Diamirai Pass
The Diamirai Pass from the Red Pass.
That night, a little before midnight, we started with lanterns, picking our way first through the small rhododendron bushes by the side of the glacier for about a mile, then turning to the right obliquely up the hill-side with the intention of reaching a rock rib which led up to a gap in the great wall that bounded the Diamirai nullah on the south side. For a long time we stumbled up what seemed an interminable shoot of loose stones, but by the time the early dawn gave sufficient light to enable us to see where we were, a rock arête came into view on our left.[H]Towards this we made our way, finding the climbing was by no means difficult. Occasionally the arête would become too perpendicular for us to follow it, and then we had to cut steps along the top of ice- or snow-slopes that were underneath the rocks on the top of the ridge and chance finding our way back up some gully or subsidiary rib of rocks that might branch out from the main arête.
We did not seem to waste much time, but long after the sun had risen and the silent ranges of blue mountains had flushed first with the rosy tints of the rising sun and afterwards glistened with the full blaze of the morning, the pass was still far away above us. These Himalaya are constructed on a totally different scale from either the Alps or any of the ordinary snow mountains. Still, point after point had to be surmounted. Once in the mist that settled down on us about eleven o'clock, we at last thought the summit was reached, and began to descend an arête that led towards the south. Twenty minutes later, when it cleared, great was our vexation to find the passstill a long distance above us on our right, and that we had unconsciously been descending towards the Diamirai nullah. Upwards again we had to climb, finally finding that the ridge led to the top of a peak on the west of the pass and about a thousand feet higher. In order to save the extra fatigue of climbing to the summit and again descending to the pass, Mummery made a bold effort, striking across the face of the mountain. In some places rocks stuck out from the steep face, in others ice slopes had to be crossed, and towards the middle a great circle of soft snow, with steep ice underneath, gave us an anxious time; for should the surface snow have avalanched away, it would not have stopped for certainly several thousand feet. By tying two ropes (eighty and sixty feet long) together, we spread ourselves out as far apart as possible, and very carefully made our way across. It was two in the afternoon before the summit of the pass was reached; its height was 18,050 feet. We have named it the Diamirai pass. Mummery assured us that he had never been over a more sporting pass, and we were delighted with the varied climbing that we had experienced. But our enthusiasm was soon checked; below, on the further side, we could see neither the wished-for Rupal nullah nor the Mazeno La. Easy rocksand snow led down to a small glacier, which, flowing southwards, led into another and larger glacier whose trend was to the west. Evidently the larger glacier was the Lubar. The position we were in gradually began to dawn on us. In fourteen hours we had made, as the crow flies, three miles; of course we had climbed about six thousand feet, but in front of us lay a descent of three thousand feet, and on to the wrong side of the range, therefore at least five miles away round the corner on the left was the Mazeno La, 18,000 feet. We also knew that our camp, and probably our first food, was nearly twenty miles on the other side of the Mazeno, and to make matters worse we had only a few scraps left, a slice of meat, some sticks of chocolate, and about half a dozen biscuits. There was no time to admire the view, also not much view to admire, for the customary midday mists completely hid Nanga Parbat and all the higher peaks. As an heroic effort Mummery suggested that it might save time to climb up from the pass on the south side, over a peak nearly 21,000 feet, in order to drop down on to the Mazeno La; but we soon decided that it was imprudent so late in the day to attempt it, especially as it would most certainly involve spending the night out at some very high altitude. Wetherefore rapidly descended the easy slopes on the south side of this pass, to which, as I have said, we gave the name of Diamirai. After running down the foot glacier, the Lubar glacier was reached at about half-past five. Here we stopped and rested for about an hour and a half, vainly attempting to get away from a bitterly cold wind that was blowing up from the west. But there was no shelter, so the lesser of two evils was chosen, namely to go on. Slowly we crawled to the foot of the Mazeno La, and about twenty hours after we had started on our expedition, without food, and with only the light of our lanterns, we toiled up the slopes that would bring us at last to the top of our second pass, 18,000 feet above sea-level. I shall never forget how tobacco helped me through that night, as I smoked whilst waiting on the summit, in the freezing air and the bright starlight, for Mummery and Hastings; it almost made me feel that I was enjoying myself; and it stayed the pangs of hunger and soothed away the utter weariness that beset both mind and body.
During our wild nocturnal wanderings, first down the Mazeno, and then down the Rupal glacier, where in the dim candle-light and in a semi-conscious condition we slipped, tumbled, and fell, but always with one dominant idea—namely, wemust go on!—that pipe continued to help me. What cared I though Hastings growled?—he does not smoke!—or whether poor Mummery groaned aloud as he stepped into icy pools of water. So we stumbled frantically forwards, over the vast wilderness of stones and ice; and I remember, as we groped our way onwards, I must have half fallen asleep, for I could not get out of my mind that there was a hut or a small hotel on the top of the Mazeno La, and that for our sins we had been doomed to wander for ever in this dismal and waste land of cold and darkness, whilst rest and food were foolishly left behind.
But daylight came at last, and, after the sun was well up in the sky, we finally made our way off that dreadful glacier. We also had vague hopes that perhaps after all we might be able to get something to eat before we reached our camp, miles away near Tashing. For one of our Kashmiri servants had been told to wait at the foot of the glacier—a week if necessary—till we turned up. We were quite uncertain whether he would follow our instructions, but at seven o'clock Hastings and I found him camped under a huge rock. At once some provisions and a kettleful of hot tea were sent back to Mummery, who was resting some miles up the valley. At half-past ten I left Hastingsand Mummery asleep amongst the flowers in the shade under the rock, and set off alone for the lower camp, if possible to hurry up some ponies to fetch them down the valley. Early in the afternoon I met them with two of the Rupal coolies: they had crossed the Nanga Parbat glacier, no easy thing to do, but, the steep face of dried mud and boulders about thirty feet high leading off the glacier, they could not get up. Engineering operations at once became necessary; with my ice-axe I cut large footsteps diagonally upwards across this steep face. But the first pony was afraid. After some talking, one of the men led up a wise-looking, grey pony to the bottom, and, talking to it, showed it the staircase. It then climbed up, feeling each step carefully with its forelegs before venturing on to it. These unshod mountain-horses are certainly extremely clever on such kind of ground. Several years later, when travelling in the Canadian Rocky Mountains with a whole pack of Canadian ponies, a place not one-quarter as difficult entirely stopped the whole outfit, although for making their way through fallen timber and across dangerous streams these Canadian ponies are unequalled.
Between five and six that evening I arrived at our Tashing camp and found Bruce there. Hehad obtained a month's leave, bringing with him two Gurkhas—Ragobir and Goman Singh. Over our dinner we forgot the weary tramping of the last forty hours, celebrating the occasion by drinking all the bottles of Bass's pale ale—a priceless treasure in these parts—that we had brought from Kashmir. Then afterwards, when we turned into our sleeping-bags before the roaring camp-fire, and the twilight slowly passed into the azure night, and overhead the glistening stars were blazing in the clear sky, a worthy ceiling to this mountain land, it was agreed unanimously that it was worth coming many thousand miles to enjoy climbing in the Himalaya, and that those who lived at home ingloriously at their ease knew not the joys that were to be found amidst the ice and snows of the greatest of mountain ranges. Never would they enjoy the keen air that sweeps across the snow-clad heights, never would they wander homeless and supperless over the vile wastes which surround the Mazeno La for the best part of two nights and two days; and, last but not least, never would such joys as the marvellous contentment born of a good dinner, after incipient starvation, nor the delicious rest that comes as the reward after excessive fatigue—never would joys such as these be theirs.
SECOND JOURNEY TO DIAMIRAI NULLAH AND ASCENT TO 21,000 FEET
'And this, the naked countenance of earth,On which I gaze, even these primæval mountains,Power dwells apart in their tranquillity,Remote, serene, and inaccessible.'Shelley.
'And this, the naked countenance of earth,On which I gaze, even these primæval mountains,Power dwells apart in their tranquillity,Remote, serene, and inaccessible.'Shelley.
Next day Bruce and I with Ragobir and Goman Singh went for an excursion up the Tashing glacier, in order that the two Gurkhas might have some experience in ice-work and step-cutting. It was great fun, and although I was perfectly unable to understand any of their conversation, Ragobir and Goman Singh were laughing, chattering, and playing the whole time like two children.
On July 27 the same party, with the addition of Mummery, started for a ridge which runs south-east towards Tashing from the peak marked 22,360 feet, which we named Chongra peak, as it is at the head of the valley of that name above Astor. We crossed the Tashing glacier, and camped at 15,000 feet by some rocks. Next day was spent in aridge-wander. Our intention was to climb a rock peak overlooking the Chongra nullah; but laziness was in the air, the day was hot, and the ridge endless. Finally a halt was called somewhat short of the peak that we had intended to climb, and for a long time we basked in the sun, smoked, ate our lunch, and enjoyed the superb view of the precipices of Nanga Parbat on the west and of the Karakoram range far away to the northward. Out of the masses of snow-clad giants in the remote distance to the north-east, one rose obviously higher than all its neighbours; in shape it resembled the view of K2as seen from Turmik.[I]Since then, however, Bruce has told me that the mountain that was seen from Turmik was probably the Mustagh tower. These two peaks would be about one hundred miles away, and in that clear atmosphere should be perfectly visible from our position (about 17,000 feet), for we were high enough to see over the range on the east of the Astor valley. We also saw across the Indus and up the Shigar valleys, and furtherstill the eye was directed straight up the Baltoro with no high peaks or ranges to intercept its view. Very much nearer and more to the north just on the other side of the Astor nullah a really magnificent double-headed peak, the Dichil,[J]sends up a series of perfectly impossible precipices. Its height on the map is 19,490 feet, but I am positive this measurement must be wrong. Much later, whilst returning from the Rakiot nullah to Dashkin, I was at a point 16,000 feet on the ridge just opposite across the Astor valley, and seen from there it apparently towered at least 5000 feet above me. In the Dichil nullah at its foot the valley cannot be more than 10,000 feet, and the view of it from this nullah must far surpass that of Ushba in grandeur.
During the day a curious haze hung over some of the precipices at the head of the Tashing glacier just opposite to us, due to perpetual avalanches of stones which were partly falling, partly sliding, down the steep slopes.
We returned to camp by a different route. A steep rock ridge led straight down from the peak we were on to the Tashing glacier below. On this ridge we had some delightful climbing, ultimatelyreaching the upper pasturages lying on the left bank of the glacier. It was a long tramp from there home, but just as it became dark we marched into our camp beneath the grove of willows.
The 29th was spent preparing for our start for the Diamirai nullah, for Mummery had quite given up all idea of attempting to climb the thousands of feet of almost perpendicular wall that ran the whole way along the south face of Nanga Parbat. The next day we started with a perfect caravan of coolies. Our intention was to send Goman Singh and our servants, together with all the coolies and baggage, over the Mazeno La by the route we had first taken, whilst we ourselves with Ragobir should try to cross directly from the head of the Rupal nullah to the head of the Diamirai nullah.
This time we hoped to have better luck than on our return over the Diamirai pass. But it was with some misgiving that I started, for I alone in my walk a week before up the Diamirai glacier had seen the head of that nullah, and although I did not doubt that we might reach the head of some pass from the southern side, I could not remember any place where it would be possible for us to descend on the northern side, and under any conditions our pass would be at least 20,000 feet, probably more, for the route lay directly overthe spur which leads westward from the summit of Nanga Parbat to the Mazeno La. That night we camped about four to five miles short of the Mazeno La at a height of 13,000 feet. In the dark we started next morning up excessively steep and broken moraine by the side of an ice-fall, thence we turned on to the steep glacier, and after some difficulty got on to the upper glacier, which came down from the north-east. After following this for some distance we turned to our left up a wide couloir, and partly on rocks and partly on snow slowly climbed upwards. By three in the afternoon Bruce, who was not in such good condition as we were, and was suffering from suppressed mumps (although neither he nor we knew it at the time), began to feel tired, but under the stimulation produced by some citrate of caffeine lozenges he went on again bravely. At last we came out on to the ridge at the head of the couloir, and climbed some few hundred feet up the arête, which seemed to lead to the very summit of the peak marked 21,442 feet on the map. But the time was five o'clock in the afternoon. The height by mercurial barometer was 20,150 feet. We had climbed over 7000 feet; but beyond feeling very tired, which was natural, we were hardly affected by the rarefied air. Here we stopped for some short time and had our evening meal. Bruce and I came to the conclusion that, as we must certainly spend the night out somewhere, a less exalted position was preferable. We selected a new route, which would take us down to the foot of the Mazeno La, Ragobir coming with us. Mummery and Hastings would not hear of beating a retreat thus early, so they arranged to go on, and should they find the ridge become too difficult further up, they would return and follow us down, but they hoped for a full moon and the possibility of climbing on during the night.
Mazeno Peaks
The Mazeno Peaks from the Red Pass.
Bruce and I did not make much progress, for our ridge soon became both narrower and more precipitous; but finally, as the sun was setting, we found a crack running through the arête into which a flat stone had got jammed just large enough for three people to sit on. Here we made up our minds to stop for the night. Roughly we were 19,000 feet, or 1000 feet higher than the Mazeno La, and about two to three miles to the eastward of it. A stone thrown out on either side of our small perch would have fallen many hundreds of feet before hitting anything, so we did not take off the rope, but huddled together as best we could to keep warm.
I could write a very long description of the wonderful orange sunset we saw beyond the Mazeno, how the light faded out of the sky, and the starscame out one by one as the sunset disappeared; how we tried in vain to get into positions such that the freezing wind would not penetrate our clothes, how Bruce and Ragobir groaned, and how we suffered—but I will refrain. Let any one who may be curious on the subject of a night out on a rock ridge at 19,000 feet try it; but he must place himself in such a position that, twist and turn as he may, he still encounters the cold, jagged rocks with every part of his body, and though he shelter himself ever so wisely, he must feel the wind steadily blowing beneath his shirt.
Late in the night we heard noises on the ridge above us. It was Mummery and Hastings returning. But, although they were within speaking distance of Bruce and myself, and I had lit a lantern to show them where we were, they could not reach us, and finally had to select the least uncomfortable place they could. With leaden feet the night paced tardily on, and brilliant stars and moon that had at first shone from the zenith gradually sank towards the west, but how slowly!—
'Yon lily-woven cradle of the hoursHath floated half her shining voyage, nor yetIs by the current of the morn opposed.'
'Yon lily-woven cradle of the hoursHath floated half her shining voyage, nor yetIs by the current of the morn opposed.'
Would the morning never come, and with it the warm sunshine? Daylight crept up the sky, however, atlast, and as soon as they could, Mummery and Hastings joined us. After we left them, they had climbed some considerable distance further, but as the mists did not lift at sundown and the other side of the range was unknown, they perforce had to return, having nearly reached the summit of the mountain and a height of 21,000 feet. It was a long time before we got down on to the Mazeno glacier, but somewhere about ten o'clock we arrived on the flat glacier. Here the party, overcome by the warmth of the sunshine and a great drowsiness, went to sleep on some of the flat slabs of stone that lay scattered on the ice. Personally, nothing would have given me more pleasure than to have followed the example of the rest, but visions of another night out on the Lubar glacier troubled me. Moreover, we had nothing whatever to eat, the night before having seen the last of our provisions. Ragobir and I therefore with weary feet started to cross the Mazeno La.
Very slowly we toiled and toiled upwards through the already softened snow; but long before we reached the summit, more than once Ragobir had lain down on the ground exhausted. I found out later that he had eaten nothing whatever the day before. Ultimately we got to the top and rested awhile. Our mission was to get to Lubar, and fromthere send back up the glacier milk and meat to the remainder of the expedition. It was already midday, and here was I with a Gurkha who could hardly crawl, and the rest of the party perhaps in a worse condition far behind. So after a short rest, I started down from the pass on the west side, soon leaving Ragobir behind. Then I waited for him. Repeating these tactics he was enticed onwards again, until crossing an ice-couloir rendered dangerous through falling stones, I walked out on to the level glacier at the bottom to await him. Very slowly he crawled down, and when in the centre of the couloir, although I screamed to him to hurry, he was nearly hit by a great stone weighing half a hundredweight that had come from two or three thousand feet above. Although it only missed him by a few feet, he never changed his pace; and when at last he reached me, seated on a stone, he dropped full length on the ice, absolutely refusing to move, and groaning. He had eaten nothing for the last forty hours.
My position was becoming serious. I could not leave the Gurkha, Lubar was miles away down the glacier, and some of the rest of the party might be in the same condition as Ragobir. I could think of nothing except to smoke my pipe and wait for something to happen. Half an hour passed, then anhour; and then, far up on the summit of the Mazeno La a black dot appeared, and shortly afterwards two more. So I waited, and at last the whole party was reunited. Bruce managed to revive Ragobir, who had had over two hours' rest, and we all set off as fast as we could for the shepherds' huts at Lubar. As the sun was setting we arrived there, very weary, but buoyed up with the expectation of something to eat. I shall never forget the sight that greeted my eyes when Mummery and I, the last of the party, walked into the small enclosure of stones where the goats and sheep were collected.
Bruce was seated on the small wall in his shirt-sleeves, superintending the slaughter of one of the sheep. And, horrible to relate, in less than half an hour after we entered Lubar we were all ravenously devouring pieces of sheep's liver only half cooked on the ends of sticks.
The dirty, sour goats' milk, too, was delicious, and as far as I can recollect, each of us drank considerably over a gallon that evening, to wash down the fragments of toasted sheep and chappatties that we made from some flour that had providentially remained behind our caravan with a sick coolie. Very soon we got into a somewhat comatose condition, and there was some sort of arrangement made, that should any one wake in the night heshould look after the fire. But next morning when I awoke the fire was out and I was covered with hoarfrost. We had all fallen asleep almost in the positions in which we sat in front of the fire.
I am afraid I must apologise for this second description of the delights of feeding after a prolonged fast. But few people have any conception of what it feels like to be really starving and worked till one longs to drop down anywhere—even on snow or ice. Hunger, exposure, and exhaustion are hard taskmasters, and the relief brought by rest, comfort, and plenty of food is a pleasure never to be forgotten. It is certainly one of the keenest enjoyments I have ever experienced.
Next morning we started for the Diamirai camp, taking with us the coolie and the precious flour. We preferred to strike out a new route, keeping higher up the mountain-side and more to the right. Before long we met some of our Kashmir servants who had come back from the Diamirai to look for us, and, as was their most excellent custom, brought with them as many edibles as they could. These of course were soon finished. We left them to return by the ordinary route to the camp, whilst we followed up the Butesharon glacier in a south-easterly direction, reaching at its head a col about 17,000 feet.
From this pass, on that perfectly clear afternoon, an unsurpassed panorama was spread out before us. The Indus valley lay 14,000 feet beneath us. Beyond stretched that almost unknown land below Chilas. A hundred miles away were the snow peaks in the Swat country, marked on the map as 18,563 feet and 19,395 feet high, standing out distinct against the sky, whilst much further still, a little more to the right, rose a vast snow peak nearly flat topped, or at least a ridge of peaks, several thousand feet higher than any others. It was probably Tirach Mir above Chitral, 25,426 feet and 24,343 feet high.
From the summit of the Butesharon pass we descended almost straight to the camp, which had been pitched in the old spot, where we had been ten days before.
During the next two days, August 3 and 4, we stopped in camp, and on the 5th Bruce left us, going back to Abbottabadviathe Mazeno La, the Kamri, and Kashmir. As we heard afterwards, it was anything but a pleasant journey, for, probably owing to the exposure during that night on Nanga Parbat, his complaint had been aggravated, and the glands of his neck and face had become so swollen, that when he was met by a friend on the Kamri he was unrecognisable, and for many months afterwards was unable to wear a collar.
The day that Bruce left, Mummery and I with the Gurkhas started to explore the upper end of the Diamirai glacier. We camped at the head of the valley on the last grass on the northern side. Mummery and Ragobir started at midnight for the western face of Nanga Parbat. During the day they managed to reach the top of the second rib of rocks that lie directly under the summit, a height of about 17,000 to 18,000 feet. In the meantime I went to look at the Diama glacier between the Ganalo peak, 21,650 feet, and Nanga Parbat, taking with me Goman Singh and our Kashmir shikari. We climbed up the ridge that comes down from the Ganalo peak to about 17,000 feet, but unfortunately the day was cloudy, so I was unable satisfactorily to see the whole of the Diama valley, and ascertain what chances we should have if we were to attack Nanga Parbat from that side. However, on returning in the afternoon, I met Mummery on the glacier. He was delighted with his exploration, for there was, he said, magnificent climbing, and he had found a place on the top of the second rib of rock where a tent might be pitched.
From July 13, the day we left the Kishnganga valley, it had been gloriously fine; but next day, August 7, the weather broke with heavy rain. Of course all our energies now were concentrated on the ascent of Nanga Parbat. Mummery decidedthat we should push provisions and supplies up the route that he and Ragobir had prospected; and he was confident that once beyond the rock ribs and on the upper snow-fields with some provisions and a silk tent, it would be very hard luck indeed should we be driven back before we reached the summit.
During August 8 and 9, Mummery, Ragobir, Lor Khan (a Chilas shikari, who had come up from Gashut in the Bunar valley, and insisted on stopping with us), and I spent the time in carrying a waterproof bag of provisions and some odds and ends up the second rib of rock to a height of 17,150 feet. Here we left it in a safe place on the rocks. We also had considerable quantities of fuel taken up by coolies, to a camp 15,000 feet, at the bottom of the rocks under Nanga Parbat.
Mummery was not wrong when he said it was magnificent climbing. The only climbing in the Alps I can compare it to is that on the Chamounix Aiguilles. In many places it was similar to that on the west side of the Aiguille du Plan from the Pèlerin glacier.
Between the first and second ribs of rock the glacier was broken up into the wildest confusion, and it was only by passing a somewhat nasty couloir, down which occasional ice avalanches came, that the rocks of the second rib could be reached; thence tothe top of the rib was difficult rock climbing over great slabs and towers of rock set at a very steep angle. I was extremely surprised that Lor Khan would go, but he did not seem in the least frightened, and with a little help from the rope climbed splendidly.
As we returned that night to our camp the rains descended, and we arrived wet through; the weather was getting worse, and no serious attempt could be made for the present on Nanga Parbat.
ASCENT OF THE DIAMIRAI PEAK
'Nothing that is mountainous is alien to us; we are addicted to all high places from Gaurisankar to Primrose Hill, wherever man has not forked out Nature. No doubt we find a particular fascination in the greatest and boldest inequalities of the earth's surface and the strange scenery of the ice and snow world; but we are attracted by any inequality, so long as it has not a railroad station or a restaurant on the top of it.'
Douglas Freshfield.
About this time we were beginning to run short of provisions, though a month earlier we had ordered all sorts of luxuries—jams, Kashmir wine, and so forth—from Srinagar, and had heard that they had been despatched to Bandipur, to be forwarded thence by the Government Commissariat Department. All inquiries were, however, fruitless, but Bruce had promised that should he, on his way down country to Abbottabad, discover their whereabouts he would hurry them on. Eventually he found them reposing at Bandipur, so he at once packed them on ponies and sent them to our camp in the Rupal nullah, knowinghow the Commissariat Department had to strain every nerve to get the requisite grain supplies for the troops over the passes to Gilgit before the bad weather set in and blocked the Burzil, and that private baggage and supplies might wait indefinitely till such time as it pleased the Department to find ponies to convey them to their destination. Personally we did not wish to leave the Diamirai nullah, but at the same time it was absolutely necessary that somehow we should replenish our vanishing stock of food. Already two of our Kashmir servants had been sent down into the Bunar district to bring up whatever they were able to collect, but we could not depend on the Chilas nullahs to yield us all we might want. This question of provisioning our camp caused perpetual worry. Unless one has trustworthy servants, every ten days or so one of the party has to start off to the nearest village for supplies. This may take a week or more, and as the period during which the big mountains are in a condition to climb is at the best but very limited, much valuable time will be wasted.
Bruce told me that whilst he was with Sir W. M. Conway, in the Karakorams, all the catering was left to Rahim Ali, his servant. If every fortnight during their stay at the head of the Baltoroglacier they had been forced, as we were, personally to forage and seek for dilatory servants, the climbing on Pioneer peak would have progressed but slowly. A piece of advice which cannot be too strongly urged upon those who go to the Himalaya is to get good servants at any cost, not to grudge the time spent, for it will be regained afterwards a hundredfold. The cook or khansammah ought to be the chief servant in the camp. He ought to be responsible for everything: it is his business to provide food, and a good cook who feeds one well, and takes the responsibility of the endless small details of management and supply off one's shoulders is worth five times the wages which are usually given.
Accordingly, after some consultation, Hastings generously agreed to sacrifice himself and trudge back to our camp in the Rupal nullah and thence to Astor, not only with the hope of bringing back with him all the luxuries we had weeks before ordered from Srinagar, but also with the intention of procuring sheep, flour, rice, and tea from Astor. At the same time he hoped to shorten to a great extent the journey to the Mazeno by making a new and direct pass over into the Lubar nullah immediately south of our camp. In the meantime Mummery and I were to stay behind in theDiamirai nullah and push provisions up the face of Nanga Parbat as fast as we could.
Just south of our camp rose a snow peak, about 19,000 feet, which we have called the Diamirai peak. On July 24, in crossing the pass from the Diamirai over to the Lubar glacier, we had left it on our right. It is not on the main ridge of Nanga Parbat, but on a side spur running to the westward. Camped as we were at its very foot, and looking on it as but a single day's climb, we determined to try to ascend it, whilst we waited for the snow to clear off the rocks on Nanga Parbat. By this time we had learned that the ascent of any peak 20,000 feet high was a laborious undertaking. At first we had talked about the 'twenty thousanders' somewhat contemptuously, and not without reason, for our hopes were fixed on Nanga Parbat, 26,629 feet; surely if a mountain of that height were possible, those whose summits were 7000 feet lower ought to be simplicity itself. In fact, we imagined that, as far as difficulty was concerned, they should stand somewhat in the same proportion to each other as an ascent of Mont Blanc to a climb up the Brévent from Chamounix during the springtime before all the snow has melted.
Diamirai Peak
The Diamirai Peak from the Red Pass.
Unfortunately they were not quite so easy as we should have liked; not only did they involve an ascent from the camp of 7000 to 8000 feet, but also a considerable amount of the climbing under a pressure of about half an atmosphere. Then the interminable ice slopes, which in the Nanga Parbat district are very much more common than in the Alps, meant many hours of step-cutting, and the softened state of the snow directly after the sun had shone on it added considerably to our labour. Besides these drawbacks, which render the ascent of a mountain 20,000 feet high not altogether easy, the utter confusion and wearisome monotony of the stony and rugged hill-sides between the valley and the snow-line must not be forgotten.
On August the 11th, we all started early in the morning by lantern light, taking with us Ragobir and Lor Khan (as well as Goman Singh and two coolies who were to accompany Hastings as far as Astor). We first climbed up a small moraine coming steeply down the side of the main valley almost to our camp from the glacier on the north-west side of the Diamirai peak, and in about an hour and a half came to the glacier itself. Here Hastings parted company with us, and, crossing a pass (which he has named Goman Singh pass), to the westward of the Diamirai peak, got safely over down to the Lubar glacier, whenceby way of the Mazeno pass he came to our camp in the Rupal nullah. Mummery and I, accompanied by Ragobir and Lor Khan, turning slightly to the left, made for a gully leading higher up to a snow ridge which ran upwards nearly to the summit of the peak. At the foot of the gully we were confronted by a small bergschrund. This we easily turned, and began scrambling up the rocks on our left hand.
Gradually the grey dawn melted into a Himalayan sunrise. Far away over the lower ridges we could see—
'The ever-silent spaces of the eastFar folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.'
'The ever-silent spaces of the eastFar folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.'
Above there was very little colour, pale greens verging into oranges and yellows, whilst below, in the shadows of the valleys, cold, dark steel blues, clear and deep, were the predominating shades. For a long while we watched the orange sunlight, catching first one part of Nanga Parbat and then another, as slowly the patches widened and spread creeping always down the mountain-side. Away to the north, on the opposite side of the Diamirai nullah, two minor rock peaks on the ridge were tipped with the rays of the morning sun. At the height we had already gained there was visible over the intervening ridge all the country above Gor on the further side of the Indus, while to the south of Gilgit stretched away mile after mile of mountain ranges. But by far the most striking sight was the enormous snow range beyond Gilgit and Yasin, the extreme western end of the Mustagh or Karakoram range. Rakipushi we could not see; it was just cut off by the western spur of the Ganalo peak, but from a point just west of the Kilik pass almost to the mountains above Chitral, snow summit after snow summit rose up into the heavens clear cut and distinct in the wonderfully translucent air.
Diamirai PeakDiamirai Peak
View of the Diamirai Pass from the Red Pass.
The dotted lines show our various routes.
With this marvellous view nothing interfered, as the average height of the peaks on this mighty barrier which divides English from Russian territory cannot be much less than 23,000 feet, and that of the hills which lay between us and these peaks was not more than 16,000 feet. High above the great snow range on the horizon, a long-drawn cloud floated like a grey bar of silver, but it did not prevent the rays of the rising sun from covering with their golden light the whole of the distant and lonely snow world, as yet untrodden by the foot of man. As usual, a perfect stillness and calm in the morning air seemed to herald a fine day, but already we had learned to mistrust these signs:—
'Full many a glorious morning have I seene,Flatter the mountaine tops with soveraine eie,
'Full many a glorious morning have I seene,Flatter the mountaine tops with soveraine eie,
Anon permit the basest cloudes to rideWith ougly rack on his celestiall face.'
Anon permit the basest cloudes to rideWith ougly rack on his celestiall face.'
Few days were there during our stay in the Nanga Parbat region that were clear after 10 A.M., and this morning was no exception.
The sun had risen above Nanga Parbat, and we knew well how soon the snow would soften under its powerful rays—half an hour usually sufficing under these conditions to thaw through the frozen outer crust. New snow, too, had fallen in considerable quantities, so we did not want to waste any of the valuable early hours on the lower slopes. Fortunately about this time the morning mists began to gather as usual, and not only prevented the snow from melting, but protected us from the fearful glare which would have been our fate on a perfectly cloudless day. Very narrow and steep was the snow ridge which stretched up the mountain-side above us, but we knew, although we could not see from where we were, that it led almost to the summit. The average angle of the arête was a little over 40 degrees. At first Mummery was easily able to nick out steps with the axe, but soon the crust began to give way here and there, leaving us to struggle often knee-deep. On ourright the angle was not very steep, but on the left of the ridge was a most forbidding ice slope. Every now and then we would make rapid progress, finding a thinner coating of snow upon the ice, with but one or two small crevasses to be crossed. Away on our left was an excellent rock ridge, but we could not reach it without cutting across the steep ice-slope. However, our arête, some distance further up, seemed to join the rock ridge, so we pushed on quickly, in the hope that above we should be rewarded by finding easy rocks to climb. Before we reached this point a difficult and steep piece on the arête had to be surmounted. If we could have traversed off to the right it would have been easier, but the snow was in a most unstable condition; small zigzags to the right and then back again on to the ridge were resorted to, and ultimately we succeeded in getting up this somewhat nasty place. Rapid progress was then made, but we found, much to our disappointment, that the rock ridge ended where it joined the arête, and our hopes of an easy rock climb vanished.
Finally we arrived just under the first summit of our mountain. Here the same difficulty we had experienced down below again presented itself, but in a worse form. The arête was much steeper, sloping probably at an angle of about 55 to 60degrees. Mummery tried the same tactics as before, but soon had to confess that he dared not trust the snow any further, for it was thoroughly sodden upon the surface of the ice, and we might bring the whole face off at any moment. On the arête itself the snow, where it had drifted and been frozen, lay curiously deep, so that even at the thinnest point it did not allow of steps being cut in the ice below. Our only chance, therefore, was to try the ice slope on the left of the arête. Mummery led, cutting the steps diagonally across the slope, where a thin coating of snow lay some two or three inches deep over the hard ice underneath. As he moved slowly upwards, I came next on the rope, and, to keep my hands employed, passed the time in cutting the steps deeper into the ice.
The position was a sensational one—we were crossing the steepest ice slope of any great size I had ever been on; below us it shot straight down some 2000 feet without a break, till the angle became less in a small snow basin. The next objects that met the eye were the stone slopes far below in the valley, and unconsciously I began to picture to myself the duration and the result of an involuntary glissade on such a mountain-side.
Lor Khan, who came behind me on the rope, seemed to be enjoying himself immensely; of course he had never been in such a position before, but these Chilas tribesmen are famous fellows. What Swiss peasant, whilst making his first trial of the big snow peaks and the ice, would have dared to follow in such a place, and that, too, with only skins soaked through by the melting snow wrapped round his feet? Lor Khan never hesitated for a moment; when I turned and pointed downwards he only grinned, and looked as if he were in the habit of walking on ice slopes every day of his life. We were soon all in a line across this ice face, and whilst I was cutting one of Mummery's steps deeper to make it safer for our Chilas shikari, I noticed that the rope was hanging down in a great loop between Lor Khan and myself. At once I cried out to him not to move again till it was absolutely tight between us, and always to keep it so for the future. In the East we found that people were accustomed to obey instantly without asking questions. What the sahib said was law, at least so long as the sahib was there himself to enforce obedience. Consequently as I moved onward the rope soon became taut, and fortunately remained in that condition. Shortly after this Mummery turned upwards andslightly to his right, cutting nearly straight up the face, owing to some bad snow which barred our way. Just as I began the ascent of this staircase I heard a startled exclamation below. Instinctively I struck the pick of my axe deep into the ice, and at the same moment the whole of the weight of the unfortunate Lor Khan came on Ragobir and on me with the full force of a drop of some five to six feet. He had slipped out of one of the steps, and hung with his face to the glistening ice, whilst under him the thin coating of snow peeled off the face of the slope in great and ever-widening masses, gathering in volume as it plunged headlong down the mountain-side, finally to disappear over the cliffs thousands of feet below. For the time being I was fascinated by the descending avalanche, my whole mind being occupied with but this one thought, that if Lor Khan began to struggle and jerk at the rope I should without a doubt be pulled out of my steps. My fears proved groundless. Although Lor Khan had lost his footing he never lost either his head or his axe, and was just able to reach with his hand one of the steps out of which he had fallen. After Mummery had made himself quite firm above me I found myself, with the help of Ragobir, who was last on the rope, just able to haul up our Chilas shikarito a step which he had manfully cut for himself. It was, however, a very unpleasant experience; if the fall had been ten feet instead of six, I should never have been able to have borne the strain, and Lor Khan would have fallen considerably more than that if he had not been opportunely warned that he must keep the rope tight between himself and me.
Half an hour later we got off our ice slope and stepped almost on to the first summit. All our difficulties were over. After ploughing through some soft snow, at about half-past eleven o'clock we were seated on the true top of our peak, the height of which by the barometer turned out to be 19,000 feet.
We had climbed between 6000 and 7000 feet, and Mummery had led the whole way. The last 3000 feet had been very severe, for at first most of the steps had to be laboriously broken, and later we had to win our way by the use of the axe. But Mummery was perfectly fresh and could have gone on for hours, the diminished pressure (fifteen inches of mercury) having apparently no effect on him; neither was Ragobir any the worse for his climb; Lor Khan and I had slight headaches, but otherwise were quite fit for more. As we sat on the top enveloped in mist, Mummery and I debatedafresh the old question, How should we feel if we ever ascended to 26,000 feet? Mummery reasoned that it would chiefly depend on our state of training at the time. Had I not been dreadfully ill at 18,000 feet crossing the Mazeno La, whilst here we were all right at 19,000 feet? Had we not ascended our last 3000 feet with hardly a rest and at exactly the same pace as if we had been climbing in the Alps? As it always takes two to argue, I perforce had to try my best as the opposition. At once I discovered that my headache was by no means a negligible quantity, and was therefore an excellent test for abnormal altitudes. Probably also mountain-sickness was a disease which lurked in the higher mountains and was ready at any moment to rush on and seize its prey. Luckily for us the particular bacillus was not just then in the surrounding atmosphere, consequently we had not been inoculated, yet perhaps should we on some future occasion go to 21,000 to 22,000 feet, we might be suddenly overwhelmed. Then I quoted an article I had read somewhere about paralysis and derangement of nerve-centres in the spinal column being the fate of all who insist on energetic action when the barometer stands at thirteen inches. It was no good, Mummery only laughed at me; and at this moment the mist clearingfor a short space to the southward, we were soon far more interested with the view of the Thosho and Rupal peaks. The summit we were on fell away on the south directly under our feet in a series of rock precipices. We started on our homeward journey at about one o'clock without catching a single glimpse of Nanga Parbat. The descent of the steep ice slopes of our upward route was far too dangerous to attempt, so we decided on a rock ridge to the westward which we hoped would lead us down on the pass that Hastings had crossed earlier in the day.
Ragobir was sent to the front. He led us down the most precipitous places with tremendous rapidity and immense enjoyment. It was all 'good' according to him, and his cheery face down below made me feel that there could be no difficulty, till I found myself hanging down a slab of rock with but the barest of handholds, or came to a bulging mass of ice overhanging a steep gully, which insisted on protruding into the middle of my stomach, with direful result to my state of equilibrium.
At one place where the ridge was a narrow knife edge, with precipices on both sides, we had a splendid piece of climbing. A sharp descent of about a hundred feet occurred on the arête whichseemed at first sight impossible. Ragobir tried first on the right hand, but, owing to the smoothness of the rock slabs and the absence of all handholds, was unable to get down further than twenty feet or so. Whilst I was dangling the Gurkha on the end of the rope, Mummery discovered what he considered to be a possible solution of the difficulty. Ragobir was to climb about twenty-five feet down a small open chimney on the perpendicular south face of the ridge; he then would be on the top of a narrow flake of rock which was laid against the mountain-side in the same manner as those on the traverse of the Aiguille de Grépon. We could easily hold him from above whilst he edged sideways along this narrow way. After a short time he called out that it was all right, and I let down Lor Khan next. When I myself got on to the traverse I was very much impressed, not that it was very difficult, thanks to the splendid handholds, but the face was so perpendicular that without them one could hardly have stood on the narrow top of the slab without falling outwards. A loose stone when thrown out about twenty feet pitched on some snow at least five hundred feet below.
I found Ragobir and Lor Khan on a small niche on the ridge which divided the arête into two andat the top of an incipient ice gully. With considerable difficulty I managed to squeeze on to the small platform of rock and direct operations. Ragobir cut his way down to the next place where he could rest; and, after carefully hitching the rope as safely as I could, Mummery was called on to follow. It was just the kind of place he enjoyed, but it needed some one with iron nerves to descend the somewhat difficult chimney and then edge along the traverse without a steadying-rope from above. After the descent of the ice gully the climbing proved much easier. Rapid progress was made in spite of an uncertainty as to where we were going, for everything was hidden by the afternoon mists. Our route kept slowly bending away to the south-west, and as Hastings's pass lay directly to the west, we hoped that another bend to the north-west would put us straight again.
We could not leave the ridge and traverse to our right, so perforce had to keep on descending, and when at last the mists did rise for a short time, we found our fears amply confirmed. The pass lay about a thousand feet above on our right, and, what was still more exasperating, the shortest route to it necessitated a still further descent of at least five hundred feet, followed by a traverse underneath the overhanging end of a glacier. Anextra fifteen hundred feet of climbing up the unstable, interminable, and heart-breaking debris, which is so common on the south faces of the Himalaya, and that, too, late in the afternoon, was trying even to the best of tempers. I used quite unpublishable language, and even the imperturbable Mummery was moved to express his feelings in much more forcible language than was customary. There are occasions when language fails, and even the pen of Rudyard Kipling is unequal to depict the situation literally, though he does his best. There rises before me his description of that scene in the railway works at Jamalpur, where an apprentice is addressing, 'half in expostulation and half in despair, a very much disorganised engine which is sadly in need of repair.' Kipling gives us the gist of his language, but owns that after all the youth put it 'more crisply—very much more crisply.'
We reached the top at last, but even then we had to traverse to the westward half a mile before beginning the descent. Once started we went at racing speed, sometimes getting a long glissade down soft snow, sometimes a run down small stone debris; it was rather hard on poor Lor Khan, who was not shod for this kind of work, and was soon left far behind.
But it was getting late, and we wished to reach the camp before dark. Just as the sun was setting over the far-away hills in the wild, unknown Tangir, and shining through a thin veil of an evening shower, the tents under the Diamirai moraine were sighted; and during the after-dinner smoke opposite a roaring fire of pine logs we went over our day's adventures, and both agreed that we had enjoyed ourselves hugely: and so to bed.
ATTEMPT TO ASCEND NANGA PARBAT