would be possible

last

Among some

Shin Mahinyoo,

skis nearly to the top of

same place

for

—or

two or three days

at certain

—while

points

the ski-

ing party climbed various heights and descended over magnificent runs to

way one might start with Alpathar and The next two or three days might be spent

an agreed rendezvous. In this

descend

to the Khillan Hut.

where I camped in the Ferozepur nullah, and the Ferozepur peak climbed, and Shin Mahinyoo. The next day the camp might be changed via the Yesh Maidan and the Tosh Maidan, and the highest point of the

Pir Panjal,

the so-called 'Sunset Peak' collected, giving a magnificent run

Beyond that it is all, to me, good map-reading the whole real bit

traverse should be possible, and

of pioneering, since the whole area

is

in

charge of the

survive.

It

camp

—preferably

would be too awful

would be

man

is

found

a Pir Panjal shikari, if any

for skiers to

a

right off the tourist track.

Great care should, of course, be taken that a suitable

be

down.

'blank on the map', but with enterprise and

come down, to

to

still

the rendezvous

and find no camp awaiting them. I

It

is

need not mention the trout-fishing of Kashmir, which as

good now

as

it

was when

I

first tried

it

in

is

well known.

1935, and not so

THE RANGE

75

expensive as trout-fishing of a similar quality flowers of Kashmir are equally well known.

the variety of species

not so great as in Sikkim or Bhutan, the general display or

is

anemone, gentian, columbine and many others

May, June and

in

Before

one

just

we

is

iris,

primula,

magnificent, particularly

July.

get round again to

district

The

in the British Isles.

Though

of which

I

Swat Kohistan where we

started, there is

have the pleasantest memories. This

is in

West

Pakistan, the N.W.F.P., and marches with Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. is

the

fine

Kagan

little

It

Valley. In the upper part of this valley there stands a really

mountain called Malika Parbat, over 17,000

and

feet high

involving some quite formidable ice-work. In an attempt with two 'Gujars' I

got within 500 feet of the summit, but gave up as

was a dangerous

not suitably shod for what

once before from another and, slope by a

Gurkha

had been climbed

believe, easier approach

My own approach was from small lake. A year or two later

route by three British officers from Peshawar.

to the

companions were

It

officer.

the Safr-Maluk Sar, a

my

I

my

slope.

Babusar Pass of something over 13,000

on

its

northern

Naran village and

it was climbed by The Kagan Valley leads

feet,

an easy pass for mules

or ponies, giving access to the Gilgit Agency.

The upper Kagan Valley has a rich flora, with some rare and interesting what attracted me most, year after year, was the trout-fishing. The upper waters of the Kunhar River are not unlike a Scottish salmon river in size and character. In the early years of the century it was stocked with brown trout by the Forest Department, but for some years it was not known with what success. The fish did not breed very freely, very few small fish were seen, and very few anglers made the four days' journey to species, but

fish for

was fish,

them. But by 1936

better than in

at least they

were established and the fishing

most of the Kashmir streams. You did not catch many

but what you did catch were usually over two pounds.

present situation the Pakistan

is I

Army

What

the

have no idea, since the valley has been occupied by since

1947 and military occupation usually has a

deplorable effect on the fishing.

And now to all the

it is

high time that

Himalayan ranges

enough moderate mountains of decrepitude as

(HJ

Vol. 25,

I

1964)

I

I

took leave of you.

am

to last

I

have conducted you

familiar with and introduced you to

you from middle-age

have unhappily arrived

at.

to the

same

state



A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

76

^A^ THE MOST SPECTACULAR FLIGHT IN INDIA ROMESH

BEING air to

D.

BHATTACHARJI

A

CIVIL SERVANT

stationed at Shillong

the plane at Delhi can literally be gained

window.

the

Fit

have

I

by

to travel

and from Delhi often. What one misses by closing the door of

On

489 from Delhi

Airlines flight

I

Bagdogra

to

always

to

Guwahati

going on.

like

by watching the Himalaya through

o'clock that must be Everest!

this flight; if it's 8

It

Dibrugarh

to

is

one Indian

actually leaves at 6.20 hrs every

day and the moment the plane turns east over Palam

a wall of white rises

to the north.

That's the Himalaya. That's also the reason

crowded

usually

the last five years but

favourite seat

Time

must have done the

flight. I

4A

or

I

wonder whether

south of Delhi airport mercifully it

levels off

it is

snow

way down

line has crept

it

I

can have

hazy or

will be

become

clear.

My

low.

rain.

It's late

I

is

the limit of the

know, the peaks

spot,

and those

The sky

indicator

is

is

washed, and

a barely noticeable

The game

starts. It's

Towards the but

I

A

be there but

I

Trisul.

search for the peaks

have not yet been able

a

smooth

fantastic

flight.

way

to

Miles of peaks stretching

first

till

the

me,

recognisable peaks are Bandarpunch. Gangotri,

Kedamath followed by

wide southeast face

to

have breakfast.

distant northwest a host of indistinct peaks tantalise

ignore them. The

Jaonli and

to

I

don't know.

I

horizon and beyond.

permanent snow-line.

ought

that

that

The

to the

9000 December

Chandnikot (5500 m) peak and the bowl on the southeast ridge of This ridge

in

my

dots as the plane rises to

greeted by a blaze of sunlight.

and Delhi has just had a couple of days of the

to this

and country houses with swimming pools

dry, dusty fields, factories,

m and as

on

without any fuss.

and

for take off,

try to get

I

about once a month

get to the airport early so that

still I

5A

why

trip

brilliantly

lit

the

Chaukhamba

up by the

rising sun.

peaks' domineering

Then

like the build

THE RANGE

77

up of a raga more and more peaks come tumbling out of the expanding not niggardly at this height. Strangely enough

I

am

looking for the Bhagirathi peaks and the imposing Shivling, but

I

can see

horizon. Nature

is

the Ghori and Hathi Parbats both living upto their names.

Behind

still

this

Garhwal Himalaya rises another. The Zaskar range peaks of Chirbas, Sri Kailash, Kamet, Mana and Nilkanth. Then this high and serrated range is blotted out by the haughty flanks of the Nanda Devi massif and its lesser attendants, which are equally awesome but from terra firma. The sharp tooth shaped Changabang's summit can be seen when the plane is in line with the main summit of Nanda Devi. Rank on serried front of the

rank rise these magnificent snow peaks from the ground. There

speck of cloud. Below, the plains are speckled with

and

I

tufts

is

not a

of lifting mists,

spot Aligarh's masjid, Narora's Atomic Energy Complex, and the

120 year old Ganga canal.

can see both the Ganga and Jamuna, and to

I

the north the land of their birth.

From

Nanda Devis

the

the ridge tapers to the Panchchuli, the five fires

of the gods, a striking array of five needle sharp peaks. Behind them are

numerous peaks but

my

eyes strain to see Tibet's Gurla Mandhata (7730 m)

and the fabled Kailash (6720 m) which in the

more than 50

Today too

warm

the

I

flights

I

I

have been able

to see only twice

have made.

have not been able

A

to see Kailash.

thin mist

formed by

from the plains colliding with the cold mountain

air currents

air

has curtained off the trans-Himalayan peaks. This disappointment does

come Api and Nampa

not last long, for in quick succession

of Nepal,

behind them can be seen the Tibetan peak of Nal Kankar, and then the of the eight thousanders Dhaulagiri and

me

conditioned in line its

and

to

observing

in hurry to

five juniors,

this

its

first

five satellites. Experience has

mass quickly

in ten

minutes, for waiting

appear are other eight thousanders. Annapurna and

and Manaslu attended upon by the enticing Himalchuli.

Also slipping by

the beautiful

is

Machhapuchhare

the

dominant deity of

Pokhara plain put here unnoticed amongst so many frosty eminences.

These eight thousanders look immense even from a high flying plane.

At

from the west they merely look

first

their south

and east

their

of course they have. to

name

that

all

Up

mere mortals

give, as if they

in

imagine or describe.

little

You

And won.

It

will

can't parcel out majesty

were so many sign

be dull

by names

posts. Their frozen

shapes that even the most unfettered fancy can never

A finger shaped peak becomes

direction, while a long

After a

these very south faces.

the identifiable peaks.

rocky bulks are

big, but as the plane is directly to

huge walls are fearsome. Can any man dare? But

a

pyramid from another

snow-bound ridge reveals four exciting peaks.

while the urge to be

in

one of the mysterious valleys leading

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

78

upto these peaks becomes so overpowering, one's mind so ventures and wishes.

I

way from

tributaries snaking their

of ambitious

numerous The southern ones take a from World War II days can its

the north.

abandoned airstrips and then the one near Kathihar from which the

straighter course. Old,

also seen,

full

can see the broad, sluggish Ganga and

flight in

first

rickety Wapitis to photograph Everest took off in early 1933. This airstrip is

in line

with Everest and just about

opposite Gauri Shankar

this point,

the plane swings to take a 90° turn straight into the

of eight thousanders

We

jaws of another brace

— Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, and Kangchenjunga.

have flown past many peaks, but

this

incomparable knot reigns

supreme. Everest for a while looks unimpressive though easily recognisable

famed plume of wind blown powdered snow and its guardian wall along which expeditions from the south must go. As the plane approaches Everest (8848 m) it becomes bigger, and more than its neighbours commanding as it towers above them, impressive and awesome. The black snowless west face can be seen, even the diminutive Lho la, the by

its

of the

Cwm

pass leading to Tibet

is visible. Its

in a bit of reflected glory.

plane's

commander whom

neighbour Lhotse (8511 m) also basks

one of these

flights a

me

knew, called

I

Everest and the peaks around

to point out

for

On

from here

it.

couple of years ago the

and asked

to the cockpit

not as silly as

It's

it

me

sounds

jumble of peaks can be confusing. The Captain

this highest

Once while flying to Bagdogra he was glibly manner he thought best. Soon he got a note saying that he had called the wrong one Everest. He sent word back to this interfering passenger saying that he knew what he was talking about, only

had an interesting

tale to tell.

identifying the peaks in the

to find that

he had been corrected by Sir

Edmund

Hillary.

About 40-50 km east from Everest can be seen the Makalu twins and Kumbhakarna, and of a man sleeping with his hands on his breast, which is the great massif of Kangchenjunga (8598 m). The plane the head of

dips to land and the dark green of tea estates with just a semblance of

cover of light green acasia trees come into view. In early winter golden

paddy

fields

hem them

in colourful contrast.

The

airfield is in a north-

south alignment and the plane seems to head straight into the

mass of the blue mountain of Kurseong, which these lowly hills were not even noticeable. At Bagdogra the wait

The reason

often

is

is

is all

clouds and haze, as the

The plane climbs it

this point

have been

we meet

a

few

morning's increasing warmth creates mild

late

Bridge over the Tista. As

towering

always longer than the promised 25 minutes.

that fighter aircraft practising take-offs

given priority over 150 passengers. Usually from disturbances.

now

of 2000 m. Earlier

rapidly

now

from near the 70 year old Coronation

flies in a

closer and distinct. Sikkim's Siniolchu

(it

narrow

really

is

valley, the

peaks are

the prettiest peak in this

THE RANGE Nathu

range), Pauhunri (7125 m), and

Chumbi

la,

79 which look down onto the

valley of Tibet are very close and very clear.

As

the west of

Chumbi

one

for this valley

can see as far as the peaks that gird the Lhasa plateau's southern

part.

To

soar the three attractive, almost symmetrical peaks of

west Bhutan's Chomolhari, the stern Jitchu Drake and the Takaphu (6532 m). After a few more peaks that are

two 4-5

km

have not been able

I

along ridges about 6500

m

to identify accurately

As

high.

the plane flies

from

west to east several peaks emerge, each with fearsome rock faces.

The

northern faces appear to be very gentle. Just next door are Kula Kangri's

pyramidical mass (7554 m) and two others of about the same height. All

m

tower about a 1000

above

numerous smaller companions, which

their

look like waves frozen in homage. The plane

Phamojula, a few 6000

For a while

The Assam

we

is

air the river's

entire valley, especially during the tributaries are

becoming

its

numerous

lush green and dotted by

and lakes (bheels). From the

(jans)

descending near

starts

high summits of easternmost Bhutan are seen.

over the wide Brahmaputra and

fly

valley

m

numerous

bed appears

to

monsoon. The S-bends of

straighter after every flood.

A

rice fields

If this airport stops

unbelievably green

flight. It's

functioning for three days, as

it

rushing

Hills, then

bordered by bamboo thickets

Borjhar airport after a 45 minute

cover the

its

turn to the right

and south and again turn north over an outlier of the Khasi

skimming low over

islands.

channels

tributaries,

once did

we

land at

all

around.

in the flood

of September 1988, grass sprouts from the tarmac.

From Guwahati

the plane levels off opposite Gorichen (6858

Kangsang (7047 m) and Kangto (7090 m)

m) Nyegyi

the three peaks of west Arunachal

Pradesh, which in winter can been seen from Kaziranga National Park.

For the next 20 minutes there are uninteresting ridges, so

down,

deforestation to feed the 60

Arunachal within the

plywood

last five years.

Kalibhamora bridge near Tezpur

factories that

Below

I

there

built over the

by wicked

have come up

Brahmaputra

km

in

long

at the site

in 1668. (In

1672 the

decisively defeated the invaders at Saraighat near Guwahati, where the only other bridge over the Brahmaputra).

is

Majuli, the largest river island in the world. a vast prosperous tea estate on airport

look straight

can see the 3

where the Ahoms were defeated by the Mughals

Ahoms

I

briefly pausing over the scarred hillsides caused

I

it.

As

It

Soon we

the plane begins to land at

look up again. The twin peaks of

are over

has several settlements and

Mohanbari

Namcha Barwa and Gyala

Peri

(around 7000 m) can be seen just across the Indian border with Tibet.

Between these peaks

the

Brahmaputra takes

unexplored gorge into Siang

district

a 300° turn to flow

down an

when

the plane

of Arunachal, and just

Mohanbari near Dibrugarh far to the NE can be seen Ka Karpo Razi the 6000 m peaks of the tri-junction of India, Burma and

circles to land at

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

gO

China, and below, numerous million cubic metres of gas



If

one

oil

derricks and several wells where

lucky with connections,

is

an Indian Air Force

100

flared daily.

is

possible to take on the

it is

flight,

open

map

that little finger jutting into

to the public,

same day

from Mohanbari

to

Burma. The plane first flies low over the vast beds of the Brahmaputra and the Lohit, and then climbs to about 3500 m above the flats of the Namdapha sanctuary Vijaynagar which on the

we come

till

peaks,

all

to this

is

peak of the North East. From

m

around 4500

WNW to NNE granite

with a dusting of fresh snow, sheer rock faces,

and numerous passes of the

Kumon Bum

range

drift close

by the window.

Mugaphi pass (3100 m) with an easy snowy peak as a sentinel looks very inviting. From this pass the north Burmese Kachin town of Putao can be seen. The plane descends suddenly on to a dusty tin sheet covered runway, and we are

in India's

easternmost

wheels that are seen are an

tip.

There

aircraft's.

is

no road here, and the only

Vijayanagar (1372 m)

centre of a beautiful verdant valley inhabited by Lisus

more common in the Golden but was re-named Vijaynagar Rifles

who

'discovered'

it

in

after

is

in

the

a tribe that

is

name was Jaha-Natu the son of a Major General of Assam On this misnomer we are back to the

Triangle.

1962.



Its

original

ground.

(HJ

Vol. 47,

yAv

1990)

BABER'S CROSSING OF THE ZIRRIN PASS, 1506 A. D.

MODDIE

CROSSING THE always been

of mountain passes by kings and armies has

a laborious affair.

The most famous crossings

in history

are those of the Alps by Hannibal and Napoleon, but the record of Baber's

winter crossing of the Afghan historic exploit,

is

yet one

hills

between Khorasan and Kabul, a

which exhibits the

qualities of a

less

modern

mountaineering party. It

was

in

December 1506. He

The winter was come, and separated

me from my

the

writes in his

snow began

memorable memoirs:

to fall in the

mountains

that

dominions.... Leaving Langer-Mir-Ghias, and passing

THE RANGE

81

we reached Chakeheran. The was the snow. Two or three days after we snow became excessively deep: it reached up

the villages on the border of Gharjestam, farther

we advanced

the deeper

had passed Chakeheran the

above the

snow

the

many

stirrups. In

ground, and the snow

places the horses hoofs did not reach the

continued to

still

not only continued deep, but

fall.

we

When we

passed Chiraghdan,

know

did not

the road.

—One

Sultan Pashai was our guide... having once lost the road, he never found it again.... The road was not to be found with all our exertions, and we were brought to a complete stand. Seeing no remedy left, we returned back to a place where there was abundance of fire wood, and despatched sixty

or seventy chosen

men

to return

by the road we had come, and retracing

our footsteps to find, under the high grounds, any Hazaras or other people

who might be out the way.

come

wintering there, and to bring a guide

We

who was

halted at this spot for three or four days.

able to point

They did indeed

back, but without having been able to find a proper guide. Placing

our reliance on

God

therefore,

us, we we had been stopped followed many were the difficulties

and sending our Sultan Pashai before

again advanced by that very road in which formerly

and forced

to return. In he

few days

that

and hardships which we endured; indeed, such hardships and sufferings as

have scarcely undergone

I

time that

I

composed

(Turki)

:

at

any other period of

my

life. It

was

at this

the following verses:

'There that

I

is

no violence or injury of fortune

have not experienced;

This broken heart has endured them Alas!

is

there one left that

all,

have

I

not encountered?'

And that from a hardy prince who, since the age of thirteen, had lost won kingdoms in Central Asia in scores of battles and skirmishes. He

and

writes on.

For about a week able to advance

we

continued pressing

more than

a

Kos

assisted in depressing the snow.

we

down

the snow. Every step

the snow, without being

Kos and

Accompanied by

household and two or three servants, beating

down

(2 miles) or a

we

all

a half.

I

myself

ten or fifteen of

my

dismounted and worked

we sank up

to the

in

middle or breast, but

went on trampling it down. As the vigour of the person who went was generally expended after he had advanced a few paces, he stood while another advanced and took his place.

still

first still,

The

future

emperor of Hindustan thus

of stamping out a snow-path in the high

The

rest

learnt hills

and noted the

difficulties

450 years ago.

of the troops, even our best men, and

many

that bore the Title

of Beg, without dismounting, advanced along the road that had been beaten

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

82

down

for them, hanging

their heads. This

or employing authority. Every to

man who

was no time

possesses

for plaguing

them

or emulation hastens

spirit

such works of himself.

Here was the understanding of a born leader of men of Continuing

manner,

this

to

advance by a track which we had beaten

we proceeded by

named Anjukan, and

a place

days reached a Khawal, or cave, called Khawal-Kuti, Zirrin Pass. That

action.

snow

in the

at the

foot of the

day the storm of wind was dreadful. The snow

such quantities that

we

all

in

in three or four

expected to meet death together.

fell in

When we

this Khawal the storm was terribly violent. We halted at the mouth The first of the troops reached the Khawal while it was yet daylight. About evening and night prayers the troops ceased coming in; after which every man was obliged to halt where he happened to be. Many men waited for morning on horseback. The Khawal seemed to be small. I took a hoe, and having swept away the snow, made for myself at the mouth of the

reached of

it.

cave, a resting place about the size of a prayer-carpet.... This hole afforded

me some go

shelter

from the wind, and

into the cavern, but

I

dwelling, and in comfort, while



drift

were

for

me

right that

and

my men

in

Some desired me to me to be in a warm

it.

that for

were

in the

midst of snow and

my

followers

distress,

whatever

and

their sufferings I

out for myself,

till

sitting

sit in

difficulties

company of

friends

down on my

feet, I

fell

is

which

the drift, in the sort of hole

bedtime prayers, when the snow

crouching

were and whatever

should be a sharer with them. There

a Persian proverb, that 'Death in the

continued, therefore, to

remained

down

I felt,

be within, enjoying sleep and ease, while

they might be obliged to undergo, is

sat

would be inconsistent with what I owed deviation from that society in suffering that was their due. It

in trouble

them, and a

was

to

I

would not go.

so

now found

a feast'. I

I

had dug

fast, that as I

that four inches

snow had settled on my head. That night I caught a cold in my car. About bedtime prayers a party, after having surveyed the cave, reported that the Khawal was very extensive, and was sufficiently large to receive all our people. As soon as I learnt this, I shook off the snow that was on my head and face, and went into the cave. I sent to call in all such of the people as were at hand. A comfortable place was found within for about 50 or 60 people,. ...and thus we escaped from the terrible cold, and snow, and drift, into a wonderfully safe, warm and comfortable place, where we of

could refresh ourselves.

Next morning the snow and tempest ceased. Moving

down

the

Before

snow

in the old

we reached

way, and made a road.

early,

We reached

the Parjan-daban, the day closed on us.

the defiles of the valley.

The cold was

dreadful, and

we

we trampled

the Baladaban.

We

halted in

passed that night

THE RANGE in great distress

Kupek

and misery.

lost his feet,

from the cold of the Although we knew in

Many

lost their

Siyunduk Turkoman night. Early next

that this

was not

83 hands and

his hands,

feet

from the

and Akbu

frost.

his feet,

morning we moved down the

glen.

the usual road, yet, placing our trust

God, we advanced down the valley, and descended by difficult and It was evening prayer before we extricated ourselves

precipitous places.

from the mouth of the that this pass

the ground; nay,

passing

Then

it

at

valley.

It is

not in the

memory

of the oldest man,

had ever been descended, when there was so much snow on it

was never known

that

anybody even conceived of

such a season.

to the flesh-pots, as with

most of

us.

was bed-time prayers when we reached Yake-anleng and halted.... To snow into such a village and its warm houses, on escaping from want and suffering, to find such plenty of good bread and fat sheep as we did, is in enjoyment that can be conceived only by such It

pass from the cold and

as

have suffered similar hardships or endured such heavy

distress.

The foregoing account strikes one as an interesting episode in the intrepid of a prince who was a joyous adventurer, one who lived and fought in the mountain kingdoms beyond the Hindu Kush, which he loved, yet ended his days by establishing a great empire in the plains of Hindustan which he detested 'for three reasons, its heat, its hot winds and its dust'. life

All that

is

now

old history, but Baber's crossing of the Zirrin Pass surely

rouses the admiring interest of contemporary mountaineers.

made (HJ

He would have

a grand leader of a Himalayan expedition in our times.

Vol.

18,

1954)

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

g4

^**V HIDDEN HIMALAYA MAVIS HEATH

No

paradise

gained

is

Easily:

In the

Hidden Himalaya

There are many

Rock

faces, glaciers, Icefalls, crevasses,

Ice-plateaux, ice-pinnacles,

Fine snow summits

And none None

are reached

are climbed

Without hardship Risk, sometimes

The So

final sacrifice is

it



in the

Spirit

Think not you gain

Heaven Without cost Without pain

Without struggle nearing despair



With a friend on your rope you carry It is

near impossible

Without Grace

Without deep

(HJ

Vol. 47, p.

149)

sacrificial love.

PIONEERING EXPEDITIONS

On

the

Summit of Nanga Parbat

Hermann Buhl

Makalu-The Happy Mountain

Jean Franco

The South Face of Annapurna

Christian Bonington

Everest South-west Face Climbed

Doug

Scott

The 'Golden Age of climbing' included many climbs besides attempts and climbs on Everest. The ascents of Nanga Parbat and Makalu have stirred many memories. And these pioneering climbs gave way to new challenges - to climb mountains by the 'hard way up*. Sir Chris Bonington propagated the idea on the Annapurna South Face and the Everest Southwest Face and Doug Scott executed this concept

with gusto.

3

h

\

^^v^ ON THE SUMMIT OF NANGA PARBAT HERMANN BUHL

1st July

1953

WEATHER WAS WONDERFUL. THE time had been and looked that

days earlier to

fine

it

we had had

it

to struggle

It

was

as if

it

the first day for a long

was going

to last.

Two

down from Camp IV through snow up

our chests: a very real danger of avalanches had also forced us to

evacuate

Camp IV

and the position seemed hopeless for we were leaving

the mountain and taking

down

with us

included. However, after a day's rest at

Hans

Ertl

all

the equipment, sleeping-bags

Camp

III

our

took the initiative and on the morning of

spirits rose.

with our

1st July,

we climbed back to Camp IV The snow was deep we had taken on a new lease of life. Otto Kempter

four remaining Sherpas,

and exhausting, but stayed on alone

was

at

Camp III to recover more fully from his exhaustion, but When we reached Camp IV we found it completely

to join us later.

buried, with only the ridges of the tents quite a while before

we

work digging them

all out,

showing and we had

could find the porters'

tent. It

but everyone dug as

if

was

sound for

they were after buried

treasure. Walter Frauenberger prepared the loads for next I

to

a hard afternoon's

day and

Ertl

and

took 100 metres of rope with us and climbed up to prepare the steep

Rakhiot face, up which

it

was imperative

that the porters should follow us.

We

cut a veritable staircase,

the

morrow, and then traversed under the Rakhiot peak, cutting steps and whole way across. We then retired, tired out, fairly late in

all

the while being tormented by thoughts of

fixing ropes the

Camp

the evening to

IV.

2nd July Hans, who had woken very early, served our breakfasts in bed. There was no sound from the porters' tent and we wondered if they were ill again. It transpired that some of them had headaches, so we gave them some pills and they were soon ready to start. Otto and Madi joined us just before us, but

and

we

left

and the former decided

Madi came

fuel,

straight on.

We

to

have a short

took with us one

and two sleeping-bags. 87

rest

before following

tent, a

load of stores

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

88

I

led the

way up

to the

Rakhiot face, sweeping the loose snow out of

the previous day's steps and generally improving the track. Unfortunately I

was not

feeling too good;

I

had evidently taken too much cut of myself

the previous day and therefore decided to take

was astounded that quickly; they seemed to have morrow.

I

lost their fear

of the traverse they waited quietly while followed, with the exception of Madi, his load to Frauenberger.

snow and decided

to

it

easy with a view to the

the porters crossed the slope so easily and

We reached

have a long

of heights. At the beginning

I

checked the ropes and then

who had no crampons and

passed

Moor's head over a slope of deep We wanted to take them as high as

the

rest.

would only go as far as the first difficulty (sic). So, as it was late, we had to send them back to Walter and Hans at the Moor's Head. Otto and I put up our tent (6,900 metres). From there the ridge ran straight up to the Silver Saddle which shone bright in the evening light. Far beyond and above is the main summit of Nanga Parbat, the south face of which drops down perpendicularly to the Rupal valley; a formidable mountain height which brought home to us the size of our task 1,200 m. (say 4,000 feet), in addition to the tremendous lateral distance to be covered, makes more than one day's work. Night fell while we were still making our preparations for the morning. The wind rose and about 10 o'clock began to shake the tent terribly. I feared lest the cornice, which was giving us some measure of protection, might crumble and fall. About midnight I took advantage of a slight lull to reinforce the tent possible up the ridge, but they



supports with our ski-sticks and ice-axes, and

at last

would not come and I was relieved was already on my way to the summit.

Sleep, however,

mentally

I

got a bit of

rest.

to get ready, for

3rd July

down in his made getting

Otto was buried deep of the disturbance departure

was timed

said sleepily that that every

I

I

for 2 o'clock

sleeping-bag and did not up, dressing, and

and several times

I

stir in spite

making

tea.

Our

shook Otto, who

had told him the previous evening 3 o'clock.

minute counted and that with him or without him

I

I

explained

was going

2 o'clock. Just as I was packing my rucksack for a solitary trip saw him working his way out of his cocoon and he told me that if I would go on and start making the track he would join me presently. I accordingly split the provisions, giving him among other things the fats, which I was to regret bitterly. to leave at I

At 2.30, when

I

left, it

was bright moonlight, quiet but

with the crust broke under me, but as soon as

cold.

got onto the ridge

To I

start

found

wind had packed it hard, and with crampons on I could make The ridge rose in majestic steps, crowned with cornices; the right it fell in a giant cascade of ice to the plateau on which stood

that the

better progress. to

I

PIONEERING EXPEDITIONS

Camp

To my

II.

my

dark shadows limited

left

89

view and then

I

looked into

snow and cornices alternated with ridge. A bitter south wind was trying to

a bottomless void. Sharp ridges of

traverses along the face of the

me

blow

When

over to the Rakhiot face.

towards the Silver Saddle

to cross

I

I

got to the point where

allowed myself a

and the dawn was breaking over the Karakoram



was

rest. It

I

began

5 o'clock

a sea of pointed peaks

from the shadows lit up by the rising sun. K 2 Masherbrum, Rakaposhi, the Mustagh Tower, those mountains I only knew through books, lay before me, almost within reach. rising

A

,

light mist drifted in the valleys, a sign of

the sun

when

I

ate

I

my

breakfast, hoping that Otto

saw no sign of him

I

started off

on

my

good weather. Warmed by would be joining me, but traverse. Once again I had

The kidney-shaped rock of the Silberzacken would not come nearer and, in fact, it was two hours later when I passed

been deceived as and

it

The

set foot

altimeter

to distance.

on the vast glacier which hangs below the secondary summit.

showed about 7,400 metres, but so

badly from effects of altitude, but

I

far

I

was not suffering

gave myself another

rest. I

had some

3 kilometres to go across the glacier, the surface of which had been ploughed

by incessant storms into furrows over 3 feet deep. Progress was very slow It was incredibly became more frequent and it seemed to me that 7,500 metres would be the limit, beyond which each step would demand tremendous effort. As to my friend Otto; after some time I saw a black shadow at the beginning of the Silver Saddle, which waited, started off again and then rested without further movement. My stomach contracted at the thought of the contents of my rucksack; I was to have no more to

as

I

had

still

to

and

began

my

eat than

to get hotter. Rests

dried fruit and nougat, for Otto had the butter and the meat.

had become very

It I

climb along the icy ridges between the furrows.

it

airless

had been going a long time:

gone by the summit. the scorching ice.

by

thirst to the

At

and

Padutine

and

my

limbs were drained of sap.

to reach the rocks,

rucksack cut into

my

where

shoulders and

I

I

could leave

was tormented

point of having no saliva to swallow.

reached the rocks and decided

by leaving

stops were less frequent as

Diamir Gap. Again

my

must hurry

I

my

plan to reach the summit by midday had

to lighten my burden as much my rucksack, winding my anorak round me as a taking with me only my camera, a flask, some Pervitine, some (against frostbite), my ice-axe, and a ski-stick. I felt better now

last I

as possible belt,

My

and hot and

my

I

I

cut across the false

summit

to the

had underestimated distance and wondered whether

strength would last. Would it not be better to climb the secondary summit so that, although it was not an eight thousander, at least a virgin peak would have been ascended. I was still debating this when I reached

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

90 a small breach

between the lower summit and the Diamir Gap, from

which over some broken rocks Gap.

now

I

hurried

separated

in the

could drop easily

I

down and reached

me from

What would

the summit.

Alps? Here they seemed each

feeling that

I

was nearing

like a

the end of

The

tricky points ahead of me.

down

my

three hundred mteres be

mountain and

troubles.

For

I

was

I

last for six

was tempting but hours, and where would I be it

my

It

was

hesitated

I

would only

effects

its

in six hours'

strength

take the risk and swallow two tablets.

was clambering over very smooth

knew

I

from

was very

ridge leading to the shoulder

climbing but quickly realized that

I

far

could see several

narrow, crowned with cornices, and altogether very exposed.

about taking Pervitine;

Bazhin

to the

the gap at 3 p.m. Three hundred metres

time?

started

I

and decided

failing

was not an easy climb;

to

times

at

rock; at times over sun-softened slabs

of snow. Progress was rather better on the south face where only a few

metres below

me

there

was

a sheer drop of several thousands of metres.

That south face of Nanga Parbat ever had below me.

finally

I

veritable tower on the ridge. practically hanging

by

my

is

came

My

a far

more prodigious abyss than

my

which the beginning was overhanging. This drained

when

drops of

last

reached the shoulder, for

I

a snowfield, scattered with rocks and led to the foot of the

itself. It

was 6 o'clock.

I

was

I

experienced no exaltation.

my

important than a small peak in

It

seemed

homeland. Was

Nanga Parbat which had repulsed seven expeditions and cost human lives? I swallowed my last mouthful of tea and crossed to flank where a pile of large blocks should lead

me

metres more! Each step was an undertaking and

I

and climbed up on It

was

all

the summit.

I

fours.

flag out flag.

My

On

top of the rocks

did not feel at

my troubles were of my pocket, took

relief that

eyes looked

down

it

summit

disillusioned to realize that on finally getting

so close to the long-desired peak

me no more

had

arms, and then regain the ridge by a crack of

energy. Fortunately things went better

was

I

gendarme some 12 metres high, a only way was to traverse along the face, to a

all like

was

a victor

over for a while.

to the top.

so

many

the north

Only 100

my

abandoned

to

this the

ski-stick

a small snow-cone.

and just sighed with

brought a small Tyrolese

I

a photo and then started in with a Pakistani to the

immensity of the shadow cast by 7 o'clock and the sun suddenly

Rupal valley and

my

I

marvelled

mountain on the plain below.

disappeared below the horizon.

to get very cold. Luckily, the rocks

on the way down would

It

retain

at the It

was

began

some

of the warmth of the day. I

to

hurried

down

the slope,

jumping from block

bivouac on the shoulder, but while there was

might even be able the shoulder,

to reach the

to block. light

I

Bazhin Gap. The ridge

was an unpleasant memory so

I

I

had intended

went on down. itself,

decided

just

I

below

to traverse

the

PIONEERING EXPEDITIONS Diamir

face.

I

had

left

my

91

ice-axe on the top, keeping only

my

ski-stick.

was in the middle of the traverse when suddenly the fastening of my right crampon broke and left me, like a stork, on one leg in the middle of the face. It was with difficulty that I regained the rocks and night had enveloped me during the incident. It was pitch dark, but a few yards away I was able to discern a large block. It shook a bit but would nevertheless do as a spot for a bivouac. I must say that after the dramatic changes of fortune during the day it did not seem at all extraordinary to me to I

contemplate a bivouac Indeed, similar

at

8,000 metres without a sleeping-bag or provisions.

remember several nights spent at 20 degrees below zero in situations. Towards midnight the moon would rise and I would be I

able to continue the descent.

was 9 p.m. and the last glimmers of light faded in the west. Fortunately was calm. I started to doze, shaken by shivering. Presently I swallowed two tablets of Padutine because my feet were beginning to go particularly dead. A good deal later the moon began to rise and at two o'clock was just a thin crescent which faintly illuminated the north face It

the night

but did not reach me; I

my

route for the descent remaining in deep shadow.

therefore had to wait for the day and the cold

was wicked.

4th July

A

thin

band of colour shone on the horizon but the

disappeared. frozen.

I

came

was 4

redoubled

feet, for the it

It

o'clock:

my

my

feet

caution as

I

stars

had not yet

shoes solid, completely

began the descent, crampons on

rocks were covered with verglas.

to a delicate traverse

my

were dead,

and when

I

I

took off

wanted

my

to put

gloves

my

when

them on again

could not find them. Lost!?

During the whole day behind me: several times

had the impression of an invisible companion

I I

had turned round

to talk to

him, and

now

I

him where my gloves were: but I was alone. I had now reached the snowy foot of the shoulder. Twice I slipped, recovered myself and had to wait awhile to get my breath back. At last I got to the Bazhin wanted

to ask

Gap. This time

wanted

I

difference in level

to pass

would be

less

through the Diamir

by

this route than

my

Gap because

the

on the way by which

crampon had come loose had given way. I mended it again but the effort, in the middle of the traverse, exhausted me. At midday I reached the Diamir Gap. The sun was hot and I gave myself a few minutes rest in the most comfortable spot I could find. I was woken I

had ascended. During the traverse

again.

by

I

had fixed

right

with sticking plaster and

this

I felt absolutely dried up. I imagined I heard voices, those of my who were bringing me tea. I rose and started down again. Each was by now a struggle and I kept asking myself how I had had the

thirst.

friends step

it

A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

92 strength to reach the I

had been on waiting for It

summit

the previous day.

I

saw mirages; everywhere

could see traces of footsteps, even cairns, although that glacier.

me

Often

with a flask of

took time because the crack

I

tea. In

in

I

knew

that

no man

scanned the glacier and imagined Otto despair

which

I

I

tried to find

had put

it

had

my

filled

rucksack.

with snow.

There was no question of swallowing either the dried

fruit or the

My bleeding

Dextrosport, mixed

with snow.

mouth only allowed me

to

swallow a

little

tasted delicious at the time, but after a

It

thirstier than ever.

I

gave myself a long

rest

nougat.

few minutes

I

was

and started down again



only to see two black spots on the Silver Saddle coming towards me.

Hermann! and my heart jumped for joy, but the dots had not really moved: they were small rocks.

heard someone

minutes

later

call

bitterly disappointed

and quite overwhelmed.

And

as

I

descended

a I I

I

few

was kept

my name called and was prey to all sorts of hallucinations. Where was Otto? I was indignant at not meeting him and utterly discouraged. My halts became more and more frequent and longer. hearing

At the lowest spot on the plateau, before the climb up Saddle

I

gave

to the Silver

What did it matter? I swallowed three Pervitine tablets knew they would only be of use if I had any reserves left.

in.

at one go, but At 5.30 p.m. I reached the Silver Saddle. Camp IV, of which I could only see the small tent, seemed to be empty and it was only at the Moor's Head that I saw two men. I went forward with a stronger step. The others came to meet me and I cannot describe that meeting to you. They were absolutely dumbfounded, for they had given me up as dead, and here I was coming back from the top. They looked after me as best they could and we all three spent the night in the tent. Before leaving next morning they treated my right foot which was frostbitten. I looked back for the last time at those crests on which all our hopes had been built, and my emotions of the previous day coursed through my mind like an impossible dream which

had only for an instant come

true.

Translated by Barbara Tobin from Alpinisme with the concurrence of the Club Alpin Francais.

(HJ

Vol.

18,

1954)

— PIONEERING EXPEDITIONS

93

y\ — THE HAPPY MOUNTAIN

MAKALU

JEAN FRANCO

Adapted from the French narratives by the courtesy of the Editor of 'Alpinisme and La Montagne Translated by Alfred Gregory and adapted '.

by the Editor.

HAPPY PEOPLE, happy mountains do not make a good story. A famous journalist was looking at some photographs of our expedition

LIKE to

Makalu, searching for some piquant

in lieu

detail that

would

me on

my

of drama. His insistence forced

'But at least there were

Tm

afraid not;



to

attract the

last

masses,

defences:

incidents?'

no crevasses

into

which we

swept over the camp. At 8,000 metres

it

was

fell,

no avalanche

like the

that

summit of Mont

Blanc. Nine of us reached the top; three successful attempts in three days; it

was hardly

a conquest.

We

didn't even get cold feet.'

'So then nothing happened?' I

had

to agree; nothing

nothing happened?'

happened. What

I

was not asked was, 'Why

— Now some months have passed. Though

it is still

too early to appreciate the details of our magnificent adventure, though our

experiences were too brief, too rapid and too localized for generalization,

Makalu

loses

the reasons

its

isolation, bit

which led

to

it,

by

the highest peaks, are links in the centuries. Fifty years of

The salient factors of our success and among the efforts of men to attain chain made by climbers throughout the

bit.

their place

Himalayan expeditions and mountaineering

led to

Makalu. In 1934, shortly before the first French expedition to the

Himalaya

permission had been given for an attempt on Makalu but this was later cancelled. For the next twenty years followed other roads and the mountain

remained It

was

'the giant at the

who

sleeps for six months'.

end of 1953

Durbar

to

French Ambassador in Delhi received, Montagne, permission from the Nepalese

that the

for the Federation Francaise de la

send an expedition

to

Makalu

in the

autumn of 1954, followed



A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

94

The first was to be a reconnaissance new material and equipment on which

by a second

in the spring of 1955.

to study the

approach and

to test

we had been working for some time. Maurice Herzog would have been the man to lead both parties, but, for reasons which are all to his honour, he refused. Lucien Devies, President of the F.F.M. and of our

Committee, was unable

to accept the invitation to lead

abandon the long cherished dream of

his climbing life.

Himalayan

and again had

They were

to

the twin

when I was asked to take charge I accepted knew they would always be at my side. And could count on Jean Couzy and Lionel Terray, veterans of

souls of the organization and the

more

willingly because

also because

I

I

Annapurna, and on the celebrated Guido Magnone. Preparations were

made and experiments took

hurried on, consultations were Paris and at the Col

with a

new model

du Midi. Jean Couzy, our oxygen

place, both in

specialist,

of bottle, lighter and with a variable flow

was busy

rate.

Lionel

Terray dealt with food, a sphere in connection with which he inspired great confidence because of his big appetite. Dr. Jean Rivolier, of the

French Polar expedition, was chosen as our doctor and began

to plan for

The team was completed by two of Pierre my personal friends, whose worth and great experience I knew Larox and Jean Bouvier. While all this furious activity was going on at the Club Alpin Francais Makalu was twice visited, by the American party acclimatization and the use of oxygen.

under Doctor

Siri,



and by Hillary's team

in the

Barun region.

Arun

valley in

We

in the

course of their explorations

when we got together at the foot of the Our first contact was very hard, for the

learnt this

August 1954.

region was hostile, hot, wet and unhealthy, every stream a torrent, and forests infested with leeches.

mountain.

We

steep steps

put out of

It

mind

which we likened

seemed obvious why

took three weeks

to

reach the foot of our

the south-east ridge, with to

its

series of very

Grepon's pile one on another.

And

it

Americans had been repulsed so quickly. The north-west sector appeared to be more favourable for it had been noted the

would be no serious obstacle to getting on to a glacier plateau some 21,500 feet at the end of the north-west cirque and at the foot of the Makalu Col. Between the plateau and the Col the slopes are steep and avalanche prone. To minimize risk a longer route was necessary, but at that there at

about 23,500 feet a suspended balcony seemed just capable of supporting a camp. If the Col could be reached

would be

at,

say,

24,600 feet the north-west

Makalu itself, despite an enormous step of nearly 1,000 feet. We left base camp on 1st October, placed three camps to just below the plateau and a fourth on it. From there we forced ridge

a possible ladder for

we could and on 15th October we were able to set up on Makalu Col. Having attained this first objective we felt we had wings and some were already contemplating an assault on Makalu the route as high as

Camp V itself.

But

at that

date and at that height the cold

is

intense, usually

minus

PIONEERING EXPEDITIONS 30°C and the wind often blew higher than us to

m.

make

Two

Camp V were

at

95

100 miles per hour. All attempts

to get

repulsed but two days of relative calm enabled

Makalu

the first ascents both of

and of

II

made of

important observations were

Chomo

Lonzo, 7,797

the north face of Makalu.

This showed a gigantic glacier giving a route relatively certain up to 8,100 metres, beyond which, although the slope steepened considerably,

convinced that technical

We in

would not stop

difficulties

had sprung the trap of Makalu, namely

we were

us.

this Col,

wide and debonair

appearance, but swept by the bitterest winds and liable to become a

death trap should a spell of bad weather be prolonged. So success would

depend on holding the Col strongly and ensuring a route thereto safe and practicable in all conditions. It would be necessary to live above it as little as possible in order to maintain strength for the lightening assaults.

On

our return to France

friends and the

end of November we reported

at the

Himalayan Committee began organizing

at

to

our

once for the

We planned to make our attempt on the summit from the 15th May so that we should have three weeks in front of us in case Makalu showed itself particularly unfavourable. We ourselves were to leave France at the beginning of March while the equipment and food were to arrive in Calcutta in the cargo ship Lenzkerke on the first day of that month. Our gear had proved excellent but certain new untried items surprised us. Two-piece nylon and wool underclothes had a queer electricassault in the spring of 1955.

like effect

on the skin and the super

light

weight high altitude trousers,

perfectioned by Guido Magnone, which could only be fitted with special buttons by only one

man

France, never reached base camp.

in all

The

oxygen had been ordered by cable from Nepal, as soon as we got down from the autumn reconnaissance and arrived safely, though somewhat late, because the Lenzkerke had decided

to

go

to Calcutta, instead of vice versa. Certain

to

Rangoon

changes

in

first

and then back

personnel had been

A

young surgeon from Lyon, Andre Lapras, had taken the place of could not get away. The scientific section was reinforced by Michel Latreille of Grenoble and the climbers were augmented by Andre Viallatte of the technical branch of the Air Force, and by Serge Coupe, a young guide from Champpery. made.

Rivolier

who

Although departure by

air

from Orly

is

attended with numerous

complications those experienced on arrival in Calcutta, with 9 tons of material, personal

equipment and baggage, were a nightmare.

penetrate the

immense

most serious

in the world,

is

offices of the

you

realize that

to return to Paris immediately.

door

to

At the

open and the miracle, the

When you

Bengal Administration, which

first

all is lost

last

is

the

and your sole wish

moment you

find the right

of a series of miracles, without



A PASSAGE TO HIMALAYA

96 which no summit

Our

in the

world would have been approached, has happened.

special guardian angel

was

the French Vice-Consul

Monsieur Batbedat

who had the key to all doors and could pierce all mysteries. On 18th March we flew from Dum Dum to the Nepal frontier town of Biratnagar. A new innovation here was the recently established customs service of Nepal. Here the official demanded categorically to see

all

the contents of

our 267 cases and sacks. These had been carefully sealed in Paris and had hitherto been preserved

from inspection by prodigies of eloquence and

persuasion. Formal refusal on our part, together with fantastic argument

accompanied by tact induced the official to give way and two hours whole expedition was loaded into the oldest imaginable lorries.

later

the

Fifty kilometres further

deposited the expedition

on the four

at

lorries,

smoking

like

who had

Dharan. Our Sherpas

steam engines,

few

arrived a

days earlier were introduced by our Sirdar, Gyaljen Norbhu. Most of them

were veterans of Everest, Annapurna, Nanga Parbat, K 2 and even Kangchenjunga. The Sherpas do not engage themselves on an expedition. They attach themselves to you and once they are with you, you can take them to the end of the world; you will only get one reply: 'Yes, Sahib'. The Sherpas do not like carrying a load on the approach marches, as they are the aristocrats of the porters. And the management of a train of coolies is

a source of worry.

115 from Sola

were

settled

We

had arranged for 80 porters from Darjeeling and

Khombu. The

inevitable arguments

about respective loads

by Gyaljen and Kinjock, the porter Sirdar from Sola Khombu,

left Dharan on 20th March. The Arun is a river as big as Rhone and its valley forms most of the approach march to Makalu. To base camp it was about 90 miles as the crow flies but over 190 by the

and the caravan the

track through the forest and the

maize

fields.

Now

and then through the

morning mist we could see on the horizon the white chain of Makalu and Chamlang. Meanwhile we were experiencing certain anxieties about our I had left at Dharan Serge Coupe, with enough Sola Khombu porters, to bring on the oxygen by forced marches. The last marches at higher elevation were hard on the local porters who had only improvised shelter and some left us. But eventually we reached

transport and our cargo of oxygen;

our base camp,

in the desolate

region of the high Barun, at the foot of

Makalu, on 4th April.

Two

days

later

Couzy and Coupe

arrived with the

oxygen and we spent

we

could and organizing

several days installing ourselves as comfortably as a shuttle service for fuel, etc., and,

would do

the round journey of

most

essential,

our postal teams

some 420 miles between

who

us and the nearest

Indian post office, in 20 days.

Our plan was final preparations

to reserve three

weeks

for acclimatization and for the

and we fixed the date 5th

May

for the carry to

Camp

III.

5

3 U

3

«?

H

\

3 w

A.

*.

,t

*K I

'

Photo H. Hoerlin.

18 Haston on fixed rope on ice ridge

— note method of safeguarding oneself with sling

%

19.

Climbing the ice

cliff below

Camp V

20. Bonington at

Camp

IV.

21. Bonington climbs fixed rope on flanks of ice ridge.

m

22. Clough on ice ridge.

1

#*V

S

:A

iJ*l

r r

%

23. Climbing fixed ropes on ice ridge.

24. Clough

warms

his

hands over gas stove at

Camp

VI after getting mild frost-bite.

jf

i %

fie*

up

1

fid **?.-

*

tf.:Wf

IP 26. D