SOUTH PARBATI, 1970

CHARLES AINGER

A EUROPEAN climber, with a job in India, goes with a vision of the wide Himalayas close at hand. Like us, he soon finds his choice of area restricted by the Inner Line. Our climbing party dwindled to two, Iain Ogilvie and myself, and we were forced to look for exploration rather than a single major objective. The obvious place was Kulu, but it was hardly untouched. Iain noticed the South Parbati area, with its highest peak, 20,101 feet, surrounded by many eighteen-thousanders. It was outside the Inner Line and we could find no record of any visit since it was mapped about 1917.⁶ We decided to have a look at Pt. 20,101 feet.

 

The South Parbati range forms the watershed between the Parbati River to the north-east and the Sainj Nal to the south. Both streams run down to the Kulu valley, the Parbati via Mani- karan to join the Beas at Bhuntar, while the Sainj Nal comes out at Larji in the Beas gorge. Four major glaciers flow north¬east from the watershed to join the Parbati above the Dibibokri Nal. Pt. 20,101 feet lies on the watershed at its junction with the ridge (the east ridge of Pt. 20,101 ft.), dividing the two eastern¬most glaciers. We planned to put a Base Camp at Man Talai at the foot of this ridge in the main Parbati valley. (The glaciers are nameless, and I have numbered them I to IV from west to east for convenience ; heights given to the nearest foot are from the map in H.J., Vol. XXIV, 1962-63, while those given to the nearest 100 feet are estimates. We wished we had taken an altimeter and Abney level.)

Thanks largely to the advice and assistance of the Bombay Climbers' Club, we left Bombay Central on time on 16 May with 420 lb. of luggage. This was mainly six weeks' food, packed Bombay fashion, in poly bags inside kerosene tins inside kit- bags. On 22 May we bundled these out of a jeep truck hired from the Mandi & Kulu Transport Co., and set up camp at 5,000 feet at the roadhead a mile below Manikaran in the Parbati valley. Wangyal and Sonam, our high-altitude porters, organized valley porters, while Iain and I sorted loads, found we had remembered to include the pressure cooker, and contemplated the tremendous Alpine-type climbing potential of the Manikaran Spires.

The expedition strength was completed on 23 May by the arrival of our third climber Sirdar Sherpa Wangdi, a veteran of Cho Oyu and Jannu who now runs the Sherpa Guide, School in Manali. With him came two trainee high-altitude men, Thondup and Gupteram, who acted as glacier porters.

On 24 May, with 15 local porters, we joined the traffic of Survey of India supply ponies, Kangra shepherds and the occasional hippie, on the path to Base Camp at Man Talai in the Upper Parbati valley, 8,500 feet higher and 5 days and 35 miles away. Beyond Pulga and the Tos Nal junction, the path climbs steeply high on the south side of the Parbati to the first alp at a hot spring called Kirganga ; then more gently over fine green alps, covered with flowers and grazed by sheep and goats guarded by fierce shepherd dogs with iron-spiked collars. Thick mixed forest has given way to firs, and now to silver birch and rhododendron. Finally, a traverse over loose moraine and rock, and the highest tree in the valley appears, a lone silver birch perched on a sheltered rock in the gorge of the Dibibokri Nal.

So far the mountain scenery has been dominated by the steep, grey-slabbed north wall of the valley. It rises 4,000 feet before a break of slope, festooned with water-slides and waterfalls from high narrow hanging valleys. Perhaps this explains why climbers have not looked at South Parbati, whose ridges here rise at only gentle angles from the tops of the pastures.

Three miles above the Dibibokri, the first South Parbati glacial valley (Glacier I) joins the Parbati, cutting a terraced trough through heaps of ancient moraine debris. The porters insisted that the path crossed to the north bank ; bridges over the side and main streams are provided by two 1,000-ton boulders placed neatly in each stream by the legendary Pandavas, the five god-brothers who appear everywhere in Kulu and Himalayan folklore.

We pitched our last valley camp a mile up from these ⁴ Pandava' bridges on 27 May. Here the real character of South Parbati begins to appear. To the south-east, at the junction of the Glacier II stream and the Parbati, a magnificent Eiger-like face rises 5,500 feet from the valley floor to 18,000 feet. A glimpse up Glacier I shows a retreated, stone-covered glacier with a com¬plicated snow and ice face at its head and steep-ridged sides.

The change from the lower valley is complete opposite the Glacier II stream, 5 miles up from the bridges. The Parbat Spiti watershed range to the north now lies back at an easy angle, rising to pleasant but uninspiring peaks. The bouldery bareness of the Upper Parbati valley is relieved only by the green patches of pasture on the dried-up lake beds of the valley floor. To the south, the massive face of what we immediately dubbed the Kulu Eiger draws the eye and dominates everything.

We made good time up across the old lake beds on 28 May, heading for the 500-foot high lateral moraine of Glacier III. The ice has retreated, but the moraine still completely crosses the valley. The waters of the old glacier-dammed lake above the moraine have broken through at the north-east end, leaving the Parbati River running in braided streams on the old bed. Base Camp was to be here at 13,500 feet beyond the overflow point, where a lonely pile of stones supporting a battered trident show that Man Talai is a holy place.

The steep climb up the moraine dam was hard work, and we were tired when we sat down on top and looked up Glacier III for our first view of Pt. 20,101 feet. We knew at once that this side was not for us. No gentle glacier leading to a snow-field 1,000 feet below the summit, as we had optimistically deduced from the map ; instead a much-retreated moraine-covered glacier almost flat at 14,500 feet. At its head a 5,500-foot north-east face of hanging ice and vertical rock, supporting a flat-topped tower of a summit. A 45° north-west ridge drops to a shoulder at 19,000 feet and then, steeper, to a narrow snow col at 18,000 feet. This looks difficult to reach from Glacier III. The east ridge drops 700 feet in sharp smooth rock, then more gently on snow to a corniced col at 18,500 feet above a face threatened by hang¬ing ice. I think we were more impressed than disappointed.

Sleet began to fall as the porters were paid off (Rs.8 per day) at Base Camp, half a mile up from the dam, on the lake bed north¬east of the river. We felt isolated as we pitched tents on a comfortable but exposed grassy pasture. It was 28 May. We started making plans to look at the other side of Pt. 20,101 feet.

Our second possible approach to Pt. 20,101 feet lay up Glacier IV, which joins the main Parbati glacier 2 miles up from its snout, itself a mile above Base Camp. The map shows this easy angled and dividing 3 miles up, the north-west branch draining a high snow basin enclosed between the east and south-west ridges of Pt. 20,101 feet.

We reconnoitred on 29 May, splitting up into three groups.

That evening Wangdi confirmed that Glacier IV seemed to be easy, leading to snow-fields. Iain, from high on the Parbati north¬east bank, had seen two more near-20,000 feet peaks, one opposite Pt, 20,101 feet on the north side of Glacier III (called Peak ⁴ A" on the map), and ⁶ Pyramid Peak' between Glaciers III and IV. My investigation up Glacier III had shown that the east ridge of Pt. 20,101 feet, leading to ⁴ Pyramid Peak', stayed above 18,500 feet for 2 ½ miles, with no route to it not threatened by hanging ice. We decided to try Glacier IV.

After a rest day, we all moved up on 31 May to establish Advance Base at about 14,600 feet in the middle of Glacier IV. We took 5 ½ hours to cover miles and 1,100 feet over the dirtiest glacier I have ever seen. Covered in loose moraine and sandy deserts, it was relieved here and there by stone-scoured ice cliffs dropping to little blue-green lakes. Iain and I arrived last, exhausted and unacclimatized, to find the tea brewed and camp pitched in a hollow in the debris on the ice. Spirits recovered when we found that it caught the sun, was much more sheltered than Base and had a most convenient waste disposal system. We just dropped rubbish down the holes in the crazy paving floor of the big Bungalow tent. On later trips, we comforted ourselves with the thought that, since presumably Glacier IV was moving, Advance Base inexorably got closer to Base Camp.

After tea and a rest, Sonam and Wangyal boulder-hopped back to Base with our learners, Thondup and Gupteram, to return with more loads the next day. Iain could not throw off his cold, which affected his breathing, but he seemed a little better. He, Wangdi and I stayed at Advance Base, to investigate up Glacier IV.

Half an hour after leaving on 1 June we were at last on recogniz¬able glacier ice, easy going up the south side of the glacier except where we sank into patches of rotten old snow. We rested against a glacier table and took stock of the view. As the map shows, the glacier is split by a ridge, its foot at about 16,300 feet. The southerly arm disappears promisingly round a corner into a pure snow basin, 18,000 feet to 19,000 feet snow peaks on its rim-like whorls of ‘softy' ice-cream. The basin is much longer than shown on the map. Our expected view of Pt. 20,101 feet above the north-west arm was obstructed by a great bluff dropping from the east ridge of Pt. 20,101 feet to the north bank of the glacier opposite the foot of the glacier-dividing ridge.

As we climbed again, a new peak appeared from behind the bluff, a pointed summit, jagged rock ridge on the left and long- corniced snow ridge on the right. Ten more paces and we saw Pt. 20,101 feet, more square-cut, just as impressive and difficult as the other side. We had pinned our remaining hopes on the south-west ridge ; 1,500 feet of 75° rock to a ledge with 1,500 feet more below sweeping concave to the south-west col at 17,000 feet. On its right, a classically alpine south face drops to a snow basin in 3,000 feet of steep ice and rock. The 700-foot step at the top of the east ridge, which we had already seen from the north, looks just as difficult from here, although a steep and dangerous- looking couloir up to the ridge, and a steep little snow ramp, might take a stronger party than ours to the bottom of the step. We knew we couldn't climb it, but were very glad to be there.

Having lowered our sights, our first objective became the indeterminate summit of the glacier-dividing ridge, for a view of the area. We then had designs on Pt. 18,500-foot 'Snow Peak', one of the whorls of ice-cream to the south-east, and on Pt. 19,000- foot ⁶ Ridge Peak' to the north-west. (Still overwhelmed by Pt. 20,101 feet, we were not in the mood for dramatic names for lesser peaks.)

On 2 June, we sweated up Glacier IV in hot sunshine, and placed Camp I at 16,300 feet on the moraine at the foot of the central ridge. Iain and Wangdi stayed there to settle in. A fine situation, all rolling snow to the south and intimidating rock wall to the north, culminating in the tower of Pt. 20,101 feet at the head of the glacier.

At 8 a.m. on 3 June, Iain and Wangdi appeared at Advance Base, Iain having spent a very bad night at Camp I unable to breathe and spitting some blood. While they were resting, Thondup and Gupteram arrived on the final ferry from Base. After some sorting out, Iain left for Base to recover and accli¬matize, accompanied by Thondup and a large bag full of Penicillin ; I sent Gupteram to join them on the way down. The rest of us moved up to Camp I with loads. Waiting out the afternoon snow in the tent, I realized that Iain's first night at Base would be critical. If he had not much improved after his descent to 13,500 feet, his condition was pulmonary, not just non-acclimatization and a cold ; he should get down to a doctor as fast as possible.

We packed and returned to Advance Base in the snow. Leaving there early, we reached Base for breakfast on 4 June. Iain was no better. It was obvious he had to get to Kulu ; we left at 10.30 a.m.

The whole expedition went down too, in case Iain needed help and to avoid eating high-altitude food, which we intended to return and use. Iain determinedly refused us the pleasure of carrying him, and felt much better as we got to the jeep at Manikaran on 7 June. His determination was nearly wasted when the jeep's steering failed on the road down ; luckily we were pointing away from the 300-foot drop to the Parbati. On the 8th Iain caught the bus to Delhi. When he got home he was told he had had pneu¬monia ; at least he had done the right thing. In July he was climbing in Skye.

Thondup and Gupteram stayed down to take up theij: usual activities as pastry cook and student, while Wangdi and I jeeped back to Manikaran and joined Sonam and Wangyal at their bivouac in the middle of the village square. Passing Pulga agaih on 9 June, we stopped at the police checkpoint and presented our note from the Kulu Security Officer. This explained that South Parbati was outside the Prohibited Area ; the Inner Line continues south down the line of the Tos Nal but does not cross the Parbati at Barsheni; it turns straight up-river and follows the Parbati to Kokshane Peak, above the Pin-Parbati Pass. Dibibokri is inside, South Parbati outside the Prohibited Area.

That night we pushed higher and slept on newly cut planks under a large boulder in an alp at Karga, high above the Tos- Parbati junction. The alp is cultivated by an emigrant Nepali, owner of the highest house on this side of the valley. He has a beautiful spot, full of the scent of wild dog roses, with a view across to the Manikaran Spires over bushes of purple broom.

With the prospect of ready-stocked camps and now known but untouched peaks, we moved up fast to Base Camp by 12 June. On the 13th, the drizzle was unpromising, banners of low cloud crawling up along the hillsides from the blackness down valley. It cleared at noon and, now acclimatized, we climbed straight to Camp L Re-erecting the collapsed and sodden tents as it snowed again, we settled in the position we had left 10 days earlier.

Wangdi, Wangyal and I left at seven the next morning to climb whatever peak there turned out to be at the top of the central, Camp I ridge. A rock scramble to outflank a small icefall on its south side, then 45° old snow to a col behind a shattered gendarme. Now in thin cloud, we followed the broad snow ridge up and turning north, finding ourselves at a T-junction with a transverse sickle-shaped ridge joining twin minor summits. A short ascending traverse quickly gained us the easier of the two, at 11.15 a.m. This was only just a summit, but we might not get another, so Wangyal stuck our bamboo-wand prayer flag in the snow and I took summit-photos which were spoilt by the 50-foot higher twin peak in the immediate background.

The view was frustrated by cloud, but I could see that the route from Camp I to ⁴ Snow Peak' looked technically easy, apart from a crevasse cutting the ridge just below the summit. To the west, far below the cornice, a hanging glacier dropped through a hole in the cloud to the unseen moraine at the head of Sainj Nal. We estimated our height as 18,000 feet. After a few photos and bearings, we descended carefully on soft snow with a tendency to windslab, which balled up on our crampons, and were drinking

Sonam's tea by 1.30 p.m.

15 June started well as the same trio set off up the south¬west branch of Glacier IV for 'Snow Peak'. It started to snow as we put on crampons, and an hour later we could see nothing. We shuffled back to camp, still roped to avoid losing each other. After six chapters of Of Human Bondage the weather brightened, so I climbed with Wangyal 500 feet above the camp to look north¬west for a route through the icefall barring the route to ⁶ Ridge Peak '. As we climbed the clouds rose with us, revealing the warm brown rock of the east ridge of Pt. 20,101 feet laced with a maze of yellow intrusion bands. Behind us the low sun broke through to the snow peaks, outlining with long blue-grey shadows every hump and hollow and crevasse. Wangyal hammed dramatic poses as I photographed, and we glissaded back to supper in a spray of ice crystals. It was freezing hard by sunset, and at midnight I looked out on pale rock and moonlit snow, with the milky way so clear you felt you could see every star in it.

Leaving for 'Snow Peak' again at 6.30 a.m. on the 16th, we struggled with frozen boots, at the same time starting to burn in the sunshine. On the slopes and ridge the snow was firm, crampons biting through a little new powder to a crust underneath. Up the obvious ramp to the north-west ridge, a broad avenue leading to the bergschrund 150 feet below the summit. Here we tended to disappear into soft snow filling a second, hidden crevasse. Wangdi found a good patch and belayed me across the bergschrund, on snow filling low down on the right. The top 150 feet was good snow-ice at 50°, exhilarating on front points after the steady plod up the ridge. I looked over the sharp snow ridge of the summit at 11 a.m. and took in the view over the watershed.

West, a convex glacier dropping into Sainj Nal, with beyond it the thin green edge of the Kulu valley dividing white snow-fields. Swinging north, the whole of the Parbati-Sainj Nal watershed ridge, with summits of Pts. 18,270 feet and 19,044 feet rising from the high shelf of snow on the south side. This looks difficult to reach from Sainj Nal. From Pt. 18,500 feet the summit seen of Pt. 20,101 feet is not level, but higher at the south-west end above the sheer west face. Both Peak ‘A' beyond Glacier III and 'Pyramid Peak' look very close to Pt. 20,000 feet; north-east, range after range into Spiti and Tibet; south-east, the four peaks surrounding the Glacier IV snow basin, and finally Gushu Pishu (18,610 ft.), on the Sutlej-Beas watershed, on its own to the south.

Down 150 feet for lunch, and back to gallons of tea in Camp I. By 2.30 p.m. it was snowing again, clearing at 6 p.m. with its usual regularity.

Wangdi s stomach was giving him some unidentified trouble, so on 17 June we abandoned the plan to put a tent on the 17,000 feet south-west col of Pt. 20,101 feet. Instead I left, rather late, with Wangyal and Sonam to get a close look at Pt. 20,101 feet and to cilmb the 19,000-foot ' Ridge Peak' if we had time. We found a safe route up the centre of the icefall, crossed the upper snow basin and were at 18,000 feet on the 40° snow of the north¬west face of ⁶ Ridge Peak' by 11 a.m. Sonam broke one crampon on the way up (this was not surprising, it had been brazed), and the foot of new snow on the face was not holding steps, so we traversed onto the north-east ridge, only to find snow conditions the same and the other face steeper. The ridge looked a reason¬able route but it was too late now for the summit. We climbed down carefully and ate lunch on the col, admiring the west face of Pt 20,101 feet.

This west face is as good as the other two. It rises 4,000 feet in a massive triangle to the true summit. At 70° it is pure rock, too steep to hold snow except on a few ledges. From this side the north-west ridge looks a possible rock climb, but the full line down to the north-west col was hidden.

On the way down I took a bad line and fell waist deep in a narrow crevasse, while inspecting the 2,000-foot couloir leading to the east col of Pt. 20,101 feet. This is part snow, part rock, part ice; probably subject to stonefall, but still the most likely route we saw to the col.

With Wangdi's stomach still bad, and Sonam cramponless, we now had only two effective climbers ; not enough. On 18th, we packed up Camp I and humped it down glacier, bypassing Advance Base. Today s route over the Parbati glacier was new, as usual, but we made Base Camp by 1.30 p.m., rested and started eating surplus food. We left part of Camp I; on a rock at lat. 31° 48' 34" North, long. 77° 44' 30" East, the intrepid explorer will find four tins of beef sausages. I hope he likes them more than we did.

Advance Base was brought down by Wangyal and Sonam in a round trip of five hours flat on 19 June. On 20th Wangyal and I climbed to 17,000 feet on the south-west side of the Parbati valley opposite Base Camp, and explored a possible route on 'Pyramid Peak'. The Pulga porters were expected on the evening of 21st, but Sonam and I saw them arriving early as the two of us left Base Camp and started down the south side of the Parbati. We camped between Glaciers I and II that night, after passing good camp sites all along the path, with clear springs for water and big boulders for shelter. Six thars were grazing beside the Glacier II stream ; at lunch we looked up this stream to see 3,000-foot rock slabs on the north side, merging with the face of the ‘Kulu Eiger’.

At 11 a.m. on 22 June, Sonam and I reached a 17,500-foot subsidiary summit on the north-east end of the ridge dividing Glaciers I and II. We could see every peak on the Dibibokri Spiti watershed, from Parbati Peak (21,760 ft.)¹ and round to the tooth of Pt. 20,101 feet. My camera jammed ; it had got wet crossing the Glacier II stream the day before. Looking over the edge on the south side, we hurriedly tied on to the granite summit; a dropped pebble fell free for 1,000 feet to the corrie floor below. Our last high-altitude lunch was a mixture of tsampa and rum fudge.

We rejoined Wangdi and Wangyal, who had come with the porters down the Parbati north bank, at the ' Pandava' Bridge. We camped a mile downstream, bought a goat from the shepherds for Rs.45 and feasted. Over the last of Iain s whisky, Wangdi and I drank to absent friends and speculated on the potential of South Parbati. Pt. 20,101 feet is hard, considerably harder than Indrasan or Ali Ratna Tibba. It will require a strong party with hardware and bivouac equipment to climb it. At the other extreme, the snow peaks which surround the south-west arm of Glacier IV are technically easy, although the basin is heavily crevassed. Between these standards, Peak ' A' just north of Glacier III can probably be climbed on snow from the high corrie north of it. There is something for everyone, and great scope for the relatively small, informal expedition.

We walked down through pastures full of flowers, stopping to eat at patches of wild strawberries, and, lower down, apricot trees. At Manikaran there is a final addition to these pleasures ; hot running water. The Parbati climber has no excuse for returning to civilization dirty.

 

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