Climbing on the Himalaya and Other Mountain RangesCollie, Norman
History
Climbing on the Himalaya and Other Mountain Ranges
Collie, Norman
Himalaya Mountains; Mountaineering
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 pass still 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 rocks and 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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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