NORTH KOHISTAN, 1968

R. COLLTSTER

In its early stages the North Kohistan Expedition was an amorphous collection of individuals whose chief link was a past or present connection with Cambridge. It had its unlikely origins in a hut on Kilimanjaro, when Alan Cormack and Dick Metcalfe were teaching in East Africa. A team of six was decided upon, partly for safety, but chiefly to reduce the cost per head. John Peck, a sculptor, Captain Henry Day of the R.E.M.E. and Dr. Ian Piper, freshly qualified from St. Thomas' Hospital, accepted invitations to join the expedition, and late in 1967 serious planning began. I was not recruited from the exam-ridden atmosphere of Cambridge until April. Five of us were to drive out to Pakistan in an ex-Army one-ton truck. Henry, stationed in Germany, would fly out later and make his own way from Chitral city to Base Camp in the Sor Laspur Valley. Sitting in a Cologne Beer-house, it seemed a delightfully simple arrangement.

Soon after leaving Henry, we experienced the first manifestations of the evil spirit lurking in the truck. Near Salzburg the cylinder head gasket started to leak. The local Austin garage was emphatic that a new gasket was needed. After a fruitless fortnight waiting in vain for the arrival of the B.M.C. replacement, we screwed down the cylinder head, and hurtled on regardless. It gave no more trouble. But the financial damage had been done, and a further procession of minor accidents and break-downs on the long drive to Buster Goodwin s home in Rawalpindi did little to improve our economic plight. We were disturbed, therefore, upon reaching Swat State, to find that porter rates had doubled since 1964. Driving to the roadhead at Gabral, we began the long haggle.

Our finely balanced finances had been so upset that we simply could not afford to reach the Laspur Valley via the Ushu and Kachikani Valleys, as the porters had wanted. The porters refused to take the far shorter route over the Manali Pass. The only alternative pass would cost us 40 rupees a day: We had to rest content with a Base Camp in the Gabral Valley, a mere two and a half days from the roadhead.

The scenery of the march-in route was paradisial: green valleys, sparkling streams, groves of cedar and deodar, the occasional stone and wood built villages tucked into the hillside, abrupt rock steps like lock gates in the valley floor, and always the great white glacier stream rushing past. At 11,000 feet, near the valley head, was some bare pasture land where goats, cattle and horses had been brought for the summer months. Amidst the jumble of lateral moraine, we found a patch of grass with a freshwater spring bubbling up beside it, and here we established Base Camp.

KOHISTAN, 1968

KOHISTAN, 1968

By now our objectives had changed somewhat. Originally, we had aimed at a second ascent of Gochar Sar (20,503 ft.), the highest peak in the area, and first ascents of Haranbit (19,600 ft.) and Haranboi Zom (19,097 ft.), all from the Laspur Valley. In Rawalpindi, however, we learnt that an Austrian party with exactly the same plans was a fortnight ahead of us. In view of this, and taking into account the porter situation, we decided to split our forces. Three of us would climb some of the hitherto unclimbed peaks in the Gabral Valley, while the other two would cross into the Manali Valley and attain the rendezvous with Henry in Laspur.

By the night of 9 August, after two days of provision-carrying by the whole party, Alan and I were ensconced in a snow bowl at 15,000 feet with three weeks' supply of food. We could choose our route over the Swat-Chitral frontier ridge from some half dozen, spiteful looking couloirs that debouched into the bowl. But before we were faced with a decision, we were allowed to spend two days contemplating the gigantic stone-falls that trundled regularly down them: on the first day I was prostrated by altitude sickness, and on the second it drizzled steadily all day. Eventually, however, we were released to make our first carry up the least hostile of the couloirs. At its foot was a huge bergschrund, crossed by a complicated system of dubious snow bridges, and a 40-foot rock pitch, on which my pack suddenly sprang to life in its efforts to pull me over backwards. Above us, the couloir stretched away, and out of sight round a corner, for some 1,000 feet. On either side were rock walls like slag heaps propped up vertically. The angle started at 25 degrees, but it was nearer 45 degrees at the top, the snow deep and rotten, and often lying over ice. It was an unpleasant place. It became even more so when the sun reached it. The danger had been obvious, but the bergschrund had taken time, and we were still only half-way up when we heard an awesome rumbling far above us. Looking up, we could see nothing.

Also known as Harambit and Harambot Zom—see p. 57 and accompanying map.—Ed.

Then it seemed as though half the mountain side were being flung straight at us. Stranded in the middle of the couloir, we dug our axes in and cowered, as the rumbling became a whistling, and great thumps resounded around us. When all was still again, we realized that the bulk of the fall had landed 50 feet lower down. Badly frightened, we struggled on to the top, all sense of rhythm gone, and completely exhausted by the time we had dealt with a final ice pitch. Too shattered to tramp over a last snow hillock and see what lay beyond, we collapsed on a pile of rocks.

When we did summon the energy it was well worth the effort. For perhaps two miles a wide, harmless looking snow-field stretched away, giving an impression of immense space, with nothing to overshadow it, before bending left and dropping to the Manali Valley. Beyond the Manali, and straight in front of us, rose Haranbit, Haranboi Zom and Gochar Sar, and beyond them, the countless peaks of Buni Zom and Hindu Kush.

The descent of the couloir took 10 minutes, both of us glissading down the soggy, boulder-furrowed snow as though competing for the Kandahar Cup, an eerie, swirling mist creating a Faustian atmosphere. Starting before dawn, we made another carry up the couloir the following day, without incident this time, and after pitching a tent as an Advance Base to which we could return, we set off to meet Henry. It was the 13 August, the day agreed on - for the rendezvous, but we anticipated no trouble in reaching the lake by the next day.

It is unwise to prophesy anything from a photocopied quarter inch map made in the 1890s. Our first illusion was shattered when the innocuous snow-field developed into a glacier littered with cunningly concealed crevasses. This was bad with only two on the rope; and sure enough, after I had twice gone through up to the knees, I looked round just in time to see Alan's startled face disappearing from view. Fortunately, he wedged 30 feet down and, after a subterranean struggle, eluded his pack and pru- siked out. Once on the moraine, progress was still painfully slow, and we had still not reached the Manali as night fell.

The following day provided no respite, for once into the Manali, we were confronted with a particularly nasty species of moraine, 10 miles long, down which we hopped all day. Alan's knee, which had suffered from the tribulations of the march-in, did not appreciate this treatment, and so, imagining Henry's consternation at finding no one at 'Base Camp', I went on alone next day. Crossing the outwash plain of the Manali and entering the swampy willow-scrub of the Thalo-Laspur Valley, I came at last to the lake which was to have been our centre of operations. On its far shore were some little yellow dots, which materialized into the Base Camp of the Graz Hindukush Expedition. Over a mug of orange squash I learnt that they had climbed Gochar Sar and Haranboi Zom, and were leaving shortly. They had also received a puzzled note from Henry in Sor Laspur village, 15 miles away, but were unable to help. When I had rejoined Alan, we decided to push on to the village, hoping that Henry would still be there. Alan s knee was troublesome, however, and when, after two days, we finally moved on, it was only to hear that Henry had left for Chitral town the previous day. I met him three months later in Cambridge.

We now resolved to return to Advance Base via the Kachikani Gol, the local trade route from Laspur to Ushu, and over an unnamed 17,000-foot pass. Two days' walking saw us far up the flower-strewn valley, bartering for apples with travellers from Laspur village. A long day's walk over glacier, and up rock that revived memories of running up a downward moving escalator at Waterloo station, brought us beneath the col. For the first time in several days we pitched the tent, and slept soundly, waking at 9 o'clock to find it curiously dark. Poking my head out, 1 found the sun shining and the tent weighed down with a four-inch layer of fresh snow. This unhelpfully hid crevasses, and made the steep ascent a labour, but we were soon up. For some time we had been admiring the west face of Kakhari (19,262 ft.), rising above us on our left. Arrived at the col, it was clear that this was the place from which to climb it. Then down the other side, crossing a furrowed slope that seemed to have been turned by a gigantic plough, and over a never-ending expanse of whiteness to the speck that was our tent.

Optimism matching enthusiasm, at 1 p.m. the following afternoon we decided to climb the stately snow-cone rising up from the col. Traversing round its base we crossed a bergschrund, and started up a west-facing snow slope. It was straightforward the whole way, never exceeding 45 degrees, with a superb surface of snow-ice beneath a couple of inches of powder. Pitching it, we led through with 150-foot run-outs, a screw at each end for protection. After so much pack-carrying, it was quite intoxicating to be climbing beneath a cloudless sky, with phenomenal views in every direction. Eight Rope lengths brought us to the summit (17,800 ft. approx.) where we took a round of survey photographs, and then headed down, jumping the bergschrund and running most of the way back to camp. Brimming over with joie de vivre, we set off to reestablish contact with the others, arriving at Base by the light of our head-torches at 10 o'clock. The next morning it was snowing and it continued to do so intermittently for a week.

In our absence, the others had set up a camp at 15,000 feet on the east side of the Gabral Valley, whence, after a day's reconnaissance, they climbed two nearby 16,000-foot peaks in two successive days. On the second, while they were moving together up a steep couloir, Ian slipped but, after a frightening moment, he was stopped by a projecting rock just below! Moving cautiously, they negotiated a ridge of 45-degree ice, and reached the summit without further difficulty. They descended slowly, both suffering from altitude and heat, and reached the tent after 10 hours on the mountain. Johns feet, which earlier had developed festering sores, were now in a serious state. Ian prescribed antibiotics, and the whole party returned to Base, where the vagaries of the weather confined them for a week.

By this time, the unfortunate Ian had incipient jaundice, and Alan, eager to make a geographical and sociological study of the Gabral Valley and its inhabitants, volunteered to stay with him. So only three of us plodded up and over the frontier ridge to recapture Advance Base from the snow. John and I established a camp on the 17,000-foot col from which to climb Kakhari, and made an attempt on the summit, but were thwarted by a late start and clogging, knee-deep snow. We returned to Advanced Base for fresh supplies, and decided en route to take in a little 17,000- foot peak on the ridge. The north ridge gave pleasingly vertiginous views down 6,000 feet of air towards Base Camp in the Gabral Valley. The summit was reached without great difficulty ; we were down by lunch-time, and that afternoon crossed the bowl back to Kakhari camp.

Sadly, John had broken a crampon—for him, one more incident in a long catalogue of misfortunes. So it was Dick and I who scrunched away from the tent at five the next morning. The old steps were firmly frozen, and by six we had crossed the first bergschrund, traversed on to the broad snow ridge, and reached our former limit. Taking a photograph of the sunrise, my camera shutter jammed. It did not unfreeze for two days. Above was a 45-degree pitch of extremely hard water-ice. Too hard for front-pointing, I quickly discovered. I began to understand what F. S. Smythe meant by ' rubber-icechopping away for forty odd feet. I came to loose snow a foot thick lying on the same ice. Hurriedly, I found a belay among some blocks. Clinging to a ribbon of snow and rock, we continued upwards, suddenly emerging on to a col that had not been apparent from below. Leaving a dark, deep gully on our right, we moved together up easy angled snow, skirting a large bergschrund and jumping a couple of crevasses. Then, on front-points, we moved on up steep neve until we came to another sheet of glinting water-ice, where Dick took a stance. Leaving a couple of comforting screws in my wake, I chopped on until we could leave the ice for more snowed- up boulders. Another pitch, more soft but easy angled snow, and then the summit appeared, culminating in a giant cornice, and only 400 feet above us. Emerging at last on the summit crest, some way to the right of the cornice, we cautiously belayed our way nearer the peak, and gazed at what was visible of the panorama below. This was not much, as mist was eddying petulantly about us, only now and then parting to give views over the Hindu Raj to Tirich Mir. I descended to some rocks a little way down on the Gabral side, and left a Union Jack presented by a well-wisher. Coming back, I fell up to my arm-pits in a crevasse of impressive depth. It crossed our minds that this could be the fracture-line of the cornice, and we headed downwards swiftly.

There were still several fine unclimbed peaks in the vicinity, but time had run out. Reluctantly, we packed up the camps and went down for good, John inadvertently toboganning the couloir and breaking two axes in the process. We found Base Camp abandoned. Ian, very ill, had been carried back to the roadhead on horseback. Enormous packs on our backs, we stormed down the valley and, after a night of singing and dancing, to the accompaniment of thunder, lightning and a sitar, left for Rawalpindi.

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