ODD CORNERS IN KULU

ROBERT PETTIGREW

During the pre-monsoon season of 1963 my appetite for some exploratory mountaineering within economical range of Manali had been whetted by two short excursions into the Solang nullah with Thompson and Snell.14 The opportunity came in the post-monsoon season when Bob Menzies, of the Alpine Club, wrote to say that he would be visiting India on business and could spare a few weeks to join me for climbing in Kulu. He was accompanied by his wife, Cossette, and her companion, Miss Patricia Wedgewood. The ladies trekked in with us as far as Base Camp and also made one or two excursions above the snow-line.

The party assembled in John Banon's guest-house in Manali on October 1. We employed the Ladakhis, Wangyal, Ang Chook and Zangbo, a string of four ponies and their energetic ghore wallah. Last minute purchases were made in the bazaar, food and equipment were packed into panniers, and the caravan was despatched in the afternoon of October 2—something of a record for onward shipment from Manali! We followed in the evening at a more leisurely rate to recover from the day's session of rapid packing.

At the village of Pulcharn, six miles north of Manali, the road forks. The main road bears north-east to the Rohtang La, 13,050 feet. We struck off north-west into the picturesque Solang nullah where the trees were ablaze with autumn glory.15 Alas! Even the Solang nullah is not to be spared from 'improvement' and the ubiquitous 6 jeepable' road is already under construction. Little progress had been made, however, and we soon left all evidence of the planners and improvers behind.

We camped that night in the mouth of the nullah and went to bed with the intention of getting an early start on the morrow. Unfortunately, we had not taken the ponies into our confidence and when we enthusiastically turned out at 5 o'clock the ponies had grazed far down the valley. So we fretted and fumed away that vital hour of first light until the massive wall of tilted strata that apparently seals off the nullah was slowly illuminated and the ponies unashamedly returned.

Footnote

  1. HJ., Vol. XXIV, 1962-63, p. 137.
  2. See sketch-map.

 

Sketch map of upper beas valley, Kulu

Sketch map of upper beas valley, Kulu

The absconding animals paid dearly for their hour of freedom in a most strenuous (for them) day's march. Often, where the path had been breached by earth slips in the monsoon, we would hang on to their tails as a human brake while they slithered and stumbled down avalanche debris too near the glacier torrent for comfort. But, in general, the trail as far as Dundi on the true right bank of the infant Beas River was excellent.3

Dundi is a delightful glade on a terrace above the junction of the upper Solang nullah stream flowing from the west and the Seri nullah stream flowing from the north. The latter valley is famed among shikaris for the excellent ibex hunting which can be obtained in its upper reaches. The Dundi camp-site is well known and is probably intended as the terminus of the ‘jeepable' road mentioned earlier.

The upper Solang nullah stream was forded to gain the true left bank where the track continued. By afternoon we were negotiating a route across the prominent, wooded spur which drops abruptly into the river-bed, forcing the track to rise sharply. This I had named Bear Spur, in memory of a fine brown beast inadvertently stalked by Thompson and myself on the pre-monsoon outing. Wangyal and I laboured ahead up the steep rise to reconnoitre a way for the ponies. What follows is due to our negligence and impatience, for we indicated that the track was suitable and the caravan duly followed on. The first animal, a trusting mare, missed her footing on the inadequate track and plunged down the steep shale bank, scattering her panniers far and wide. Fortunately, her fall was broken by bushes so she escaped serious injury, though she had a slight leg wound which I dressed with an army shell dressing. Moreover, we recovered all our pannier loads intact. But the moral was obvious; we returned to the foot of Bear Spur and camped for the night.

All were agreed that to find a practicable route for ponies we should have to recross the upper Solang stream to the true right bank. This appeared to give access to the foot of the great terminal moraine which sealed off the head of the valley and would obviously be the terminus for pony transport. That night a brilliant moon and a cheerfully blazing camp-fire mitigated our disappointment at having to abandon the left bank path.

With the exception of Ang Chook, who was despatched along the original route over Bear Spur to make an early reconnaissance of the moraine, the caravan started to ford the river early next morning at a height of 9,900 feet.16 It wound slowly up easy grassy slopes studded with rocks passing isolated copses of birch-trees and clumps of rhododendrons.17 Too late, we discovered that they sheltered many plump pheasants.

Footnote

  1. All heights by uncorrected aneroid.
  2. Photo B.

 

At the end of the day the ponies were clearly struggling to find a footing in the subsidiary moraine banks. Half-a-mile distant and 500 feet below the main crest of the terminal moraine we unloaded them and sent them back on the first stage to Manali. Meanwhile Menzies and the ladies had located a temporary campsite on the inhospitable moraine. By evening, after two strenuous hours of load ferrying, the camp was consolidated and the party in sight of the head of the nullah.

The following morning we realized that ' Shangri La 9 was not in the immediate vicinity; to locate a site worthy of our Base Camp we should have to reconnoitre across the chaotic sea of moraines apparently filling the head of the valley. We spent October 5 probing all the likely places near the snout of the glacier descending from the Solang Weisshorn. The quest seemed hopeless and we had almost abandoned it when, idly following the course of a little stream, we stumbled upon a sheltered, grassy meadow complete with bubbling spring and natural tent platforms.

All next day was spent transferring the camp and acclimatizing to the new surroundings. Hemming us in on two sides were large moraine banks. Behind the camp, to the west, a spur rose abruptly out of the meadow to link eventually with the Solang Weisshorn- Mukar Beh watershed ridge. To the east, the stream outlet, the way was open as far as an impassable gorge between the solid spur descending from the vicinity of Shiti Dhar, 17,358 feet, and the end of the great terminal moraine. Any way in or out of the upper valley must therefore, at some point, climb laboriously over the moraine.

An angry gnat of an alarm watch woke me at 5 o'clock on October 7. Outside, a brilliant moon made the thick hoarfrost sparkle. Wangyal and I set off at 6.30 to reconnoitre the route to the pass we believed to lie at the very head of the Solang nullah, giving access from this valley to the Bara Bangahal.18 We crossed the foot of the spur enclosing our hollow, then took easy scree slopes to the foot of an obvious, curved couloir. The first third of this we climbed without crampons. As the angle suddenly steepened we paused for a breather and attached claws. Two hours after departure from Base Camp we emerged from the couloir into a basin of snow uneasily resting on scree. 1,500 feet per hour is a very satisfactory rate of ascent; we were obviously fit. We scanned the ridge above and noted that the only weakness in the snow-coated flank facing us was a rotten scree gully which ran out immediately above us in the top of the basin. Gingerly, we scrambled up the crumbling ledges until we reached a V notch— the pass into the Bara Bangahal. It was 9.50. The aneroid read 16,000 feet. Draped in cornices, the North ridge of the Solang Weisshorn leaped from the watershed in a series of undulating snow aretes rising some 3,000 feet in one mile to support the 19,450-foot snow cone of a summit. In the opposite direction, to the north, rose an equally impressive rock ridge culminating in a summit which reminded me of some solitary giant of the Dolomites. We were duly impressed by both summits and, after a careful examination through the field-glasses, pronounced both climbs to be too difficult for our party.

Footnote

  1. H.J., Vol. XXIV, 1962-63. Photo facing p. 136. Mention p. 137 et seq.

 

On the trail in the solang Nullan with the scrub vegetation in the foreground and conifer forest in the background. (Bob Menzies)

Photo: Bob Menzies

On the trail in the solang Nullan with the scrub vegetation in the foreground and conifer forest in the background.

The upper solang <em>nullah</em>, looking west. (Bob Menzies)

Photo: Bob Menzies

The upper solang Nullah, looking west.

The view west into the fascinating Bara Bangahal showed an easy glacier leading down at a gentle angle. There would be no difficulty in descending the west side of the pass. In fact, we merely strolled over and wandered about 200 yards down to take photographs of the Solang Weisshorn. We also noticed a fine snow-capped peak standing to the south of the snout of the glacier flowing westwards from the pass. Marked somewhat optimistically as carrying a track from Solang into Bara Bangahal, our pass appears on Survey of India Sheet 52H/SW. It receives a bare mention in A. P. F. Hamilton's splendid article on Kulu.19

Descending the gully in a series of barely controlled scree glissades, we soon recovered our crampons at the top of the couloir, then descended it swiftly since it looked a likely channel for falling stones. That night, after a sober discussion of our reconnaissance, we abandoned our plan to attempt the North ridge of the Solang Weisshorn and switched our attention to an interesting peak and glacier complex in the north containing wall of the nullah, the watershed between Kulu and Lahul.

October 8 was usefully occupied prospecting a route to the glacier over alpine flanks and ugly moraines. In one memorable place, however, the terrain was transformed by literally fields of eidelweiss. We were satisfied that some good climbing could be had on the Kulu-Lahul watershed so we planned to place a camp on the neve of the glacier we had prospected and explore the mountains above it.8

Two days later Menzies, Wangyal, Zangbo and I left the Base Camp at 9 o'clock to climb the lawn-like spur beneath the glacier snout. During the ascent of the glacier Zangbo, on my rope, was taken ill. We halted and rearranged the loads. This got him a bit further. However, he was very slow and groaning occasionally. He complained of a pain in his chest and also had diarrhoea. The weather was poor—a light snow was falling and the party was enveloped in cloud. Then and there we pitched a rapid camp, wrapped Zangbo in a duvet jacket, dosed him with whisky and medicine, got him into his sleeping-bag and nursed him to sleep. Our own tent was pitched opposite. We then prepared for a very cold night. By 5 o'clock in the evening the temperature had fallen to 20° F.

Sunrise was particularly welcome the next morning because the thermometer inside the tent registered 22 degrees below freezing. Zangbo was much better, though still not fit enough to climb, so we left him in camp during our reconnaissance towards the watershed ridge. We climbed easily to the neve above our glacier and then started traversing across steep slopes towards the seemingly vertical snow wall to the north. This supported a ridge which ran almost level to the east and Shiti Dhar, but to the west rose in three sharp little buttresses to a squat summit.20 This was the mountain we wished to climb. The traverse was easy in crampons. Occasionally we would glance anxiously at the rocky wall above us, but it was fairly stable. By 10 o'clock we had reached the snow wall and confirmed that it would be possible to make a route up it. To our left, on the west, there was a shaly, steep gully giving access to the South face of the peak but it looked loose and desperate so we decided to try the snow wall first. Having performed our reconnaissance, we decided to shift camp that day to the foot of the snow wall. We dumped spare clothing in the snow and returned to fetch the tents. Roped as one party we were repeating the traverse to the new site when Wangyal suddenly fell into a crevasse and galvanized us into rescue procedure while he wriggled out. Camp II was finally established at 16,500 feet.

After a comfortable night we were astonished to find when we awoke that the temperature was 30 degrees below freezing. At5 o'clock Wangyal started to prepare the summit attempt' breakfast requested by us the night before, namely milk and sardines. The milk turned out to be tea and the sardines were a nauseous mess so I ate and drank very little. I turned out in the hard light of a fine, clear morning and the snow ground under my boots emitting little gravelly squeaks. To get warm, I walked into the first gleam of sunlight to strike the glacier while the camp was still shadowed, gloomy and deathly cold. By 7 o'clock we were ready to depart, cramponed up and roped. Zangbo was left behind to convalesce and brew up for our return. The steep neve wall was still in shadow, cold and hard, as we cramponed up steadily to the snout of some avalanche debris which marked the steepening of the wall. I kicked a staircase directly up the domelike feature and in a few minutes we were standing on its roof confronting several large and partially concealed crevasses which were backed by a vertical ice-cliff 200 feet high. It seemed that this could best be turned by traversing out to the west (left) on steep snow slopes. But first we had to locate a bridge over the crevasses which barred us from this route.

Footnote

  1. H.J., Vol. V, 1933, p. 77.
  2. Photo D.

 

ASCENDING THE GLACIER TO POINT FEET. UNCLIMBED PEAKS OF SOUTH WALL OF SOLANG <em>nullah</em> IN BACKGROUND. (Bob Menzies)

Photo: Bob Menzies

ASCENDING THE GLACIER TO POINT FEET. UNCLIMBED PEAKS OF SOUTH WALL OF SOLANG nullah IN BACKGROUND. (Bob Menzies)

POINT 17,525 FEET FROM THE APPROACH GLACIER NEVE. ROUTE AS MARKED AND BY RIGHT SKYLINE RIDGE. (Bob Menzies)

Photo: Bob Menzies

POINT 17,525 FEET FROM THE APPROACH GLACIER NEVE. ROUTE AS MARKED AND BY RIGHT SKYLINE RIDGE. (Bob Menzies)

The bridge selected bore us immediately under the ice-wall, a position almost identical to the start of the final section on White Sail, above the Bara Shigri. Although the snow was new and powdery, overlying old ice, it was adhering well enough for crampons and we moved out well to the left on the wall before traversing and climbing to the right to reach the lowest rocks of the ridge.

Already higher than Shiti Dhar, 17,358 feet, we now stood on the watershed between Kulu and Lahul overlooking the great glacier which drains the eastern basin of Mukar Beh, 19,910 feet, and down into the brown glades and blue depths of the Chandra Valley—another State, another world. It was 8.20 a.m. We sat for a few minutes looking down our ridge, now composed of broad neves on the Lahul side (N.) but falling off steeply to Solang nullah (S.). Looking upwards, to the west, our ridge was part snow arete, part jumbled rocks, ending in a cluster of shattered stone to form a stocky but distinctive summit.

Starting again we climbed up and out to the edge of the solid- seeming, though corniced, arete. The North wall of the mountain fell steeply into the Mukar Beh basin on our right hand. At times we had to take to this North wall to by-pass difficulties along the crest of the ridge. A short wall of about 25 feet forced a rising traverse to the left (S.) which brought us to another graceful snow arete. At this point we abandoned our crampons. Thus an hour on the ridge was consumed. The next impasse, at 9.20 a.m., was a steep rock step barring further progress. Here Menzies decided that he would not climb further but would dig a fox-hole in the snow to escape the bitter wind, and wait for us.

I wrapped the 60 feet of spare nylon around me, took the coil of line, piton hammer and camera and climbed up to Wangyal. We turned the rock step on the right (N.) stepping wide across a gully filled with sugary, streaming snow, and feeling for the solid rocks which were surely beneath the coverlet! It was fascinating to glimpse the powder snow we had disturbed in passing, flowing smoothly over the rocks like fine table salt, and then pushing great tongues of debris out over the glacier basin far below. Wangyal was climbing at a great pace and it was hard work keeping within a rope's length. After traversing on the North face in wintry surroundings for about 60 feet we again sought the ridge. Climbing on rocks of V. Diff. standard for 100 feet we quit the North face and revelled in the sunshine and warm rock of the spine of the ridge. An easy rock step yielded quickly and then we were level with the summit but separated from it by a narrow but loose gully. We clambered across, none too gracefully, stood on the summit, and took in our surroundings. Immediately north, connected to us by a magnificent snow arete, was the massive Mukar Beh, 19,910 feet. To the west of the connecting ridge a great glacier drains south-west. To the east another glacier drains north-east. To the east our ridge continues for perhaps 12 miles forming the North wall of the Solang nullah and including several summits of 17,000 feet or so, until it terminates at the Rohtang La, 13,050 feet, the classic trade route, now abandoned, between Tibet and India. By this ridge, therefore, the Dhaula Dhar and Pir Panjal ranges are joined.

Far below, to the south, lay our own camp, two tents, one bright orange, the other bright green. They nestled on the neve below the ice-wall which had unsuccessfully defended the ridge. In the south-east another fragile snow arete linked us to a similar looking summit about our own height, part of the wall containing the Dolomitic giant to the north of the pass from the Solang into the Bara Bangahal, reached by Wangyal and me on the 7th. The same ridge continues due south to become the impressive and very difficult North ridge of the Solang Weisshorn. To the west we could see the beautiful upper valley of the Bara Bangahal.

The aneroid barometer registered 17,525 feet which, by comparison with Shiti Dhar, 17,358 feet, seemed too low. Wangyal built a spritely little cairn; meanwhile I wrote our names out and inserted them in the base, took a round of photographs and ate some chocolate. At about 10.20 a.m. we began the descent—first along the spine of the ridge, and then descending over the icy wall of the North face, following our footsteps in the free-flowing powder snow.

It was 11 o'clock before we rejoined Menzies, who was nearly frozen. We shared some rum fudge to revive him, re-roped and resumed the descent. Recovering the crampons, we trod warily down the arete and the steep snow wall which felt very secure, even in crampons, at 12 noon. This, I felt, was because the sun in October had lost its warmth, and had also been veiled by clouds.

Zangbo welcomed us back to the camp with a hot brew of tea and a bowl of soup. He and Menzies then carried on down to Base Camp. I stayed longer at Camp II to complete drawings of peaks forming the South wall of the Solang nullah. Wangyal was impatient at the delay and worried about two men on the glacier, Chelo Sahib, do admi acha nai! So we packed up rapidly and descended to Base Camp in \\ hours. That night we built a large bonfire and toasted the mountain in whisky while the Ladakhis sang haunting Tibetan songs.

My chief memory of the withdrawal from the upper Solang nullah on October 14 is of voyaging across endless and chaotic moraine fields. What a joy it was to breast the final crest of grey moraine and see the lush green grass of the lower valley with its promise of comfortable camps and a rendezvous with the ponies!

We returned thirstily down the hot and dusty road to Manali after a fortnight in the hills.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The Himalayan Club records its sincere thanks to Mr. Lucien Devies, President, Federation Francaise De La Montagne for kindly giving authorization of the Federation for publication of the three articles on 6 The Ascent of Jannu': (i) Beyond Camp VI by Pierre Leroux, (ii) The Move Upwards by Lionel Terray and (iii) The Summit by Paul Keller in the Himalayan Journal, Vol. XXIV, pp. 3-15, 1962-63. Omission of this acknowledgement in the previous volume of H.J. is regretted.—Editor.

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