MODERATE MOUNTAINS FOR MIDDLE-AGED MOUNTAINEERS

R. L. HOLDSWORTH

there comes a time for dwellers in the Indian subcontinent, A when they have climbed their own particular Everests and are no longer young enough, or perhaps wealthy enough, to take part in a large-scale expedition to one of the few remaining 8,000-metre peaks, but when the urge to spend their holiday in the high places is still insistent. For such as these there are still literally hundreds of mountains between 18,000 and 22,000 feet which are accessible without grandiose arrangements for stores, porters or equipment. I have long since reached this age and perhaps a few memories of such moderate mountains will be of interest to some readers of the Himalayan Journal who are approaching this stage in their life.

I shall mention, in addition to the climbing possibilities, the wild life, the fishing, the Alpine flowers and the ski-ing, which have always been additional attractions to me and may be also to others.

In 1940, in the very worst days of the war, when it was more than possible that we might find Adolf Hitler in command of India on our return, we—that is, J. T. M. Gibson, J. A. K. Martyn and myself, all at that time masters at the Doon School, Dehra Dun, thought it a good idea to have one more climbing holiday. We selected as our aim Mankial, an unclimbed mountain of nearly 19,000 feet in Upper Swat, where three of our students had their stately home at Saidu Sharif. I remember thinking that, if the worst came to the worst, it would not be a bad base from which to wage guerrilla warfare on the minions of awful Adolf.

It was an entirely successful expedition and on our return we found that the battle of Britain had been fought and won, and things were not so bad. Admitting the princely hospitality that we received at Saidu Sharif from our host, the present Ruler, Aurangzeb Khan, both at the start of the expedition and on our return, we reached the end of the motor-road with no more equipment than three Meade tents and a porter tent, ice-axes, crampons and a climbing rope, and made our way to a delightful marg just below the tree-line at about 9,500 feet. From here, reinforced by a very good young Sherpa called Rinsing, we made a reconnaissance, to a point well above the glacier at about 15,000 feet. Here, for the first time, we could get a good close-up view of the upper part of one mountain. Easy slopes of neve would take us to a pass, which gave access to a rocky South ridge, the first part of which contained some gendarmes which might well be beyond our capacity. To the west lay two wide couloirs by which the South ridge could be reached by subsidiary rock ridges above the last difficulty. We decided that the first—i.e. the westernmost —would ⁴ go'. We decided to place a comfortable camp, with cook and running water, at about 11,500 feet, and to use a bivouac camp at the 15,000 feet point where we stood and which two Swati porters would evacuate as soon as we had left it. We thought that; after climbing the peak we should use the 11,500 feet camp on our return, as well as on the way up. The climb went easily enough in dry but, unfortunately, misty weather; this precluded the view over Indus Kohistan to the Hindu Kush and Karakoram which must be superb. We gave the first couloir a miss. It was strewn with blocks of ice and stones and looked most forbidding. The second couloir was steeper, but free of these danger signals. We cramponed up it, finding the snow well consolidated on the ice both on the way up and on the descent, when owing to melting it might have been dangerous. The subsidiary and the main South rock ridge gave us a pleasant but easy scramble, which, in spite of having left the plains only six days ago, we were fit enough to enjoy. Finding ourselves back at the 11,500 feet camp with more than an hour's daylight left, we packed it up and returned to the marg, much to the disappointment of the cook who had prepared a magnificent supper.

A week might very easily be spent climbing some of the peaks adjoining Mankial, all of them in the neighbourhood of 18,000 feet and giving some more difficult climbs than we had achieved. After a day's rest at the marg we walked up to another pass into Indus Kohistan before returning to the fleshpots of Saidu.

It remains to add that there are always Gujars on the marg in high summer, so that milk, butter and curds are available.

The wild life of Upper Swat includes markhor and Monal pheasant which we saw, and black bear, gorhal and, lower down, chukor and probably koklas, chir and kaleej pheasant. The flora is only fairly abundant and differs very little from that of Kashmir. There is mahseer fishing below Saidu Sharif, but trout had not, at the time of our trip, been introduced, though the Swat River above 5,000 feet would make an excellent trout water.
Climbing in the Central Himalaya, west of Nepal, depends nowadays, for those who are not Indian citizens, on the vagaries the ‘inner line’ to cross which you have to obtain a pass, which is aot all that easy, and the actual frontier with Tibet will now be a military area. I cannot say how far Indian citizens and pass- tiolders will be allowed to go. But starting from the east the following areas are full of climbs which can be done with no more ^; bandobast' than that mentioned above.

First of all, in my opinion, come the mountains of the Arwa Valley, above Badrinath and Mana. Here there are many peaks between 20,000 feet and 22,000 feet, which would now come under the category of ⁶ an easy day for a ladyMoreover, there is an admirable place for a high camp at 19,000 feet which I first visited in 1931 on the Kamet expedition (,see ⁴ Kamet Conquered' for its exact position) and again in 1942 with J. A. K. Martyn and three very young Doon School boys and from which in 1931 I climbed four of the peaks, none of them dignified with a name, but all of them providing delightful climbing, snow, rock and ice. The accessibility of this camp is proved by the delivery by a new route by a solitary Mana porter of a load of two hens and no less than 100 eggs.

The Arwa glaciers give excellent and safe ski-ing, and, if you are a fisherman, there are trout to be caught on your return in the Gona Lake, below the Kuari Pass, or above Chamoli, whichever way you like to look at it. There are no barhal in the Arwa Valley, though they used to be plentiful on the Gangotri side of the range.

Further west we come to a fine group of mountains surrounding Bandarpunch and the Black Peak, both well over 20,000 feet which can be approached from three directions. One is from Rishikesh\)r Mussoorie, Uttarkashi and the Dodital Lake, which is stocked with brown trout—or rather over-stocked, since they have bred prolifically and there is not enough food to support them. J. T. M. Gibson and I once caught over 50 in two hours. From Dodital you cross an easy pass—look out for bears, both black and red—into the Hanuman Ganga Valley and from there make a comfortable Base Camp in the upper Alps at about 12,000 feet. Here the flowers are both abundant and interesting, five or six species of primula, asters, anemone and a fine rose-coloured cypripedium. In J. T. M. Gibson's party of 1946, which included both Tenzing and the late Narendra Dhar Jayal, we made an attempt on the summit during the monsoon months and got to within 1,000 feet of our objective before snow, mist and lack of time prevented us. The peak was climbed a few years later by another of Gibson's parties; in fact, it is virtually his peak. The climbing is mainly ice and snow up the South ridge, with about 400 feet of easy rock. Above the last rocks there are two steep ice-slopes which are very exposed. The same Base Camp would enable you to climb the Hanuman Peak, over 18,000 feet, and a fine twenty thousander to the west of Bandarpunch, and the neve slopes below this peak give glorious ski-ing. Another approach is via Chakrata, the Jumna Valley and Jumnotri. From the Hanuman-Ganga Base Camp at least two higher camps are needed, possibly three.

The third approach to the Bandarpunch range, and particularly the easiest route to the Black Peak, which is in point of fact higher than Bandarpunch itself, is via Chakrata, the valley of the Tons, the Jumna's biggest tributary, and the Harkidun, a high pasture just beneath the three or four glaciers which feed the Tons. Here, in addition to the Black Peak, there are un- climbed peaks galore between 18,000 and 21,000 feet, some of them far from easy.

The Harkidun, like the Hanuman Ganga, has a wealth of flowers and has been made a game sanctuary. I shot my only barhal there, and there are red bear and probably snow leopard as well, while Monal pheasant and snowcock abound. In the rich forest below there are black bear, musk-deer, thar and kok- las and probably Tragopan pheasant.

An interesting round trip which I have done with Chakrata porters is to cross the Borasu Pass over 17,000 feet and an easy glacier pass, from the Harkidun to the Baspa Valley, descend the latter to Sangla, where early and late in the year there is trout- fishing for fabulously large trout, cross the 15,000 feet Buran Pass—glorious flowers near the top, including the 'blue poppy' (Meconopsis aculeata:), descend the Pabbar Valley (excellent trout- fishing above and below Rohru) and, recrossing the Tons River at Tiuni, return to Chakrata. The Chakrata coolies, excellent men on steep grass, scree and rocks, have an uncanny fear of snow, which they will meet both on the Borasu and the Buran in some quantity, though without any danger at all, and require some persuasion.

Proceeding still further west we come to the fine group of the Kinnaur Kailash which contains at least one peak of 21,000 feet and which is virtually unexplored. It rises abruptly from the east bank of the Sutlej, and is best approached from Simla and a road which is now jeepable almost as far as the Tibetan frontier. I have been motored—I was glad that I was not driving my own jeep—up the fantastically sensational road as far as Chini (which we are now instructed to call Kalpa, presumably in case Mr. Chou En-lai gets to hear of it and claims it as part of the People's Republic). I would advise any party of climbers destined for the Kinnaur Kailash range to spend a day or two at Chini-Kalpa, not only because it is a beautiful village in itself, perched on the west bank of the Sutlej, amidst majestic deodars at 9,200 feet but because the present Deputy Commissioner is himself a keen and experienced mountaineer, Nalni Dhar Jayal (cousin of the late Nandu Dhar), a member of our club. He will give any climbing party valuable advice and arrange for accommodation and porters. Moreover, Chini-Kalpa is an admirable place from which to do bungalow-veranda mountaineering. The Kailash group rises abruptly, apparently within a stone's throw, across the invisible depths of the Sutlej Valley. It is possible from here to plan routes to the various peaks, none of them easy. This group is most worth while because, thanks to the present-day variation of the Hindustan-Tibet Road, known to Rudyard Kipling, you may be well on your way three days from Simla. An ' inner line' pass is most decidedly necessary.

A further advantage of the Kinnaur Kailash group is, for those who cannot get their holiday before July, that it is beyond the reach of the monsoon, which more or less peters out beyond Rampur Bushahr.

Immediately west of Kinnaur is Spiti. It is possible to walk from Chini-Kalpa into Spiti via the Spiti River. In fact, all these regions may be linked up—from Kumaon to Kashmir—by more or less high level routes. But I am assuming that my readers will have three weeks rather than three months at their disposal.

I have entered and penetrated a short distance into Spiti from the other direction—Lahul and the Kunzam La. To be absolutely frank, except for some fine cliffs, apparently of dolomite limestone on the left bank of the Spiti River, the mountains did not impress me much. Spiti does contain an apparently bogus peak of 23,000 feet—admitted to be bogus, I believe, by the Survey of India. I have forgotten its name² but have looked from quite close quarters at where it is marked on the map. There are genuine twenty-one thousanders on the Spiti-Kulu frontier but these are better reached from the Kulu side and," anyhow, do not look impressive.

 

What impressed me was the great height—about 13,000 feet— of the highest permanently occupied villages. The problem of keeping warm in the long, grim winters must be absolutely staggering, since in the upper reaches of the Spiti River there is no tree growth except for some scrub willow, wild rose and shrubby potentilla.

Spiti used to have a great reputation for wild life, including ibex, barhal, snow leopard, and towards the Tso-Morari Lake and the Tibetan frontier, ovis ammon and wild yak; but now that it is a military area and that 0-303 rifles are plentiful it is probably a different story. I saw a herd of barhal, with three or four magnificent heads, but no ibex.

Owing to the excessive dryness of the country the Alpine flowers do not make a great display except near the very few running streams, though there are one or two interesting species.

Next comes Lahul, and though you can connect Spiti with Lahul, as I did, by the Kunzam La and the Bara Lacha La, access is far easier via Kulu and the well-known Rohtang Pass.

The Lahul peaks have now been pretty thoroughly explored, both north of the Chandra River (soon to become the Chenab) and south, where they belong strictly to the Pir Panjal, not the Himalaya, and are accessible both from Lahul and Kulu. So I do not propose to go into them in great detail. I do, however, wish to point out one mountain which I think has escaped the attention of previous parties. Go, I think, three marches beyond Lahul's capital, Keylang, if you possess or do not require an ⁶ inner line' pass to Patseo, a considerable bazaar and camping place with a rest-house, at 12,400 feet. From here turn east up the Patseo nullah, and, after rounding a corner, a really splendid mountain fills the end of one branch of the nullah. Its glacier comes down to about 13,500 feet and it is all steep snow and ice above this. The map marks the culminating point as something more than 21,000 feet but I believe that it is much higher, since only those peaks were triangulated which were visible from the road along the Bhaga on the west and the infant Chandra on the east. This fine peak is invisible from both roads. The mountain from the Patseo side is very steep, but it should just ⁶ go⁹ provided that there is not too much bare ice.

West of Patseo and in full view of the rest-house rise three fine peaks of about 18,000 feet, which are easily accessible and would give a very suitable training run before tackling the big peak.

The Patseo nullah is also famous for containing ibex with big heads, by Lahul standards. Like Spiti, Lahul is too dry to contain a rich Alpine flora, though here again near springs and the sparse streamsides some interesting species are on view, and the Rohtang Pass, more open to the monsoon, has a splendid display. Snow leopards are reported and, only in the south of Lahul, the red bears are said to have a beautiful golden coat, though I never saw bear or leopard on my two visits.

Kulu has been very adequately written up, but I should like to recommend a trip which I have never heard has been attempted.³West of Manali, peaks rise to over 18,000 feet and two or three passes lead to the romantically named district of Bara Bangahal. These passes lead to the neighbourhood of Dharamsala in the Kangra Valley and must be used by Kangra shepherds. It would be an interesting trip to traverse them. I once saw from a camp at only 9,000 feet, on the Manali side of these passes, no less than ten red bears, of which I shot one, and two black. The nullah was subsequently created a 'sanctuary' though it will never be more than a sanctuary for poachers, since there is little supervision.

Kulu also has its trout-fishing in the Beas and its tributaries though, owing first to snow water and then to monsoon rain, April, May and October are the best months.

Our next area of mountains separating Kulu from Jammu and Kashmir is Chamba State, but since I have never been there and know nothing about it except that it is reported to mark the eastern limit of the Kashmir stag and, I believe, also the markhor, we will pass it by.

Kashmir is, for mountaineers, associated with the names of Karakorum, Nanga Parbat and the Nun Kun group. These are all big mountains and possibly beyond the reach of the middle- aged. But perhaps some people do not realize that above the Kashmir Valley proper the Great Himalaya comes down to heights of no more than 18,000 feet. In the east, easily accessible from Pahalgam and the Liddar Valley there is the fine peak of Kolahoi, 17,800 feet, looking remarkably like a minor Matter- horn. It has, I believe, been climbed two or three times, first, in the first decade of the century by Doctor Neve.⁴ New routes might be invented. Overlooking the Wular Lake rises the friendly bulk of Haramukh, which is under 17,000 feet high, but which is a genuine snow mountain. It must have been climbed several times and may be approached by the Erin or Madmutti nullahs and by the Wangat trout stream and the Gangabal Lake. From a lake-side camp I once, with a well-known Kashmir fishing shikari, achieved what I still think must be a record. I climbed Haramukh in the morning by the easiest route and caught a dozen sacred trout in the evening, for which act of sacrilege 1 was promptly punished by a sharp attack of malaria. The history of these trout in the Gangabal Lake is interesting. It was stocked with brown trout about the turn of the century by a British Forest Officer, I believe. But then the Pandits of Kashmir decided, rather quaintly, that the lake was one of the sources of the Ganga and it was put out of bounds. Fortunately for all, the trout not only thrive in the lake, but bred in the Wangat stream which flows out of it and so made their way into the Sind River, which became one of Kashmir's first trout waters. The task of keeping anglers from the lake, owing to its formidable height of nearly 12,000 feet, had to be allotted to a Muslim shepherd, who, at the time of my sinful exploit, was a bit of a racketeer and made quite a bit by purveying very easy trout- fishing to unbelievers.

 

South of the Kashmir Valley rises the Pir Panjal range, rising to over 15,000 feet at some points and dropping to 9,000 feet at the Banihal Pass and to between 7,000 and 8,000 feet at the Pir Panjal Pass, which used to be on the main route of the Moghul rulers. I should like to recommend this range as ski-ing or rather ski- mountaineering terrain of the very highest quality. Nowadays, of course, very few skiers will ski at all unless conveyed to the top of their runs by funiculars or ski-lifts ; but in case there are any so old-fashioned as not to object to climbing I will repeat that the Kashmir Pir Panjal is a ^c ski-paradise', and there are some amusing little scrambles to its highest points, and one formidable rock- mass, the ⁴ Pir Panjal Brahma Peaks', which would yield rock- climbing of severe standard and which is completely unclimbed. The Ski Club of India used to ski from Gulmarg on the slopes of Alpathar or Apharwat between the years 1919 and 1941, both at Christmas and Easter. Now,, alas, only the Army uses it for Alpine warfare training, though the Khillan Hut is still, I believe, the property of the club and civilians have been and still are welcomed by the Army. I have myself not only ski'd all over Alpathar, but one Easter spent a week in a tent at the head of the Ferozepur nullah, ski-ing alone. Among some really splendid runs I took my skis nearly to the top of Shin Mahinyoo, one of the 15,000 feet peaks, and completed the last 100 feet or so on foot.

What I suggest is that some enterprising party should, preferably in the month of May, when there would still be snow in abundance down to the tree-line, traverse the whole range from Khillanmarg to the Banihal. It would be possible to take a camp along the range with a cook and a few coolies and to place it at convenient points just below the tree-line. The camp would move each day sideways and eastward—or at certain points it might remain in the same place for two or three days—while the ski-ing party climbed various heights and descended over magnificent runs to an agreed rendezvous. In this way one might start with Alpathar and descend to the Khillan Hut. The next two or three days might be spent where I camped in the Ferozepur nullah, and the Ferozepur peak climbed, and Shin Mahinyoo. The next day the camp might be changed via the Yesh Maidan and the Tosh Maidan, and the highest point of the Pir Panjal, the so-called 'Sunset Peak' collected, giving a magnificent run down. Beyond that it is all, to me, 'blank on the map', but with enterprise and good map-reading the whole traverse should be possible, and would be a real bit of pioneering, since the whole area is right off the tourist track.

Great care should, of course, be taken that a suitable man is found to be in charge of the camp—preferably a Pir Panjal shikari, if any still survive. It would be too awful for skiers to come down to the rendezvous and find no camp awaiting them.

I need not mention the trout-fishing of Kashmir, which is well known. It is as good now as it was when I first tried it in 1935, and not so expensive as trout-fishing of a similar quality in the British Isles. The flowers of Kashmir are equally well known. Though the variety of species is not so great as in Sikkim or Bhutan, the general display of iris, primula, anemone, gentian, columbine and many others is magnificent, particularly in May, June and July.

Before we get round again to Swat Kohistan where we started, there is just one district of which I have the pleasantest memories. This is in West Pakistan, the N.W.F.P., and marches with Pakistan- occupied Kashmir. It is the Kagan Valley. In the upper part of this valley there stands a really fine little mountain called Malika Parbat, over 17,000 feet high and involving some quite formidable ice-work. In an attempt with two ' Gujars' I got within 500 feet of the summit, but gave up as my companions were not suitably shod for what was a dangerous slope. It had been climbed once before from another and, I believe, easier approach on its northern slope by a Gurkha officer. My own approach was from Naran village and the Safr-Maluk Sar, a small lake. A year or two later it was climbed by my route by three British officers from Peshawar. The Kagan Valley leads to the Babusar Pass of something over 13,000 feet, an easy pass for mules or ponies, giving access to the Gilgit Agency.

The upper Kagan Valley has a rich flora, with some rare and interesting species, but what attracted me most, year after year, was the trout-fishing. The upper waters of the Kunhar River are not unlike a Scottish salmon river in size and character. In the early years of the century it was stocked with brown trout by the Forest Department, but for some years it was not known with what success. The fish did not breed very freely, very few small fish were seen, and very few anglers made the four days' journey to fish for them. But by 1936 at least they were established and the fishing was better than in most of the Kashmir streams. You did not catch many fish, but what you did catch were usually over two pounds. What the present situation is I have no idea, since the valley has been occupied by the Pakistan Army since 1947 and military occupation usually has a deplorable effect on the fishing.

And now it is high time that I took leave of you. I have conducted you to all the Himalayan ranges I am familiar with and introduced you to enough moderate mountains to last you from middle-age to the same state of decrepitude as I have unhappily arrived at.

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