– CHAPTER THIRTEEN –

The Crevasse Glacier

We could now give our whole attention to the problem of getting supplies up the Crevasse glacier into the ranges to the west. Looking back, now that their geography is known, it is difficult to recapture our feelings while we were working out plans from the slender data that was then available, but I well remember, long before the expedition started, poring for hours over the existing maps of that part of the Karakoram, and trying to visualize the probable lie of the ranges and glaciers in the unknown regions that we were now about to penetrate.

We knew that it lay immediately to the north of that remarkable knot of mountains which gives rise to several of the largest glaciers in the whole range. Among these were the Hispar, Biafo, Virjerab and Panmah. In 1892, Martin Conway ascended the Hispar glacier and crossed the Hispar pass at its head. In describing the view from there, he wrote (in Climbing in the Himalayas): ‘Before us lay a basin or lake of snow. From the midst … rose a series of mountain islands, white like snow that buried their bases, and there were endless bays and straits as of white water nestling amongst them.’ Later he referred to the phenomenon as the ‘Snow Lake’, though how much more importance he intended to be attached to the name I do not know. He was not able to explore it, but from there he descended into the Biafo glacier, which he followed down to Askole.

Dr and Mrs Bullock Workman, who ascended from the Biafo to the Hispar pass in 1899, used Conway’s name for the great basin that they saw from the Hispar pass, retaining the capital letters. By degrees the Snow Lake developed a great importance in geographical speculation. In fact it was recently expected that there might exist a vast ice-cap, such as was unknown in the Himalaya, and from which flowed, besides the Biafo, a number of glaciers whose sources were unexplored. Certainly the area of three hundred square miles mentioned by Conway suggested something of the sort.

In the account, read to the Royal Geographical Society, of his expedition to the Shimshal area in 1925, Dr Visser expressed the view that the Virjerab glacier had its origin in the Snow Lake. It had also been suggested that the Crevasse glacier rose in this fabled ice-cap, and also a great ice-stream, that Younghusband had seen in 1889, flowing towards the Shimshal pass. The lower reaches of this glacier had been visited by Colonel Schomberg in 1934, and called by him the Braldu glacier.

In 1933, Gregory and Auden had made an expedition up the Biafo glacier with the object of investigating the Snow Lake, but circumstances prevented them from reaching it. So, in 1937, our knowledge of the area was limited to the reports of Conway and the Workmans who, in 1908, had again seen, but not explored, the Snow Lake.

The idea that the Crevasse glacier would lead us on to this strange ice-cap was an intriguing one. By carrying a fortnight’s food up the glacier and travelling as quickly as possible, and given good weather, we could no doubt have solved the problem of its source. But in the first place we wanted to be able to survey the glacier, its tributaries and the surrounding ranges, as accurately as possible; secondly, we wanted to be in a position to make a thorough exploration of the country at its head, and to attempt to clear up the problem of the sources and all these great glaciers, and to fix their geographical position; and thirdly, it would be a waste of time to be compelled to return by the way we had come, and we hoped to finish the expedition by descending, either to Shimshal or to Hunza, or to some place as remotely distant from our starting-point. So I had decided that when we finished our work in the Aghil range and on the northern glaciers of K2, we should start up the Crevasse glacier, carrying all the supplies that were left.

A stock-taking on the morning of July 18th showed that we had 1,500 pounds of food; enough to last for another fifty-four days. In addition to this we had 700 pounds of equipment and packing; three journeys were necessary to move everything forward to each camp on the glacier. As time went on, our food supplies would become lighter, and we would be able to reduce the number of relays to two. Even so, I estimated that it would probably take us a month to get everything within striking distance of the head of the glacier. But time would not be wasted by this slow rate of progress, as there would be more than enough exploration and survey work to be done on the way.

Travelling over difficult glacier country, when it is necessary to work from a base which is entirely out of reach of any outside assistance, presents a very different problem from that of an expedition for which some sort of transport and supplies, however bad, are available. I found, as I had expected, that cutting ourselves off from such support, for a period of more than three months, threw a considerable strain on the party.

As Spender had fixed our position, we knew roughly the direction that we had to follow to reach the country surrounding the Snow Lake. But whether we could keep going in that direction depended upon where the glacier led us. The views that we had seen up the Crevasse glacier from the heights above the Sarpo Laggo valley showed us that our course would, at first, lie due west. Ten miles up, however, the valley split into several branches, each filled with a very large ice-stream. We called their point of junction the First Divide. From that distance it was difficult to see which was the principal glacier, and we would not forecast the direction of our route beyond the First Divide.

Our main worry was fuel. We had brought twelve gallons of paraffin with us. So far, we had been very lucky in finding wood, and we had used the Primus stoves a great deal less than we had expected. But the containers in which the fuel was carried had been badly battered in transport, and more than half of the oil had leaked away. We now had less than five gallons and even that was leaking. It is difficult to estimate how much oil will be used by a party when it is working beyond reach of wood fuel, as so much depends on conditions. But only a small proportion of the food that we had with us could be eaten without being cooked, and although we might never be compelled to melt snow for drinking purposes, we could not exist for long without fuel. Much depended upon how far up the glacier we should find wood, for we could not afford the time to transport it for any great distance.

On July 18th, the morning after Auden and I arrived, we sent seven men, under the charge of Angtharkay, to make the first dump on the Crevasse glacier. I told them to choose for themselves the best route, and to go as far as they could. The rest of us spent a busy day doing our various jobs. Our camp was in a little sandy bay at the corner formed by the junction of the Sarpo Laggo and the Crevasse glacier valleys. Near by there was a large collection of huts. In one of these we found the remains of a quite recent fire. The Baltis were as puzzled as we were and could offer no explanation of this extraordinary discovery.

Angtharkay’s party was very late in getting back. The sun was setting when we saw them coming across the mile of river flats which separated us from the snout of the glacier. They appeared to be moving very slowly, and with the aid of field-glasses we saw that they were dragging something between them. In the dusk we could not make our whether there were six or seven of them, and we feared that there had been an accident. But, as they approached, their cheery shouting reassured us, and when they arrived we found that the object that they were pulling along was a fox that they had managed to capture on the glacier. The poor creature was very frightened and made vicious attacks on anyone who went close to it. We photographed the animal and set it free, and it ran off amid roars of cheering from the Sherpas. Angtharkay reported that the going on the glacier had been difficult, but they seemed to have covered quite a lot of ground, and he said there was plenty of fuel above the dump.

After supper that evening Spender took advantage of the weather to make some more astronomical observations for Azimuth while I booked his angles, lying in a warm sleeping-bag. Unfortunately the Wild theodolite had been seriously damaged and he had to work with the smaller Watts instrument, which was not accurate enough for a latitude observation. This place became known as Azimuth Camp.

The next day, Spender, Tilman and all the porters carried loads to Dump I. Spender stayed up there alone to survey while the others came back in the evening. Auden stayed in camp with a recurrence of his fever, and I spent a most enjoyable day hunting bharal in the hills behind. The weather was perfect, and as I climbed to a great height I had some wonderful views of the surrounding country. I found a herd and shot two very good heads. When Tilman returned in the evening he told me that Spender had fixed the position of Dump I on his plane-table and found it to be five miles west of Azimuth Camp. This was surprisingly good progress, even though a mile of the way was over gravel flats. I began to hope that we might reach the head of the glacier very much more quickly than I had expected.

The carrying of the last relay to Dump I was complicated by the new supply of meat that had resulted from my hunt. However, the meat so cheered the Sherpas that they did not mind how much they had to carry, nor how far they had to go. There was keen competition amongst them to make up the biggest pack, and it was regarded as riotously funny when the load was so heavy that its carrier collapsed under its weight. The Baltis regarded this frivolity with mournful resignation. They were never able to understand the buffoonery of the Sherpas. But in justice to them in this case, it must be admitted that they could not benefit from the extra meat on account of their religious scruples.

It had been decided that Auden should go down the Shaksgam with Mancho and Buddha to continue the survey and his geological work in that direction. We left a fortnight’s food with him and arranged that his party should catch us up while we were working up the Crevasse glacier. Then we went, with all the remaining loads, to Dump I, which we reached on the evening of July 20th.

On July 21st, while I was helping Spender with the survey among the mountains of the north, Tilman conducted another carrying-forward to Dump II. He managed to get on to a moraine shelf running along the northern bank of the glacier, and succeeded in going four miles before depositing the loads. I had not expected to be able to put the dumps more than two miles apart on the lower, broken part of the glacier, so this rate of progress was extremely satisfactory. Another relay was carried up the next day, and on July 23rd we camped at Dump II with all the loads.

From Dump II on July 24th we were able to reconnoitre the confusion of glaciers at the First Divide. There was no doubt as to which of the branches we should follow. To the south, a gigantic fan of ice-falls descended from the vertical cliffs of the main watershed, and united into one ice-stream, which joined the main glacier in a jumble of pinnacles. Even if our route had lain in this direction, it would have been practically impossible to get far up these broken ice-falls. A mile or so further up a big tributary came in from the north. As it seemed to flow roughly from the direction of the Crown, we called it the Crown glacier. We were surprised at its size, for it came from the range of mountains dividing the Crevasse glacier from the Shaksgam valley, and we had not expected to find any very extensive glaciation there. The main valley, we were pleased to find continued on a bearing only ten degrees north of west. Ten miles farther up there was a confluence of glaciers. We called this the second divide.

The junction of the pinnacle crown glacier prevented any further progress up the Northern flanks of the Crevasse glacier. On July the 25th, while Tilman and Spender were surveying, I set out with the men to cross the glacier, carrying the first relay of loads for Dump III. We had not gone far before we got into trouble. Our way was barred by a wide stream flowing down the glacier. It had cut a deep trough in the ice, through which it slid with such velocity that there was no chance of fording it, and it was far too wide to jump. We followed it up for some way until we got involved in the pinnacles of the Crown glacier. At length we came to a place where the stream was spanned by a remarkable bridge. In order to get across this, we had first to climb through a tunnel in the ice and cut steps spirally upwards, while the torrent thundered through the enclosed canyon fifty feet below. It was a sensational and very beautiful place. The exit at the top of the tunnel was made by a somewhat dangerous step from one ice cornice to another. Having been granted such a dramatic and unexpected way out of our difficulties, I thought there would be no further trouble in reaching the other side of the glacier. But soon we were held up by a smaller stream, and, when it seemed that we were almost across the glacier, another big river confronted us. For five hours we hunted for a way of getting over this obstacle. First we explored downstream until we could get no farther; then we went up until we became entangled in a network of pinnacles amongst which we were continually losing ourselves and our companions, and even the river itself. At length Angtharkay and I found an ice bridge, and reached it by cutting steps down a steep slope and sliding down a rope over an ice cliff. But although we could cross the bridge, it led us into a cave twenty feet high, from which there was no exit.

Meanwhile Sen Tensing had found a place where the near wall of the canyon overhung the river, and he thought he could jump across to an ice cliff on the opposite side. It was a formidable distance, with only a tiny ledge on the other side on which to land, while below there was a nasty drop into the torrent at the bottom of the ravine. I should not like to have undertaken the jump myself, but Sen Tensing insisted he could do it. We tied a rope to him and he started to make elaborate preparations. When it came to the point, he did not like the prospect, and kept walking to the brink and back again. Angtharkay was doubled up with laughter at Sen Tensing’s mounting nervousness and discomfiture. Though the victim had my full sympathy, it certainly was very funny to watch, and I had some difficulty in maintaining an air of grave concern. But at last he hurled himself across the abyss and landed on the ledge on the opposite wall. He swayed backwards for a second and I thought he must fall; but he recovered his balance and clung to the ledge. From there he was able to climb to the top of the wall.

We worked downstream until we found a suitable place for a rope bridge. A treble strand of rope was fixed from a high ice bollard on our side of the river to a point lower down on the opposite bank. We used for a runner a piece of bent wood that was carried by one of the Baltis instead of an ice axe, and the loads were easily hauled across the river by Sen Tensing. It had been my intention to leave them there and to return to camp by the way we had come, as by now it was late in the afternoon. But we could not get Sen Tensing back across the river as we could not haul uphill across the bridge. So I decided that Angtharkay and I should join him, and, while the others went back, we would look for a route much lower down the glacier. We entrusted ourselves to the flimsy contraption and were hauled across. Neither of us was very successful in concealing his alarm, but Sen Tensing displayed admirable generosity and restraint!

We stacked the loads, waved good-bye to the others, and set off down the glacier, taking a tin of pemmican with us against the probability of being benighted. We soon discovered that we were on a narrow tongue of ice with a river on either side, gradually converging towards each other, so that we should soon be forced to cross one of them. It also transpired that Sen Tensing had sprained his ankle in his heroic leap and he could not get along very fast. Angtharkay and I went ahead, looking for a new way across either of the rivers. The one on our right was the smaller of the two, but it was out of the question to think of fording it. We found a place from which we could do a downward leap of about fifteen feet, on to the farther bank, but it was a difficult landing and unlikely that Sen Tensing could manage it on one foot. Eventually we were cut off by the confluence of the two rivers. Here, luckily, there was an unexpected way out of the difficulty. Two ice pinnacles, leaning out from the opposite banks of the right-hand stream, almost touched one another. I chipped steps to the top of one and from it jumped over to the other. The distance from one to the other was small, but the pinnacles were so slender, and they were leaning at such a dizzy angle, that I was afraid that one of them would collapse under my weight. However, we all three got across safely.

From this place we reached a high ridge of moraine which had been swept right across the main glacier by the big ice-stream coming in from the south. Angtharkay and I went ahead again, as fast as we could, to find a route before it became too dark to see. We built small cairns every hundred yards or so, to guide Sen Tensing. We encountered no more difficulties, and reached camp before eight o’clock. The other porters had got in nearly two hours before us. We had now found a good way across the glacier, but I cursed my stupidity for not having spotted the difficulties of the other route before having embarked upon it. This had wasted much time and a great deal of energy. However, to make up for it, Spender and Tilman had done a very successful day’s work.

For the next two days a thick haze made visibility so bad that survey was impossible. But during this time the rest of the baggage was carried up to Dump III, which was established three and a half miles farther up, on the southern side of the glacier. Also the loads that I had left by the river were rescued and brought along, so that on the evening of July 27th everything was at Dump III. We were now twelve and a half miles west of Azimuth camp, and we had been working up the glacier for only ten days. As we were already over the most difficult part, and we expected soon to get on to smooth ice, the position was very satisfactory.

On July 28th, Tilman and I, with the porters, all carrying big loads, pushed forward towards the Second Divide. For the first two miles the way was complicated and difficult, but we were able to keep to the moraine at the side of the ice, and so to avoid the worst of the pinnacled section of the glacier. Beyond this we found wide troughs of smooth ice in which we were able to walk at a considerable speed. As we approached it, we saw that the Second Divide formed the junction of two huge ice-streams of equal width, one flowing from the north-west and the other from the south-west.

It is difficult to think of suitable names for geographical features in unexplored country. But from the explorer’s point of view it is better to give unsuitable names than to give no names at all. It is irritating and confusing, for instance, to speak of The glacier coming in two miles below Dump III’, The peak we climbed the day so-and-so was ill’, or The valley that puzzled us when we were doing our first station in the Shaksgam’. Generally the first name suggested, however unsuitable it may be, comes to stay. In this way, to the annoyance of scientific societies and survey departments, important features of newly explored country come to be known by such frivolous names as Cockeyed peak and Lousy valley, and occasionally by names that would hardly pass the censor.

In a moment of exasperation, I called the range of high peaks, lying between the two glaciers beyond the Second Divide the ‘Father Christmas’ group. The name was adopted by my companions without comment, and it soon lost its ridiculous sound. The northern branch became known as the ‘Father Christmas glacier’, and the highest peak of the group was ‘Father Christmas’. The southern branch was regarded as the main Crevasse glacier, for no better reason than that we thought our ultimate route would lie up it.

We succeeded in establishing Dump IV at the inside bend of the Main glacier, between an ice-fall and steep rock cliffs. There was a division of opinion as to the actual site of the camp. We had to choose between a stretch of soft sand that had been deposited at the foot of the cliffs by a glacial stream, and the broken surface of the ice where a platform would have to be cut. There was no doubt about which would be the more comfortable place, but most of us thought that the sand flat was in danger of being bombarded by stones from the very rotten crags above. The sybarites in the party ridiculed this idea, and despite their minority they had their way. We returned to Dump III in bad weather. We paid later for the foolish choice of this camp site.

We were so well in advance of our schedule that we decided to strengthen our position by bringing up wood from farther down the glacier. This job occupied July 29th and 30th. On July 31st, Spender, Tilman and I went up to occupy Dump IV, and on August 1st, the porters brought all the remaining loads to that camp. Also Auden arrived with his Baltis at this opportune moment. At each dump we had left him a sketch map and detailed instructions of how to get to the next. In this way he found no difficulty in following us up the glacier when he had finished his work in the Shaksgam valley.