House of Snow Read online

  Tensing, who combined the roles of sirdar and cook, was widely travelled and an experienced mountaineer whom I had last met on Everest in 1938 when he carried a load to Camp VI. Having spent the war years with an officer of the Chitral Scouts he had further enlarged his mountaineering and ski-ing experience. Since then he had been to Lhasa with an Italian Tibetan scholar, for whom he had purchased whole libraries – he told me they had brought away forty maunds of books. Tensing, who gets on with everyone and handles the local people well, has a charming smile, great steadiness on a mountain, and a deft hand for omlettes which he turns out nicely sloppy but firm. With paragons such as this one can afford to be blind to minor faults. Neither of the others, Da Namgyal and Angtharkay, had had any experience, but the former soon learnt what was expected of him either in camp or on a mountain. Angtharkay, who is not to be confused with his wellknown namesake, who is probably the best Sherpa porter ever known, was a little old for the job and a little “dumb”. In fact I suspected that he had not long come down from his tree. He came to us with a pigtail which I was sorry to see him remove, but it had to make way for the heavy Balaclava helmet which he wore even in the hottest valleys. I have a liking for men with pigtails because the first three Sherpas with whom I ever travelled all wore their hair long and were all first-rate men. Nowadays, among the Sherpas, long hair and pig-tails are outmoded, but not long ago they indicated a good type of unsophisticated man who had not been spoilt by long residence outside Nepal. Angtharkay, unsophisticated enough for anyone, unfortunately lacked mother-wit. He had the air of an earnest buffoon which neither the striped heliotrope pyjama trousers he wore one day, nor the long woollen pants he affected the next, did anything to diminish.

  Half a mile above Langtang was another hamlet with large fields of wheat and kuru, still very green, a big chorten, and the longest mani wall I have ever seen – nearly three hundred yards of it. These walls or “mendongs”, which are seven or eight feet high, must be passed on the left. On each side are flat stones with carved Buddhas or religious texts for the benefit of passers-by on either hand; and the equally well-worn paths on both sides of the wall show that the rule is observed. In the main Trisuli valley Buddhism, or at any rate the observance of this particular tenet, seemed to be weakening, for one of the paths round each mani wall tended to fall into disuse. In Timure village, only a day’s march from the Tibetan border, some abandoned scoffer had had the hardihood to carry his miserable maize field right up to a mendong, thus abolishing the path on one side.

  Having crossed a stream issuing from the snout of the Lirung glacier we camped a short four miles up from Langtang village. The grass flat, white with anemones, where we camped, lay tucked under the juniper-covered moraine of the glacier. Hard by were the gompa of Kyangjin Ghyang, some stone huts and turnip fields, and beyond a wide meadow stretched for a mile or more up the north side of the valley. The Lirung peak, from which the glacier came, and several others, overlooked it, but across the river the south containing wall was comparatively low. It can be crossed by the Gangja La (19,000 ft.) over which lies a direct route to the Helmu district and thence to Katmandu. On that side, the north-facing slope, birch trees and rhododendrons maintained a gallant struggle against the height, which, by altimeter, was 13,500 ft.

  Naturally, for two of us the Lirung peak had a powerful appeal. At Katmandu we had admired its graceful lines with longing eyes. It had looked eminently climbable then, as indeed most mountains do when looked at from far off, but now we were forced to admit that its south side, defended by a great cirque, was quite impregnable. However, at the moment, climbing took second place. Neither of us was ready for serious work. Indeed, as the result of some months spent in Australia, Lloyd had become a little gross, a fault which an insufficiently arduous approach march had done nothing to rectify. Moreover, in our cautious eyes, not one of the few Langtang peaks we had seen invited immediate assault, and in new country the urge to explore is hardly to be withstood. Around a corner of the valley a few miles up, the whole Langtang glacier system waited to be unravelled, and at its head lay the untrodden frontier ridge and the unknown country beyond. During the monsoon, we hoped, we might still climb, but the survey work must be done now or never. Our first three weeks, which were moderately fine, proved to be the only fine weeks we were to have.

  We spent nearly a week at this gompa camp. Lloyd wished to occupy stations on both sides of the valley before moving up, while I had made the exciting discovery of a way on to what we took to be the frontier ridge to the north. Having walked up the left moraine of the Lirung glacier, Tensing and I turned right-handed up steep grass and gravel slopes until we came to a sort of glacier shelf lying along the foot of the ridge upon which Lirung and its neighbouring 22,000 ft. peak stood. We judged the lowest point to be under 20,000 ft. A little tarn at the foot of the ice offered a convenient and tempting camp site at about 17,000 ft. Going back we made a wide detour over a bleak upland valley of more gravel than grass, where we found a scented cream and mauve primula (P. macrophylla) already in flower though old snow still lay about. On the way we took in a great rounded bump of over 17,000 ft., its grass summit incongruously crowded with long bamboo poles and tattered prayer flags.

  On the assumption that this ridge would prove to be the frontier ridge upon which we should have a most valuable station, we stocked the tarn camp and occupied it, intending to spend a full week. Early next morning, having gained the glacier shelf, we plodded eastwards on good hard snow to a point below the most accessible part of the ridge. Warned by gathering clouds, Lloyd decided to get busy while he could, so at about 19,000 ft. he put up the machine, as he called the theodolite, and began taking rounds of angles and photographing the fine confusion of peaks and valleys spreading eastward. Meanwhile Tensing and I pushed on up good snow to the ridge and traversed along it to a small summit. Having expected to see much from here, we were proportionately cast down at seeing so little. Another ridge, the frontier and the watershed, intervened to the north, and between the two lay a high glacier bay from which the ice curled over like a breaking wave before falling abruptly to some hidden arm of the Langtang glacier below. To the north-east, behind a tangle of peaks, rose a lump of a mountain with a long, flattish summit and a western face of more rock than snow. We thought it neither high nor distant enough to be Gosainthan which, according to the map, was over twelve miles away. It so happened that we never saw this mountain again, but Lloyd’s survey data show that it was, in fact, Gosainthan.

  Under a threatening sky we trudged back to camp through snow which was already soft and wet. A night of rain fulfilled the threat of morning and when we turned out at 4 a.m. it was still falling. Since the frontier ridge could not be reached there was no point in staying, but before going down we wanted to put the theodolite on the small summit reached the day before. What with the drizzle and the waterlogged snow Lloyd soon turned back, leaving Tensing and me to struggle obstinately and rather aimlessly towards a notch in the ridge. Although the snow was too wet for them, a pair of snowshoes I had with me seemed to make for easier progress. Later I wore them a lot and tried to convince myself that those behind, who had no such aids, benefited from the huge steps I made. Having reached the rocks below the notch and found them very loose, we contented ourselves with collecting a few inexpensive rock presents for Scott and a couple of hibernating moths for myself. As a lepidopterous insect a moth has something in common with beetles, and I thought that anything that contrived to live at 19,000 ft. deserved an honorable place in any insect museum.

  On returning from this damp excursion I went on to Langtang to check the food, where I was astonished by the swift growth resulting from the recent rain – by the many new flowers, the masses of white erica which had suddenly blossomed, and the dwarf rhododendron whose resinous fragrance filled the air. Kyangjin, too, had suddenly come to life. The long bamboo poles of the gompa and the roofs of the now occupied stone huts carried small flags of red and yellow, and the long, g
rass flat was thick with yaks and horses. Kyangjin is the first stage on the summer grazing itinerary which the yaks graze down before moving successively higher with the advance of summer, the sheep following humbly in their wake eating what is left. The horses roamed at will. They, we were told, were the property of the Government – the reason, perhaps, for their moderate condition.

  Our friend Nima Lama had come up, bringing with him an adequate supply of beer, the better to fumigate the gompa and to confront and exorcise any evilly disposed spirits which might have occupied it during the winter months. Tensing had a private chat with Nima Lama, obtaining from him some confidential information which he unhesitatingly passed on to me. Having warned him on no account to let the sahibs know of it, Nima had told him that there was a pass into Tibet at the head of the valley. Neither he nor any living man had seen it, much less used it, for it had been closed at the time of the second Nepal–Tibet war (1854) – whether by man’s edict or by some natural cataclysm was not made clear. It is difficult to imagine any shorter or easier way to Tibet than that by the Trisuli valley, but the oldest inhabitant well remembered people coming by the pass, bringing their yaks with them. Now I admire the yak, but his reputation for crossing passes, like that of Himalayan climbers, is apt to be enhanced by time and distance. Still, some weight must be accorded to tradition, and we resumed our journey to the valley head much encouraged by the story of this ancient pass.

  We started with a scratch team, two men, three women and a boy, on a fine sunny day. The Langtang has not only the austere beauty of ice mountains accentuated by the friendly smile of flowery meadows alive with cattle – but it has the charm of reticence and the witchery of the unexpected – a quality which Mr Milestone considered more desirable in a garden landscape than the beautiful or the picturesque. A gentle but continuous bend tantalizes its admirers, draws them on impatiently to see beyond the next corner, maintaining for them the thrill of discovery almost to the end. So far we had seen no more than two miles up the valley where the bend began, a place marked by a magnificent peak which we soon acknowledged to be the loveliest gem of the valley. On account of the snow fluting traced like the ribs of a fan upon its western face we called it the Fluted Peak. It is a few feet under 21,000 ft., but it stands alone, smiling down upon the valley with a face of glistening purity framed between clean-cut snow ridges of slender symmetry.

  As we drew past, fresh vistas of higher but less graceful mountains opened before us. But close at hand, stretching across the floor of the valley – still wide and green – lay a vast moraine, some 500 ft. high, the piled debris of a great glacier descending from the west. The narrowest of gorges, cut by the river draining the main Langtang glacier beyond, alone separated the toe of the moraine from the eastern wall of the valley. Beyond this barrier lay Langsisa, which we should easily have reached the first day. In our haste to see round corners we outran the porters, missed the path which went by the gorge, and charged straight at the giant moraine. While we were scurrying about on top of this eyesore looking vainly for water and a camp site, the porters sat calmly below in a pleasant meadow where presently we were obliged to join them.

  Next day Lloyd explored this west glacier, while Tensing and I went to Langsisa and straight on up the main valley. Neither of us got anywhere near the heads of our respective glaciers, both of which seemed to terminate without undue abruptness at the frontier ridge. On returning I found the lieutenant had brought up our Sherpa corn merchant, with whom we did some hard bargaining. In the end I advanced Rs. 100, receiving as security his necklace of large corals. I would not have given 6d. for it, but Tensing assured me it was worth Rs. 200. Anyhow the owner evidently set considerable store by it and not very much on my honesty. He wanted to have it sealed up so that there could be no juggling with the corals.

  Three of us, three Sherpas, and two Langtang men, carrying 400 lb. (twelve days’ supplies), now moved up the main valley. In an hour we reached Langsisa, a rich meadow on the river bank where there is a stone shelter. Hard by are three inscribed stones set in the ground whence pilgrims make their obeisance to the two saints. The ice of the big east glacier flows down almost to the river on the opposite side, and a couple of miles up the two rock gendarmes or saints stand out prominently. To these our Langtang men at once paid their respects by going down on their knees, along with two Tibetan lamas who had come for the same purpose. Beyond Langsisa the track grew rougher and steeper. We walked for five hours up the right bank, sometimes on moraine and sometimes in the ablation valley below, the tumbled stone and ice of the main Langtang glacier lying on our right. Polunin came part of the way to collect a very lovely primula we had noticed the previous day – a pale blue, scented, bell-shaped flower, five, seven or even nine on one stem. It was P. Wollastonii which Wollaston had first found when, as members of the Everest reconnaissance party of 1921, he and Morshead were travelling in the vicinity of Nyenam. This village lies over the Tibet border about twenty miles east of where we were.

  On leaving this camp we were forced on to the glacier up which, in a sort of trough, we made a short but very rough march to a little tarn tucked away behind the moraine of a side glacier. We were still not within striking distance of the frontier ridge but the two local men would go no farther. Up to and a little beyond the last camp we had followed a track which might well be accounted for as a grazing track; but down in the glacier trough I found traces of what might have been its continuation, indicated by stones placed on top of boulders. As there was no grass farther on, this ancient track, if track it was, may have led to a pass. The existence of a pass at the head of the Langtang is thus supported by a track as well as tradition – the keys, or rather the only clues we have, to another Himalayan enigma, the Abominable Snowman.

  For the next day we had a full programme. While the Sherpas moved the camp to the head of the glacier, Lloyd and I, carrying the machine, attempted to reach the most westerly of three cols. This precision instrument which, by the way, used plates and had no shutter, made an awkward load. As it was essential to beat the clouds, which usually came over between 9 and 10 a.m., by seven o’clock we had covered the remaining mile or so of level glacier and had begun to climb. From an upper snow shelf which we reached at 10 o’clock, the low rock ridge marking the col looked close enough. But it was noon before I got there, while Lloyd, who was still carrying too much weight, sank by the way. Excited though I was, my plodding steps could not be hurried, and when at last I looked over the top to the glacier below, its surface seemed to wrinkle in a derisive smile. The col was not on the frontier ridge and the glacier below was none other than the west Langtang whose high, ugly snout we had rounded on the way to Langsisa. The altimeter registered 20,700 ft., a height which I could easily credit. Unhappily that was the instrument’s last coherent message. A knock which it got on the way back, besides shattering the glass, must have affected it internally. Never again did it speak a true word. Instead, with little or no provocation, it would often shoot to heights undreamt of in our philosophy, heights which we could only have attained by means of a balloon.

  This was not the only misfortune. When, after a long and fruitless day, we reached the appointed camp – a shelf above the glacier – there were no tents. To save themselves trouble the Sherpas had camped on the glacier, thereby compelling us to lie on devilish knobbly stones with ice underneath instead of on warm, soft gravel. Scott’s altimeter, which had not yet met the inevitable fate of all such instruments, made our height 18,000 ft. Rather surprisingly, rice cooked well, and we slept warm in only one sleeping bag.

  There were yet two cols to visit. Unless the curling west glacier was longer than the main trunk, which was unlikely, the easternmost col must be on the frontier ridge. In order to ensure reaching it in good time we took a light camp to some rocks at the foot of the snow slope, the height being about 19,000 ft. We spent a poor night and overslept ourselves, for it was warm even in only one sleeping bag and we were both excited. The view from any
col, a mountain window opening upon a fresh scene, holds an expectant thrill; how much keener is expectancy if that view promises to reveal unsurveyed country and perhaps a 26,000 ft. mountain.

  Aided by this flying start of a thousand feet, on better snow, and with Tensing making light of the 30 lb. theodolite, we reached the col by 7.30 of a fine morning. It proved to be a false col. Nearly a mile away and at the same height lay the true col, and in between was a snow hollow which drained by a sort of backdoor into a tiny branch of the Langtang glacier. On each side of the true col rose high peaks of the order of 22,000 ft. Lloyd remained with the machine on the false col to get a fix from known peaks, while Tensing and I sped on across the still hard snow. Now was our big moment, the moment for which I had been, as Pepys says, in child ever since leaving Katmandu. Our survey plans depended on what we saw and to our disgust we did not see very much. Below us a big glacier flowed westwards, across it lay a knot of mountains, part of a range which stretched north-west into Tibet, effectually blocking our view to the east. We could not even see the junction of this range with the Himalayan crest-line a mile or so to the east of our col, but since there was no hint of the great mountain elsewhere, we surmised that Gosainthan lay just about the point of junction. The key move for the solution of the problem was a descent to the glacier on the Tibetan side, thus violating the frontier. We had no scruples on that score, having persuaded ourselves, with commonsense rather than logic, that no trespass would be committed provided we remained within the uninhabited glacier region.