THE STORY OF THE HIMALAYAN CLUB, 1928-1978

JOHN MARTYN

Introductory Note

THE reader will find the following story easier to appreciate if he is warned beforehand of the great changes that take place in the course of it. When it begins the Himalaya were visited by a few sportsmen and hardly one mountaineering expedition a year but by the end of the period there were annually forty or fifty expeditions with parties queuing up for popular mountains and leaving problems of pollution behind them when they left. Secondly, when mountaineering was in its infancy it was mainly people of the upper middle classes who had the leisure and the means to indulge in it; they may not have been Dukes of the Abruzzi but they were quite likely to have been Old Etonians like Freshfield, Longstaff and Mumm. By the end of the period a much more healthy democratic situation has arisen. Thirdly, at the beginning of the period technical aids were very simple; their development has been so remarkable that mountains once considered unclimbable have now been climbed by advanced girls' courses. When the story begins India was being ruled by the British and few Indians are mentioned in the story, most of them being Rajas. Many Britishers did not think that Indians would ever take to mountaineering; how wrong they were is now too obvious for comment to be necessary. Another change is in communications. Expeditions no longer come to India by sea but either by air or overland by road. From India they can fly to Kathmandu or Pokhara and from Pakistan to Gilgit or Skardu and helicopters can reach such inaccessible places as the inner sanctuary of Nanda Devi. There is also a growing network of motor roads.

The story has been divided into five parts :

Part I. The Background; the Himalaya before the Club was started

Part II. The Founding of the Club.

Part III. The Club from 1928 to 1947 : British period.

Part IV. The Club from 1947 to 1954 : Transition.

Part V. The Club from 1954 to 1978 : In a New Era.

 

 

Part I. The Background; the Himalaya before the Club was started

The first people to come to the Himalaya were the explorers and in a relatively unknown part of the world this was logical enough; and they were followed very closely by the surveyors. From the 1860s, because of the 'Great Game' with Russia, survey became increasingly important, and, because of the closing of frontiers by China and Tibet, increasingly difficult. This was the age of the so-called 'Pandit Explorers', men trained and sent out in disguise by the Survey of India. In H. J., Vol. VIII there is a most interesting map of 'Survey and Exploration from 1864 to 1934' which shows what a very wide area of the Himalaya, the Karakoram, Tibet and Chinese Turkestan was covercd. Sometimes an explorer climbed a peak as when Conway climbed Pioneer Peak in 1892, and sometimes a surveyor did so, as for example the khalasi who put a signal post on Shilla in 1860 which was: then thought to be over 23,000 ft. The next people to come to the Himalaya were the hunters, the shikaris. Shooting in those days was a fashionable sport for gentlemen and a required activity for the Viceroy, as Lord Reading discovered to his surprise. Colonels of regiments certainly preferred their young officers to spend their leaves pursuing game in the Himalaya rather than 'poodle-faking' in hill stations, and the regimental messes filled up with the heads of ibex, markhor and Ovis poli. When he was planning the Himalayan Club in 1927 Sir Geoffrey Corbett admitted that it was shikar that impelled nine-tenths of those who went to the Himalaya and for this reason he thought it would be unwise to call the Club 'the Alpine Club of India'. Shikar produced a considerable literature, for example : Shooting in the Himalayas; a Journal of Sporting Adventures and Travel in Chinese Tartary, Ladac, Thibet and Cashmere by Fred Markham, 1854 : Big Game Hunting in the Himalayas and Tibet by G. Burrard, 1925 : and the first book to be reviewed in the H.J. was Sport and Travel in the Highlands of Tibet by Sir Henry Hayden and Cesar Cosson. Early issues of the H.J. carried advertisements for Westley Richards sporting rifles with an encouraging blurb : 'My first three shots at buffalo with the .425 were as follows—1 hit a big bull; the impact knocked him down—the second shot was at a running cow; she got up and went forty yards and dropped stone dead; the third was at a running buffalo a bit farther away. It fell to the shot and did not go far before it died. These shots were fired as fast as I could work the bolt.' The advertisement was soon reduced to half a page and then disappeared. Besides the hunters of wild life there were also the hunters of botanical specimens, of birds and butterflies and plants, men like Kingdon Ward, Sherriff⁵ and Ludlow who managed to enter Tibet, Chinese Turkestan, Burma and Bhutan. Kingdon Ward was the son of the Professor of Botany at Cambridge and when he came down he came out to teach in a school in Shanghai in 1907. In his first year he started on his explorations of the interior of China. He made altogether twenty-five journeys into southeastern Tibet, unadministered northern Assam, Bhutan and the Sino-Burmese frontier and was preparing to go again when he died at the age of 72. His whole object was the collection of rare plants and to some extent he was subsidized by wealthy owners of gardens in England.

Expeditions for the express purpose of climbing mountains came in rather slowly. The first person who admitted that he came to the Himalaya simply for the sport of climbing was W. W. Graham, who visited Sikkim and Garhwal in 1883 with his Swiss guides, but there is some doubt about what he climbed. Sir Martin Conway took a much publicized expedition (for which he was knighted) to the Karakoram in 1892 but it was for exploration rather than for climbing. In 1895 Mummery, Norman Collie and Hastings came out with the intention of attempting Nanga Parbat and Mummery perished in the attempt. In 1899 Douglas Kreshfield, an eminent member of the Alpine Club, came out with a geologist, Professor Garwood, to make a high-level tour of Kangchenjunga and in 1902 an Englishman called Eckenstein had a look at K2 with an idea of climbing it. In 1905 Longstaff, probably inspired by Graham, came out to explore the approaches In Nanda Devi bringing two Swiss guides, the Brocherel brothers, with him. He reached a point from which he could see inside the sanctuary, afterwards called Longstaff's Col (19,390 ft). He then marched northwards into Tibet and climbed to a point about 23,000 ft high on Gurla Mandhata when he and the Brocherels were carried down 3000 ft in two minutes by an avalanche. Alter spending the night in the shelter of some rocks they again climbed to about 24,000 ft. In 1909 Longstaff visited the Karakoram.

There is no proof but it is widely believed that it was Charles Bruce who suggested that a fitting way to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the Alpine Club in 1907 would be by an attempt to climb Everest. Bruce himself says that the idea of climbing Everest was first mentioned to him by Francis Younghusband as they were marching to Chitral in 1893. Brigadier-General Charles Bruce is one of the most colourful characters in the early history of mountaineering in the Himalaya. He came out to India in 1888 and was posted to the 5th Gurkhas in Abbottabad. He soon fell in love with the Himalaya and spent all the time he could wandering about in them with two or three of his beloved Gurkhas, He accompanied Sir Martin Conway on his expedition to the Karakoram in 1892 and he succeeded in converting Conway to his view of Gurkhas so successfully that when in 1894 Conway made his journey over the Alps from end to end which he recorded in a book of that name he took with him the two Gurkhas who had been with him in the Karakoram, Karbir and Amar Singh. Bruce was also invited to join Mummery on his expedition but his leave had expired before the accident took place. In 1897 fighting flared up all along the frontier and the situation was very critical. Bruce with some others formed a small contingent of 'Scouts' who would be able to move in the * hills with great rapidity, and for greater mobility they cut off their trousers at the knee. After this Bruce played a great part in getting shorts introduced into the Indian Army. He was always very keen on keeping fit and when he was on the Frontier it is said that every day he climbed a nearby hill with his orderly on his back. 'He had', according to Younghusband, 'an extraordinary aptitude for entering into the lives of mountain peoples, learning their fables and even singing their songs. He so obviously liked being with them that they would open out their hearts to him, and as he sang to them they would roar with delight/ He discovered the value of the Baltis in Kashmir, the Bhotias in Garhwal and he fully realized the worth of the Sherpas which had already been discovered by Dr Kellas.

 

 

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Part II. The Founding of the Club

In planning a mountaineering club people in Calcutta seem to have been slightly ahead of those in Simla and this is not surprising since the mountains of Sikkim were in those days quite accessible from Calcutta. In his excellent book, The Abode of Snow, a History of Himalayan Exploration and Mountaineering, published in 1955, Professor Kenneth Mason said : 'Two clubs were born independently and almost simultaneously, the Mountain Club of India in Calcutta on September 23rd 1927, and the Himalayan Club of Simla eleven days later.' This account of what happened provoked a note in H.J., Vol. XIX over the signatures of W. Allsup and H. W. Tobin to the effect that : 'We have been asked by the parents of the Mountain Club to elucidate the statement that the two were born independently and almost simultaneously. Talks had been going on for years with no tangible result until the Mountain Club was inaugurated . . . its birth on 23 September was the outcome of talks on the Akhthang Glacier in 1925. The Himalayan Club was conceived on "the path behind Jakko" at a talk in October 1927 and the Club came into being on 17 February 1928.' Allsup had been the original Hon. Secretary of the Mountain Club and Tobin had been an original member and was now, in 1955i, Editor of the H.J. Their anxiety to have the full story told must be respected. There is no doubt that the Mountain Club was inaugurated at Pelliti's Restaurant on 23 September 1927 at a meeting at which Newman of The Statesman was in the chair and at which General Bruce was unanimously elected President of the new Club; two days later as directed Newman put an article in The Statesman explaining the aims and objects of the Club. In an article in H. J., Vol. I, Sir Geoffrey Corbett gives his account of what happened. 'The idea [of a Club] must have occurred to many, but it never took shape, not because a Club was not wanted but because in the land of endlessness it is only now and then that two or three are gathered together. The thing had hung in the balance for years when a chance talk at Simla tipped the beam and the Himalayan Club was born on the path behind Jakko on the afternoon of October 6th, 1927.' We do not know what happened on the path behind Jakko on October 6th but it seems that Allsup and Tobin are correct in describing what happened as the conception rather than the birth of the Himalayan Club which cannot be said to have been truly born until the first meeting on February 17th, 1928. The Mountain Club of India was first by five months.

Sir Geoffrey Corbett was a member of the I.C.S. who started visiting the Alps even before he went up to Oxford and who kept up his walking after he came to India in the hills of the Central Provinces. He visited the Alps whenever he went on leave but was a walker rather than a mountaineer and liked to wander off the beaten track with his rucksack and his friendly umbrella staying each night at a different place. He was elected to the Alpine Club in 1916. In 1926 he was posted to the Government of India as Secretary for Industry and from his house in Simla he had an excellent view of the snows. This and the talk of the path behind Jakko on October 6th prompted him to take action. The first thing that he did was to write to Major Kenneth Mason of the Survey of India and to the Chief of Army Staff, who all showed great keenness. Corbett and Mason drew up a list of all the most important people that they could think of a connected with the Himalaya and on 20 December they posted a circular letter inviting them to become founder-members of the newly proposed Himalayan Club. Almost everyone accepted and before the Club was started they had a list of 127 founder-members whose names were an epitome of recent events in the Himalaya ; Sir Thomas Holdich, who joined the Survey of India in 1865 and served all his time on the frontiers; in 1895 ho was chief survey officer on the Pamir Boundary Commission, which gave the Wakhan to Afghanistan so as to be a buffer hot ween Russia and India; Sir Francis Younghusband, who as a young officer in the Dragoon Guards left Peking to cross the (5obi Desert and enter India through the Muztagh Pass in the Karakoram in 1887 ; Brigadier-General Bruce who joined the Gurkhas in 1888 ; Brigadier-General Sir George Cockrell who in 1892 surveyed an enormous area around Hunza; Sir Martin conway who came to the Karakoram in 1892; Norman Collie who was with Mummery in 1895 ; Douglas Freshfield who visited Kangchenjunga in 1899; Sir Aurel Stein, a Hungarian Orientalist who went up to Oxford, took British nationality, joined first the Indian Educational Service and then the Archaeological Survey mil explored a great part of Central Asia; the Duke of the Ahruzzi who explored the Karakoram in 1909 with Sir Filippo de Felipi; and the Duke of Spoleto and Mr Visser of the Dutch Foreign Service who were currently exploring the Karakoram. tn India itself Corbett got hold of the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, the Governor of the Punjab, Sir Herbert Emerson, the Surveyor- General, Brigadier Tandy, the Director of the Archaeological Survey, Sir Edwin Pascoe, General Sir Alexander Cobbe, C-in-C Northern Command, the Raja of Jubbal (he seems to have been the only Indian founder-member) and last but not least, Field- Marshal Sir William Birdwood Bart., Commander-in-Chief, who readily agreed to be President of the Club.

Corbett and Mason had, of course, very soon come to know about the Mountain Club of India ; in fact they both joined it. At a meeting with Allsup the Hon. Secretary, it was agreed that both Clubs should go ahead with mutual goodwill and that the question of fusion should be considered later. The inaugural meeting of the Himalayan Club was held in the C-in-C's room in New Delhi on 17 February 1928 and at this meeting it was decided to invite the Mountain Club to amalgamate with the Himalayan Club. The Mountain Club held a general meeting in December 1928 at which, after some hesitation on the part of some of the members, they decided on amalgamation 'for the benefit of the two clubs'. This was finalised at the first A. G. M. of the Himalayan Club in February 1929 when Marr, Vice- President of the Mountain Club, became Vice-President of the Himalayan Club and G. B. Gourley, Hon. Secretary of the Mountain Club, became local Secretary in Calcutta. Corbett in his article on the Founding of the Himalayan Club regretted that Allsup had now left India but said that the two Clubs would not forget how selfiessly he had worked for amalgamation. At the A. G. M. in 1930 the members of the Club in Calcutta were allowed to form the Eastern Section of the Himalayan Club with their own Chairman and Hon. Secretary.

The oldest of all mountaineering clubs in the world, the Alpine Club, came into existence when one mountaineer wrote to another early in 1857 saying: T want you to consider whether it would not be possible to establish an Alpine Club, the members of which would dine together once a year, say in London, and give each other what information they could.' The first such dinner was held in December 1857. The Austrian Alpine Club was founded in 1862 and the Swiss and French Alpine Clubs in 1863. Gradually Alpine Clubs spread throughout the world but for reasons that have been given Corbett did not want to use the name in India. He was even reluctant to mention 'shikar' as a specific object of the Club and so arrived at the definition of the objects of the Club which has appeared on the title page of all copies of the H. J., since : 'To encourage and assist Himalayan travel and exploration, and to extend the knowledge of the Himalaya and adjoining ranges through science, art, literature and sport.'

Corbett ended his article by saying : 'And so the Himalayan Club is founded and we hope great things of it; the geographer that the blank spaces on our maps may be filled in ; the scientist that our knowledge of the Himalaya, its rocks and glaciers, its animals and plants, its peoples and their way of living, may continually expand; the artist that its glories may continually inspire fine pictures. The mountaineer may dream of the ascent of a thousand unclimbed peaks, the shikaris of record heads shot in nullahs yet unknown. My own hope is that it may help to rear a breed of men in India, hard and self-reliant, who will know how to enjoy life on the high hills.'

All these hopes of Sir Geoffrey's are admirable, particularly the last one, but after reading this it comes as a surprise to find that the membership of the Club was at first limited to 300 members. It would appear that this rule was introduced in imitation of the Alpine Club which was for many years very Victorian and exclusive in its approach, more so than other Alpine Clubs. Election used to be by secret ballot of all the members of the Club who could come along to vote, and one black ball in ten excluded. Both Mummery and Arnold Lunn were turned down at their first attempts, Lunn presumably because of his connexion with the family travel firm. He gotin in 1938 and soon after that the President changed the rule so that decisions were left to the committee ; Arnold Lunn then congratulated him on opening the stable door after the horse had got in ! Sir Edwin Herbert who was President from 1953 to 1955 and mainly responsible for seting up the Mount Everest Foundation said in his valedictory address : It is a great piece of good fortune that so many of the early members of the Club who founded our tradition were men of exceptional insight and understanding and far from inarticulate. By the accident of time and period they happened to be drawn largely from a certain social class. In these days that is no longer so, and therefore the distinction of class which was .relevant then is no longer so rlevant.' From the beginning the admission of members to the Himalayan Club was a matter for the Committee but as the committee was rather small there were additional members of the 'balloting committee' who did not meet but operated by post. In 1932 the 300 limit was raised to 500 and eventually membership exceeded 600 so presumably the rule was changed again.

 

 

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Part III. The Himalayan Club, 1928-1947 ; British Period

The foundation of the Club undoubtedly had a great effect in Simulating and facilitating expeditions to the Himalaya but for the first, year the office-bearers were busy with what might be called spadework. 'Local Secretaries' who would be able to help people setting out on expeditions were appointed at suitable starting; points such as Darjeeling, Chamba, Kashmir, Kumaon and Simla. What were then called 'Local Correspondents' were appointed in places where people might require information rather than actual help, e.g., Lahore, London, Meerut, Peshawar, Quetta and Rawalpindi; most of them military stations. 'Scientific and Technical Correspondents' who would be able to help members with information were appointed for Archaeology, Botany, Entomology, Fishing and Shooting, Geodesy and Geophysics, Meteorology, Ornithology, Photography, Survey and Maps, and Zoology. Major Kenneth Mason was appointed Editor of the Journal, Colonel Phillimore was put in charge of the Library, and a Sub-Committee for equipment was formed under Brigadier R. C. Wilson. At the first A. G. M. it was reported that membership had reached 250, 127 founder-members, 49 former members of the Mountain Club and 74 ordinary members. Shortly after this meeting Sir Geoffrey Corbett resigned from being Hon. Secretary, probably on grounds of health as he left the country on grounds of health not long afterwards. He was succeeded by G. Mackworth Young, I.C.S., Secretary of the Army Department, a man who was not without Himalayan experience as in 1912 he had travelled to Tibet to examine the ruins of Tsaparang, the town on the Sutlej the ruler of which had welcomed the Jesuit priests in 1636.

Mason was an excellent choice for Editor. He had come out to India to join the Survey in 1909 and had been posted to Kashmir. One of the results of the Anglo-Russian Entente of 1907 was an agreement to link up their systems of triangulation and in 1912 Mason was put in charge of carrying the Indian triangles northwards from near Gilgit to meet the Russians who were working southwards from Osh. The two teams met at Sar- Baluk in the Taghdumbash Pamir in 1913. The length of the junction side found by the Russians (7134.9 m) differed from the Indian value (7133.4 m) by a metre and a half. During the war Mason was in Intelligence in France and in the Middle East and was awarded the M. C. and thrice mentioned in despatches. After the war he returned to India and was invited to join the 1921 Everest reconnaisance but to his great disappointment he could not get leave. He then carried out a survey of the Shaksgam area of the Karakoram for which he was awarded the Cuthbert Peak Grant and the Founder's Medal of the R. G. S. in successive years. His wide knowledge of the Himalaya was most useful to him as Editor of the Journal. In 1932 he was appointed first Professor of Geography in the new school of Geography at Oxford, but he continued to edit the journal which was then printed and published in Oxford by the Clarendon Press.

H. J., Vol. I appeared in April 1929 and for us who are used to recent issues of the Journal it is a surprise to find no article on a mountaineering expedition, but the reason is the very simple one that there was no mountaineering expedition to report. There is an article on a Botanical Expedition to the Mishmi Hills by Kingdon Ward and there are references to two German explorers who were travelling in Central Asia, Dr Trinkler and Dr Filchner, to Admiral Lynes' Ornithological Expedition to Kashmir, and to the Duke of Spoleto's projected expedition to the Karakoram. I here were six illustrations which included the photograph of K2 already referred to and two photographs taken in the Karakoram by Mason himself. Sir Francis Younghusband reviewed Mason's Exploration of the Shaksgam Valley and the Aghil Ranges and said that the Himalayan Club started with a great advantage in having in this publication a kind of guide book to perhaps the most interesting and least explored part of the whole Himalaya. Younghusband said that Mason had for years had the ambition to explore this remote and wonderful region lying north of the glittering constellation of peaks which culminate K2. 'May I add that for this region a big expedition is not a necessity. The first white man to enter had no other white man with him. He had only a scratch lot of Bait is and Ladakhis got together at Yarkand. He used no tent. Moreover, he was only twenty-four and had not passed the Higher Standard in Hindustani—and has not yet.' He was not a little proud of what he did in 1887.

The Journal was well received and thirty-one institutions wrote to say that they would like to exchange their publications for the Journal. People started to write to the Club for advice about expeditions to the Himalaya. One of the first to do so was Rickmer Rickers of Heligoland who had in the previous year been the leader of the German half of a German-Soviet expedition to the Pamir. During the expedition Karl Wien (who was later to come to India) with two others climbed Peak Kaufman, then supposed (wrongly) to be the highest peak in the Soviet Union, and it was renamed Peak Lenin. Rickmer Rickmers was enquiring not on his own account but on behalf of a young bavarian climber called Paul Bauer who with his friends wanted to test themselves against something difficult in the Himalaya. Predictably they were recommended to try Kangchenjunga for it is the greatest peak that is easily visible from a hill station in India and therefore especially well-known.

Bauer's party arrived in Calcutta by sea at the end of July and were welcomed by Mason who put them on their way to Darjeeling where they found themselves in the good hands of Colonel Tobin and E. O. Shebbeare. Shebbeare was a senior Forest Officer and he had already been Transport Officer with the Everest Expedition in 1924. He was a somewhat eccentric charecter with a whimsical sense of humour. Once a P. & O. captain objected to him coming to dinner in shorts and gym shoes. Next evening guests coming to dinner found him sitting respledent in white tie, white waistcoat and tails, but when he got up to leave was seen to be still wearing shorts and gym shoes ; the Captain gave up.

Tobin and Shebbeare arranged for ninety porters for the expedition and Tobin accompanied them to Camp 3 on the Zemu glacier. Bauer's team had come at a bad time of year and though they achieved much in the way of reconnaissance a very heavy fall _Snow in October put an end to their efforts. The Editor of the Alpine Journal said that it was 'a feat without parallel perhapes in all the annals of mountaineering'. On Bauer's return to Calcutta he and his party were entertained to dinner by the Himalayan Club with Mason in the chair and healths were drunk to the King Emperor and Herr von Hindenburg. Next to the assaults on Everest this was the biggest attempt yet made in the Himalaya. At the other end, away in the Karakorams,. Lieutenant Burn having finished a survey in Chitral made an attempt to climb lstor-o-Nal, but his porters were too full of superstitious dread of faeries on the mountain. East of Burma, Theodore Roosevelt was on an expedition in which he acquired the first specimen of a giant panda that had ever been collected. When H. J., VOL. II came out in 1930 it was able to print two articles on decent expeditions, one by Bauer and one by Burn,, and Tobin Contributed one on a history of climbing in Sikkim. There was a, review of Roosevelt's book Trailing the Giant Panda.

Bauer having shown that it was possible to come to Kangchen- junga there was nothing surprising in G. O. Dyhrenfurth wanting to follow in his steps. Dyhrenfurth was a geologist and had been Professor at Breslau, but after losing everything in the German inflation he had moved to Switzerland. He had long admired the work of Professor Garwood who went to Kangchenjunga with Freshfield and was keen to see the geology of the area for himself. In 1930 he organised the International Himalayan Expedition (I. H. E.); his son was to organise another international expedition in 1973. With him in Dyhrenfurth brought his wife as quartermaster, three other Germans, two Swiss, including Marcel Kurz one Austrian, Erwin Schemeider, and Frank Smythe from England Frank Smythe had been invalided out of the R. A. F. for a week heart and was now making a living by mountaneering and writing books about it ; he came as a reporter to British Press, The party travelled from Venice to Bombay by sea and in Delhi were invited to lunch by the Viceroy and were glad to find that he was a member of the Himalayan in Calcutta they received much help fromG. B. Gourley the Secretary of the Eastern Section, and in Darjeeling from Tobin who came along with them. Two members of the Himalayan Club, Hannah and Wood-Johnson, joined them to help with the transport and to climb. Ten Europeans and 220 porters left Darjeeling on 7 April and two Europeans and 180 porters a day later. On 3 May Chettan, usually known as Satan, on of the most popular Sherpas, was killed in an avalanche. He had been with Longstaff in Garhwal and when they parted Longstaff had wanted to give him some money but he said that would rather have his clasp-knife as by that he would be reminded of him every day. The expedition now withdrew from Kanchenjunga and climbed Jongsong Peak (24,344 ft) which then superseded Trisul as the highest mountain that had been climbed. Delayed by geological investigation Dyhrenfurth did not reach the top until 4.30 p.m. (very late for those days). He was 44 years old and he said that it was the hardest mountaineering feat of his life. The party then climbed three other peaks over 23,000 ft and it was only the arrival of the monsoon I hat prevented them from climbing Lhonak P'eak. When they it turned to Calcutta they spoke about it to Gourlay in such rlowing terms that when in October he and a friend got a month's leave they did not waste time in deciding where to go. 'To climb Lhonak was our main objective, but it was only one incident m a holiday as attractive and full of interest as any lover of mountain scenery and high places could wish for.' One is surprised that he had to wait for someone to come from Switzerland to tell him so. There were, he now realized, 'Countless peaks over twenty thousand feet offering excellent rock and snow climbing within the powers of the average climber, peaks that can be reached quickly and at no greater cost than that of a holiday of similar duration in the Alps.'' From now on almost yearly one or more expeditions to Sikkim were organized by members of the Club in Calcutta.

There was no other mountaineering in the Himalaya this year but with five peaks over 23,000 ft climbed it was a record year. There was quite a lot of exploration going on; the Vissers were leading a Dutch and Dainelli an Italian expedition to the Karakor am, Ludlow, Sherrif and Schomberg were in the Tien Shan, sir Aurel Stein was in Central Asia and Kingdon Ward was on the Burmese border.

In 1931 Paul Bauer returned to the attack on Kangchenjunga with a very strong party which included Peter Aufschnaiter who had been on his previous expedition and Karl Wien who came for the first time. While on the way to Camp 7 the snow gave way under Pasang and he fell to his death dragging Schaller with him Hartman and Wien reached 25,263 ft before they had to withdraw. A few years later Ruttledge reviewed Bauer's book Himalayan Campaigns and he said that Bauer was almost forced to the conclusion that Kangchenjunga was unclimbable and that if he thought so there was very little hope! No other German expedition returned to Kangchenjunga for a long time.

While he was with Dyhrenfurth, Smythe formed the determination to return to the Himalaya in the next year. He chose his objective with great wisdom, Kamet, about which quite a lot was known as it had already been attempted eight times and he brought a very strong team which included Eric Shipton who saw the Himalaya for the first time from the top of the Kauri pass and was absolutely astonished at the sight of so many twenty thousanders that were unclimbed. Tobin sent ten Sherpas and Bhotias were recruited on the spot. Smythe, Holdsworth andShipton reached the summit on 21 June with the Sherpa Lew a, and two days later Raymond Green and Birnie with the Bhotia,. Kesar Singh. Smythe was happy to think that the newly elected President of the Himalayan Club was Governor of the Province in which Kamet was situated. Kamet (25,263 ft) now became the highest mountain that had been climbed. None of them are likely to have imagined that in 1977 a party of Indian ladies would stand where they stood. Holdsworth created two altitude records, one by skiing at 23,000 ft, which was broken by the Japanese on Everest in 1970, and one by smoking a pipe on the summit and this it is believed still stands. Smythe's expedition was the first one hundred per cent successful expedition that had come to the Himalaya and it was important if only because it introduced Eric Shipton to an area where he was to make an important breakthrough three years later.

H. J., Vol. Ill which came out in April 1931 reported the awards of the R. G. S. to three members of the Club. The Founder's Medal went to Kingdon Ward for exploration in the Eastern Himalaya and North-Eastern Frontiers of India : Colonel Wood, who retired from the Survey in 1927, received the Murchison Grant for his services in elucidating Himalayan and trans- Himalayan problems. In 1903 he was sent by Curzon with the consent of the Government of Nepal to ascertain whether Gauri Shankar and Everest were identical. Colonel Schomberg received the Gill Memorial; since 1903 he had spent all his leaves travelling in and beyond the Himalaya. The Journal contained a review by Mason of 'the Record of the Royal Geographical Society, 1830- 1930'. The Society had spent much of its energies—too much some said—on 'the seven problems of discovery', which were the N.W. Passage, the N.E. Passage, the North Pole, the South Pole, the sources of the Nile, the Forbidden City of Lhasa and the ascent of Everest. Only the last remained to be achieved. Mason also said that no less than fifteen members of the Himalayan Club had been awarded the Society's gold medal. Perhaps he included holders of the medal who had become members of the Club. He ended by expressing a wish : 'May we, with wise guidance weather our first hundred years and emerge ninety-seven years hence with as proud a record as that of the Royal Geographical Society.' A note in this issue of the H.J. indicates that it is very shocked to hear that Sir Aurel Stein has had to give up his journey in Central Asia because of obstruction by the Chinese,

In 1932 Hugh Ruttledge who had now retired from Government Service went to have another look at the approaches to Nanda Devi and some members of the Eastern Section made attempts on the Fluted Peak and Chomiomo in Sikkim, but the main event of the year was Willi Merkl's attempt on Nanga Parbat which from then till now has received much attention from Germany. Merkl unfortunately did not inform the Club in advance that he was coming. 'When we arrived in India', he wrote, 'we found the hospitality of the English and Indian authorities most comforting. In Bombay we were granted complete freedom from customs duty for our whole baggage; in Srinagar Major Irvine, Dr Ernest Neve and Major Hadow, a grandson of the Hadow who in 1865 so tragically came to grief during the ascent of the Matterhorn, assisted us not only with advice, but also with practical help. . . . In Astor, our last stage, Captain R. N. D. Frier met us; Major Gillan, the political agent in Gilgit had sent him to help us. Captain Frier was an especially valuable companion on account of his knowledge of languages, and his experience with coolies. The friendship of our English comrade, who never failed us at any time during the whole expedition, and who, even under the most difficult circumstances, was always punctual according to the plans, went far beyond the ordinary.'

When the loads were unpacked in the Rakhiot valley it was found that ten loads containing clothing for the porters were missing. This proved a fatal handicap to the expedition. They did not know enough about acclimatization and they lacked the support of porters. While they were returning to Europe an American member of the expedition fell to his death on a Pyramid in Egypt.

During the summer Visser, who had become Consul-General in India, gave lectures on his Karakoram expeditions in Simla, and there was a photographic exhibition organized by the Club. In other some R.A.F. planes flew from Risalpur to Gilgit.

1

The all-clear for Everest came through late in 1932 in time to organize an expedition for 1933 with Ruttledge (48) as leader and E. O. Shebbeare (47) in charge of transport. To get some photogr aphs of Everest the Houston R.A.F. Everest Flight was organized in April. On the expedition Wager and Smythe got to 28,126 ft and Shipton to about 27,700 ft but 'bad weather and an early monsoon defeated them. On their return to Calcutta they were entertained to dinner by the Club and Ruttledge went to Simla to give a lecture there. During the year P. R. Oliver and David Campbell made an attempt on Dunagiri and Oliver accompanied only by Kesar Singh, who had climbed Kamet on: Smythe's expedition climbed Trisul. Marco Pallis came with four others to climb in the Gangotri area. They had consulted Longstaff before they came and he told them that if they took the trouble to learn something of the languages they would be able to do without a liaison officer and they very much enjoyed being on their own. They were welcomed in Dehra Dun by Maclagan Gorrie of the Forest College and he took them up to Narendra Nagar to meet the Raja of Tehri who promised to send word to officials along their route that they should be given all facilities. The Raja of Tehri became a life member of the Club which called him the Raja of Garhwal, a title of which he had been deprived in 1815. The Maharaja of Sikkim and the Raja of Keonthal had joined in 1929 and the Mehtar of Chitral joined in 1934. The Club turned down a suggestion that the rulers of territories where members might climb should be made Honorary Members.

Marco Pallis and his party climbed some peaks in the Gangotri area and then when the monsoon arrived they crossed the Nela pass and followed the Baspa down until it reached the Sutlej and then turned up it to make an attempt on Leo Pargial. A storm came on as they approached the summit and their axes started sizzling, but in spite of the sizzling of their axes they reached the summit.

During this year Kingdon Ward and Ronald Kaulback were in eastern Tibet and Ludlow and Sherriff were in Bhutan and Tibet.

In 1934 Willi Merkl returned to the attack on Nanga Parbat and arranged with the Himalayan Club for the supply of thirty- five Sherpas. A terrible storm struck the mountain on 8 July and caused the deaths of four climbers and six porters. Merkl himself died. His Sherpa Gaylay could have saved himself but he stayed with Merkl. Fritz Bechtoid, whom Merkl had described as 'the friend of my youth and most trustworthy companion on all large mountain expeditions', was on both the expeditions and wrote a book about the second one which he ended with these words : 'As we looked once more to Nanga Parbat, to the glittering crest above us, all sense of bitterness against fate was loosed within us, in the presence of deeper understanding. Splendid as it must be to return home with the prize of this mighty mountain, it is yet nobler that a man lay down his life for such a goal, to be a way and a light for the young hearts of those who come after.'

In this same year G. O. Dyhrenfurth returned with another International Expedition further complicated by film actors, actresses and photographers who hoped to make a film. His destination was the Karakoram and after the departure of the film people some members of the climbing party including Andre Roch climbed Baltoro Kangri and he and his wife climbed Sia Kangri, which gave her the woman's altitude record.

A happier event of this year was Shipton's and Tilman's exploration of the approaches to Nanda Devi. After seeing the cavalcade of 350 porters to Everest in 1933 Shipton was keen to see how light it was possible to travel in the Himalaya. He thought that it would be possible for one man to come to India from England, spend several months climbing in the Himalaya and return to England for £150. He received a letter from Tilman inviting him to come for a fortnight's climbing in the Lake District and Shipton replied by suggesting seven months in the Himalaya. Tilman accepted the invitation. 'In Calcutta which we reached on May 5th', wrote Tilman in the H.J., 'we waited two nights to meet the three Sherpas from Darjeeling, a delay memorable because of the hospitality we enjoyed and useful because of the assistance we received from the Himalayan Club and in particular from Mr Gourlay.' The Sherpas were Angtharkey, passing Bhutia and Kusang. Shipton afterwards wrote: 'Among the many delights of the Nanda Devi venture was that, for the first time, I was able to treat these people (the Sherpas) as friends rather than as hired porters and servants. Sharing with them our food and our tent space, our plans and our problems, we came to know their individual characteristics and to appreciate their delicious humour and their generous comradeship in a way that is quite impossible on a large expedition.' They achieved what many before them had attempted without success and forced a way up the Rishi Ganga gorge and penetrated the inner sanctuary of Nanda Devi. They came out during the monsoon to explore the upper reaches of the Alaknanda and returned after the monsoon to complete the survey of the sanctuary. When Shipton’s book came out General Bruce wrote : I have read every word and I am petrified. ... It has certainly broken down the that to achieve great results great expenditure is necessary'; for they had kept within their budget.

In 1934 Joan Townend, wife,of a senior member of the I.C.S., became Hon. Secretary of the Eastern Section. She had trekked a lot in Sikkim and had just edited a new edition of Percy Brown’s Tours in Sikkim. She was deeply distressed by the loss of Shrepa lives on Nanga Parbat. On 1 August a Service of Rememberance was held under arrangements made by the Himalayan club and the Consul-General for Germany. Joan Townendwas keen that individual Sherpas should be suitably commemorated but found that details of their careers were lacking. This decided her to compile a record of all the Darjeeling porters. To fecilitate the collection of information in the future, each Sherpa was to be issued with a 'chit book' containing his photograph and wrapped up in a mackintosh case. It was hoped that the leaders of expeditions would fill in details at the end of each expedition. General Bruce arrived in Calcutta in December and went up to Darjeeling to give a feast to all of his old friends (see H.J., Vol. VIII, p.176) and at this feast the chit books were distributed. On his return to Calcutta General Bruce was entertained to dinner by the eastern Section at the United Services Club and he gave an interesting and amusing talk on Himalayan porters. This was followed by other meetings at one of which the Vissers talked about their explorations of the Karakoram and at another Ronald Kaulback talked about the previous year's work with Kingdon ward on the Upper Subansiri. Joan Townend carried on as Hon. Secretary to the Eastern Region taking a great interest in the welfare of the Sherpas and their families, by whom she was affectionately known as 'Towney Memsahib', until the retirement of her husand in 1942 when they returned to England.

In March news reached England that the Tibetan Government had given permission for attempts on Everest between July 1935 and July 1936. There was no time to mount a full-scale expedition in 1935 but Shipton persuaded the Everest Committee to let him take a small expedition to study snow conditions in the monsoon. He took with him Tilman and the other climbers included a New Zealander, Dan Bryant. Among the Sherpas were the three who had been with Shipton in the Rishi gorge and a new youngster called Tenzing. They climbed more than twenty peaks over 20,000 ft and Shipton and Dan Bryant climbed a col and had a look into the Western Cwm; they did not think that it looked impossible. While Shipton was exploring snow conditions on Everest, John Hunt who was later to play a very important part in the story of Everest was making an attempt with James Waller, Rowland Brotherhood and Carslaw on Saltoro Kangri in the Karakoram, after which Hunt and Brotherhood climbed Kolahoi by the south face. Hunt wrote articles on both expeditions for H. J., Vol. VIII. Several parties visited Sikkim, - and C. R. Cooke and Schoberth made the first ascent of Kabru in October, showing what could be done late in the year. The Eastern Section heard talks by James Waller on the attempt on Saltoro Kangri and by Kingdon Ward on his expedition to the Subansiri from where he had just returned.

Hugh Ruttledge was again chosen to be the leader of the assault on Everest planned for 1936. Smythe, Shipton and Wynn Harris were among the climbers but Tilman and Bryant of the 1935 reconnaissance were rejected because they had taken too long to acclimatize, and John Hunt was rejected by the R.A.F. Medical Board. They did not miss much because the expedition ran into very bad weather and achieved less than any other expedition to Everest. Tilman was compensated for missing the Everest expedition by being invited to join an expedition that Graham Brown, an Englishman, and Charles Houston, an American, were taking to Nanda Devi. Their original plan had been to attempt Kangchenjunga but permission was refused so they turned to their second choice Nanda Devi. In 1932 Ruttledge wrote : 'The few men who have seen her at close quarters are unanimous that the chances of ascent are terribly small. It is just possible that a party of exceptional strength and determination might, after a prolonged reconnaissance, find a way up the south-west shoulder. It is worth trying.' It did in fact prove to be worth trying. Charles Houston and Odell were poised for the assault when Houston fell ill and was replaced by Tilman, and Tilman sent his well-known telegram : 'two reached top august twenty nine. Thus Nanda Devi (25,645 ft) replaced Kamet as the highest mountain that had been climbed. About five weeks later and about ton miles away a party of young Japanese climbers, the first party to come from Japan, reached the summit of Nanda Kot. The party consisted of four members of the Rikkyo University Mountaineering Club with an Olympic skier, Takebushi, in the party.

On his return from Everest Shipton was invited by the Survey of India to help Osmaston complete the survey of Nanda Devi. They reached Lata near the Rishi Ganga on 7 September. 'As we were sitting in camp,' wrote Shipton, 'a bearded and tattered figure appeared rushing down the path. This proved to be Peter Lloyd, the first of the returning Nanda Devi party. From him we heard of their splended achievement. In my opinion the climbing of Nanda Devi is perhaps the finest mountaineering achievement that has yet been performed in the Himalaya; certainly it is the first really difficult Himalayan giant to be conquered.' He goes on to say: 'the passage of the Rishi gorge was now quite devoid of difficulty. There are cairns at every turn and a small but adequate path wound across the steep slopes and any rocky patches were cleared of loose rock and earth. Meanwhile not very far to the north two Swiss geologists, Heim and Gannser, were at work in the Badrinath region.

In 1936 the French Alpine Club dispatched its first Himalayan Expedition to the Karakoram to attempt Gasherbrum I. The expedition arrived in Srinagar and found Captain Streatfield waiting for them with 35 Sherpas who had been sent from Darjeeling. In the third week of April they left Srinagar with their luggage carried by 500 porters in parties of about 100 on successive days. The march to Askole took about a month and from there another 170 porters had to be engaged to carry the food for the others.From Base Camp at the top of the Baltoro glacier most of them were dismissed. To be free from avalanches the attempt was made up a steep ridge and much use was made of fixed ropes to make the route possible for porters. The weather broke just before their top camp was established and they wisely decided to withdraw.

Paul Bauser had decided that the challenge of Nanga Parbat must be taken up again but he felt his men needed some Himalayan experience before they made the attempt and so in 1936 he brought a team, which included Karl Wien, to climb in Sikkim. In H. J. Vol. IX Karl Wien refers to the help they received from the Club. 'On 6 August we arrived by sea in Calcutta, where the eastern Section of the Himalayan Club and the Hon. Secretary, Mrs Townend, received us in the friendliest manner and put every concievable help at our disposal. Having made the last additions to our equipment with some ice-axes and crampons from the stock which the Himalayan Club maintains we went by train to Siliguri and thence by car to Gangtok. The road is open today for private cars even during the rains. In the meantime Bauer with the help of Mr. Kydd had made the necessary arrangements JittiM'lmr uul had engaged a few porters whom we met at the Teesta Bridge. They made the first ascent of Siniolchu, some- said to be the most beautiful peak in the Himalaya, and one of the peaks of Simvu. Marco Pallis also arrived in Sikkim hoping to cross over into Tibet where he wanted to study Tibetan Buddhism, but he was refused permission. The head of amonastery in Sikkim advised him to go to Ladakh which he did, and he met his teacher there as he has described in Peaks and Lamas.

Thus the year 1936 far exceeded any previous year in the amount of activity in the Himalaya for there were expeditions brought by Americans, English, French, Germans, Japanese and Swiss. The Eastern Section of the Club alone had 106 members and it had quite a busy programme during the year. C. R. Cooke lectured on his ascent of Kabru, Captain Davies showed a film of the Governor's visit to Bhutan, Auden lectured on Glaciers, and dinners were given in honour of Ruttledge's Everest Team and Paul Bauer's expedition to Sikkim. Eric Shipton lectured on Everest in Simla.

Against this background it is not to be wondered at that when he gave his annual report to the A. G. M. in February 1937 the Hon. Secretary of the Club (Major Gueterbock) should have been fairly full of confidence. 'The Club has attained a position of considerable importance and responsibility in the organization of large expeditions. Foreign climbing parties use the Club as a clearing house for information, and several members of these large expeditions have joined the Club. All expeditions which require Sherpa or Bhotia porters are to a great extent dependent on the Eastern Section's arrangements at Darjeeling; the provision of liaison officers is another matter in which the Club helps foreign expeditions. Finally the Club performs valuable services as an unofficial method of approaching the Government of India in such matters as finding out whether certain expeditions will be allowed, customs regulations, policy regarding duties of liaison officers etc.

'The Club has a special position in the organization of Everest expeditions as it has a representative on the Mount Everest Committee and subscribed both as a Club and individually to the last expedition.' The Himalayan Club's representative on the Mount Everest Committee was Major-General R. C. Wilson who was Chairman of the Committee, and four of the other six members of the Committee were members of the Club.

In 1937 German mountaineering had come under the control of the 'Sportsfuehrer' of the Reich and there was a determination to achieve a Himalayan peak that would bring glory to the fatherland. Should it be Nanga Parbat or Kangchenjunga ? Karl Wien was chosen to lead it and he was determined that his friends who had died on Nanga Parbat must be avenged. A. strong team came out and there was no difficulty in recruiting Sherptis as they held the same views as Wien. Neither Fritz Bechtold nor Paul Bauer were able to come. Paul Bauer was sitting in his office in Munich on 20 June when he heard over the telephone from a News Agency the dreadful news that seven climbers and nine porters had died on Nanga Parbat. He felt that he and Bechtold must go out as quickly as possible to help Luft, the sole survivor, pick up the pieces. He rang up Kenneth Mason in Oxford; Mason got on to General Wilson and Wilson contacted the Viceroy. Mason was soon able to promise Bauer that the R. A. F. would fly him from Lahore to Gilgit. Arrived out there they found Camp 4 completely destroyed but some watches and diaries were recovered. The diaries had been kept up to 14 June and the watches had all stopped at a few minutes past twelve. The Camp had been destroyed by a stupendous avalanche just after midnight. When Bauer wrote the account of the expedition he said: 'One effect of the geographical situation of the Himalaya is that it brings us into contact with English mountaineers and other people of England and the British Empire, and thus we come again and again to enjoy their hospitality. On the other hand we must see our debt of gratitude growing indefinitely while, Germany many lacking a similar geographical feature, we have nothing with which to neutralize it save the expression of our grateful thanks to all on every occasion.'

In this year, 1937, Eric Shipton took his first expedition to survey in the Karakoram which he afterwards described in his book Blank on the Map, and Smythe with P. R. Oliver visited the Valley of Flowers', climbed Nilgiri Parbat, made attempts on Rataban, Nilkanth and Dunagiri and made the first ascent of Mana. Oliver was later killed in Burma during the war. In Tibet Spencer Chapman made his remarkable ascent of Chomolhari and in Sikkim, Grob, Schmaderer and Paider attempted the Tent peak and made the second ascent of Siniolchu. Lt John Hunt and his wife with C. R. Cooke paid a winter visit to the Zemu glacier.

The Eastern Section started the year 1938 with a very good exibition of photographs timed so that the members of the British Association who had come to Calcutta for the Silver Jubilee of the Indian Science Congress would be able to see it. Paul Baur sent out by air some wonderful photographs of Nanga Parbat, Siniolchu and Simvu and photographs were also sent out by the Mount Everest Committee. Tilman had been chosen to be the leader of this year's assault on Everest (he had acclimatized all right on Nanda Devi) and he and Shipton dined with the club on their way to Everest and Tilman showed slides of the reconnaissance and the ascent of Nanda Devi. A fortnight later John hunt gave a vivid account of the climbing done by him, his wife and C. R. Cooke in Sikkim that winter.

Tilman’s expedition to Everest did not have much luck for the weather was bad throughout the Himalaya in 1938. Undeterred by the thought that eleven Germans and fifteen Sherpas lay dead in a shadow of Nanga Parbat, Paul Bauer returned to the attack bringing with him Bechtold who had been on the first two expeditions, Luft, who had been on the third expedition, Schmaderer who had attempted the Tent Peak the previous year, Aufschnaiter, and three others, also had the use of an aeroplane based on Srinagar to drop supplies on the mountain, not all of which were recovered. They could not make much headway for the weather was as bad as it was on Everest. Bauer began to think of attempting the Diamir Face in the following year. He sent two of his party to have a look at it and when he returned to Europe he sent Peter Aufschnaiter to discuss the project and get permissions in England, and Aufschnaiter was actually staying with Kenneth Mason at the time of the Munich crisis. Another big expedition in 1938 was an American Alpine Club Expedition to K2, which had not been visited seriously since the Duke of the Abruzzi had had a look at it in 1909. The expedition was the brain child of Charles Houston who had been part leader of the Nanda Devi Expedition and he took with him four other Americans, Streatfield who had been with the French on Gasher- brum and six Sherpas. It was a very successful reconnaissance. Masherbrum nearby was attempted by a party which included James Waller and J. O. M. Roberts; two members and a Sherpa were injured. In his book The Everlasting Hills Waller wrote : 'I must admit that I was keen to try something a little higher than any peak which had so far been climbed' but for this he was taken to task in the review of his book in the H.J. for in those days any form of competitiveness was frowned upon.

On returning from Nanga Parbat in 1938 Paul Bauer visited Simla and through the kindness of H.E. Lord Brabourne showed in the Viceregal Lodge a magnificent sound film of the 1937 Nanga Parbat expedition and he talked about the expedition from which he had just returned. In London Colonel Tobin, who had now moved to England, organized what is described as the second Dinner of the Club, but the H.J. has no record of the first. It was held at the Cafe Royal 'at 7.30 for 8.00 p.m.' (which meant that guests must be seated by 8.0 p.m.) and tickets cost 8s. 6d. General Bruce was in the chair and among the guests were Sir Harry Haig, ex-Governor of the U.P., and General Sir George Cockerell. Mason persuaded him to write a very interesting article for H. J., Vol. XI on 'Pioneer Exploration in Hunza and Chitral'.

According to the H.J., lectures were becoming more popular in Calcutta than ever and in January 1939 Cooke lectured on the second visit to Sikkim that he had made with the Hunts. Edward Groth showed a very beautiful film of a journey from Srinagar to Gilgit and Hunza, and then through Chitral to Peshawar. He turned aside to see Nanga Parbat and got some wonderful shots of dawn on the mountain. In April Grob, Schmaderer and Paider arrived on their way to pay a second visit to Sikkim. One evening they each gave a short illustrated talk; Grob on the second ascent of Siniolchu in 1937, Schmaderer on the Nanga Parbat expedition of 1938 and Paider on rock climbing in Switzerland and the Caucasus.

In 1938 the realization suddenly came to the Swiss that they were not playing the part that they should be in the exploration of the Himalaya. Some Swiss had come on expeditions sent by other countries but there had not yet been a Swiss expedition. Die Alpen said : 'Englishmen, Italians, Germans and Frenchmen have sent their best to explore unclimbed mountains. Switzerland alone, a country of native mountaineers, stands inactively aloof.' Steps were taken which led to the formation in 1940 of that important body The Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research, but before it came into existence the sponsors sent a small expedition consisting of Andre Roch, two guides and a topographer, to Garhwal in May 1939. At Ranikhet Mrs Brown welcomed them in charming fashion and organized their departure most admirably. They left Ranikhet with six Sherpas. They climbed Duna- giri, Gauri Parbat and Rataban but lost two porters in an avalanche on Chaukhamba. This was a year of bad accidents from avalanches. Two members of a Polish expedition climbed Nanda Devi East and then the expedition lost two of its members in an avalanche on Tirsuli. A second American expedition went to K2 led by a German-American called Meissner who had been with Willi Merkl on Nanga Parbat in 1932. The expedition was supported by nine Sherpas but Meissner pressed on without securing his lines of communication and one of the climbers and three Sherpas lost their lives. Shipton returned to the Karakoram; he wanted to take Tilman with him but Tilman as a Reserve Officer felt that he must be available if war broke out so he went to Sikkim. Shipton had intended to spend the winter in the Karakoram as he hoped that the rivers which were such insuperable obstacles in the summer might be negotiable highways in the winter. Unfortunately he heard by radio that war had broken out and the whole party came hurrying back to offer their services, but it was a whole year before anyone paid any attention to them. Eventually Shipton was posted as Consul-General to Kashgar (rather as Longstaff had been posted to the Gilgit Scouts in 1914), where he had time to write a book, Upon That Mountain, which was published in 1943 and had a good wartime sale, thus encouraging people to plan expeditions when the war was over. Aufschnaiter, Lobenhoffer, Harrer and Chicken attempted the Diamir Face of Nanga Parbat but without success. When they returned to civilization they realized that war was immient and hurried down to Karachi hoping to catch a Hansa steamer for Germany, but it never arrived and they were interned. Grob, Schmaderer and Paider climbed the Tent Peak in Sikkim and reached Gangtok on 3 September quite ignorant of what was going on in the outside world. Grob who was Swiss could leave for home, and Gould the Political Agent allowed him to take with him all their diaries and films and as a result a beautiful book on the expedition was published in Munich in 1940. Schmaderer and Paider being Austrian had to be interned. Also interned were Fritz Kolb and Ludwig Krenek who in August went to Lahul with a party organized by the National Union of Students of London. The most popular camp for internees was Premnagar from where the hills could not only be seen but even visited by walks on parole. From Premnagar Aufschnaiter and Harrer in 1943 escaped, and they made their way to Lhasa. Schmaderer and Paider also escaped but Schmaderer was murdered in Spiti and Paider gave himself up. Fritz Kolb and Krenek seem to have stayed on in India and in 1946 they made an expedition to the Padar region in Kishtwar and later Krenek became local secretary of the Club in Darjeeling and in 1950 worked very hard to bring the register of porters up-to-date.

In June 1939 there was another Club Dinner at which it was hoped that General Bruce would be able to take the chair but he was unwell and the chair was taken by Professor Odell. Bruce died in the following month and The Times printed an obituary notice by Sir Francis Younghusband. 'Brigadier General the Hon. Charles G. Bruce remained a boy his whole life. Bubbling over with all the jollity of a child, he was quite unique. . . . His jokes were of the simplest but he himself laughed so immoderately at them that no-one could help laughing with him.'

The outbreak of war inevitably meant an end to all large expeditions, but H.J., Vol. XII appeared in 1940 with accounts of the major expeditions of 1939 and also a note by Joan Townend on how Tiger Badges for Sherpas had been decided on. The name Tiger had been in use for Sherpas who had gone high ever since the 1924 Everest Expedition. It was now felt that the better Sherpas should be in some way distinguished and rewarded by higher rates of pay (which were only to apply when their special skills were required; otherwise it might mean that they would find it more difficult to get employment on ordinary expeditions). Specially selected Sherpas were to be awarded Tiger Badges. The Himalayan Club Committee was to take great pains in the years to come to ensure that the right Sherpas got the awards.

During the war years the annual general meetings were held regularly to pass the accounts. Some members of the Club who were serving in India were able to visit the Himalaya while on leave. The most fortunate of these seems to have been Wilfrid Noyce who worked in Intelligence in India from 1942. He went to Garhwal in 1943 and 1944 and in 1945 he climbed Pauhunri in Sikkim with Angtharkey. In 1945-46 he was Chief Instructor at the Air Crew Mountain Centre at Sonamarg set up for the rehabilitation of air crews and out of this came A Climber's Guide to Sonamarg, which was published by the Club.

In 1945 W. Cowley took 30 students of the Punjab Mountaineering Club to Kashmir and three members of the party reached the summit of Kolahoi. Several newspapers highlighted the ex- pedition mainly because on the top of Kolahoi they found a piece of chewing gum and a note left there by a B.O.R. called Leakey. Newspapers said that these were the first Indians to venture so high; the H.J. pointed out that Kesar Singh had been to the top of Kamet and that he was presumably an Indian. Whoever wrote the note in the H.J. seems to have overlooked the distinction between those who climb for pleasure and professional porters wiio climb as a livelihood. It may have been the first time Indian amateurs had been to the top of a peak in the Himalaya, though Doon School boys had been higher. A few weeks later it was reported that Miss Geary had taken some girls of the Punjab Mountaineering Club to the top of the Rohtang Pass. Such was the infancy of Indian mountaineering that these things called for comment !

As the war seemed to be drawing to a close members in Delhi showed keenness to revive Club activities and in April 1945 a dinner was held at the Imperial Hotel which was attended by 17 members. It was voted a success and another dinner, this time with guests, was held at the Gymkhana Club in November with 48 people present. Talks were given by C. R. Cooke and Brigadier Glennie' who had just been awarded the Founder's Medal of the R.G.S. H.J., Vol. XIII appeared in 1946 with Wilfrid Noyce as Editor, and for the first time there was an Editorial. 'The presence and the matter of this editorial requires explanation and apology. It has been the custom of the Club to dispense with such aids in the past. But the loss of Kenneth Mason as Editor needs an expression of public regret, as does the demand that someone else should enter the room that he has left. The Himalayan world owes him an immense debt of gratitude. In the first place the beauty of production of this Journal hitherto has made it easily the most attractive of all mountain pediodicals. But more than this, it was also very much more complete, because Kenneth Mason had the art and the knowledge to present the various facets of the Himalaya and to link each with each.' And he continued: 'It will be seen at once that there are far too many expedition accounts and far too few articles of general or non-climbing interest.' This is indeed a criticism that can be made of all subsequent issues of the Journal and in fact has been made by Williams, Badhwar and the present Editor, but with so much going on in the Himalaya it is an error of balance that is very difficult to avoid. Noyce printed a short story by Philip Mason and the present Editor has also printed a short story.

There were a few expeditions in the summer of 1946. J. O. M. Roberts got enough leave to explore Saser Kangri with George Lorimer of his regiment. Captain Ralph James made an exploration of the Nun Kun massif and as already mentioned Fritz Kolb and Ludwig Krenek explored the Padar in Kishtwar. In this year the Club began to be active in Bombay and a Bombay Section was started with A. R. Leyden as Hon. Secretary. C. R. Cooke of the Eastern Section designed a badge for the Club consisting of the initials 'H.C.' superimposed on the outline of the Chorten that can be seen on the way to the Rongbuk glacier.

The badge was first used on notepaper and then on Club ties, and when Biswas became Editor in 1960 it was used on the cover of the H.J. In November Colonel Tobin organized a dinner in London at the Dorchester Hotel at which T. H. Somervell took the chair and over sixty guests attended, including Joan Townend, H. W. Tilman, Brigadier Glennie and Major A. E. Clark who had been Hon. Secretary from 1941 to 1946. He gave a brief account of the Club during the War and then James Waller showed a film of his expedition to Masherbrum in 1938.

In 1946 an event of considerable importance to mountaineers took place in Switzerland. The Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research started the publication of Berge der Welt which from 1953 appeared also in English as The Mountain World. It was an admirable account of the year's mountaineering. The first eight volumes were edited by Marcel Kurz, after which Othner Gurtner took over until he was succeeded by Richard Muller. It was a great loss when it ceased publication in 1968. The Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research was the first mountaineering club to recover from the war and in 1947 it sent quite a big expedition to Garhwal to follow up the work done by Andre Roch in 1939. Andre Roch was again the leader and with him came Rene Dittert and Mme Lohner who greatly enjoyed having Tenzing to look after her. The expedition climbed Kedernath, Satopanth, Kalindi Peak and Balbala.

In 1947 Tilman took an Anglo-Swiss Expedition to the Kara- koram to make an attempt on Rakaposhi. With him went Campbell Seeord, Gyr and Kappeler. On the top of the Babusar Pass they were welcomed by Captain Hamilton, assistant Political Officer, and in Gilgit by the Political Officer himself, Colonel Bacon. This was the last time that British Political Officers welcomed parties to the Himalaya. After they had made their attempt on Rakaposhi Tilman set off northwards and after crossing the Mintaka Pass travelled through the Taghumbash Pamir. His object was to join up with Shipton still in Kashgar as Consul-General. Together they made an attempt on Muztagh Ata and then Tilman had a three-week holiday with Shipton after which he set off for the Wakhan. He wanted to see the sources of the Oxus and thought that there was a chance that the Afghans would not notice him. He was wrong. He was arrested and imprisoned by Afghan police who afterwards released him through the Dorah Pass into ,Chitral. On his return he found that the British had officially left and that India and Pakistan were independent.

 

 

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Part IV. The Himalayan Club 1947-54 : Transition

The year 1947 marks a big divide in the history of India but no one knew how big a divide it was to make in the history of the Himalayan Club. Whatever fears they may have had, Club members hoped that it would be able to continue its work of encouraging mountaineering in the Himalaya. There were, however, serious immediate problems. Most of the members of the Club were British as so far not many Indians had joined. Most of the British who were in Government service left the country fairly quickly but for the time being those in business were staying on. Hence an emergency meeting of the Club was summoned in Delhi on November 1947. It met in the room of the Chairman, W. M. Yeatts, and besides him was attended by six other persons; Sir Alan Lloyd, Colonel Osman, B. K. Guha, F. B. Blomfield, and the Hon. Secretary, A. Percy Lancaster. The meeting decided that as there were not enough members left in Delhi to provide office-bearers for the Club, the Club Headquarters should, subject to the consent of the Eastern Section, be shifted to Calcutta. Colonel Osmaston agreed to arrange for the transfer of the equipment and the library. The Eastern Section agreed to the move and without any more formality the Chairman and Hon. Secretary of the Eastern Region, L. R. Fawcus and W. E. Murphy, became President and Hon. Secretary of the Club.

In the meantime in England Colonel Tobin had agreed to edit the next issue of the H.J., (Vol. XIV), which came out in 1948 and in his Editorial Col. Tobin expressed the gloomy view that it was likely to be the last issue. He began his Editorial by welcoming the rebirth of the Journal under Wilfrid Noyce but then said: 'Alas, the swift evolution as independent states of India and Pakistan brings in its train the early repatriation of nearly all active members of the Club. And the hitherto simple access to the mountains of the northern borderlands will be enjoyed only by those who work in the new states. Consequently unless, or until, mountaineering is taken up by Hindu, Moslem, Sikh and others, the very raison d'etre of the Club will be no more. Nationalization of the Club or its successor will mean the production of its Journal by a national editor and a national publication, so it seems that Vol. XIV is almost certain to be the final issue, a tragic thought for all of us members, and perhaps more especially for those who have given so much of their time and their talent to its creation and life.' In some ways his fears were well grounded. National frontiers and 'inner lines' did become greater obstacles to mountaineering than they had been, and in due course most Of the Club's functions were taken over by the Indian Mountaineering Foundation. On the other hand Hindus, Moslems, Sikhs and others have taken to mountaineering in a very big way and Tobin when he died in 1957 was still Editor of the Journal.

Tobin, not surprisingly, had not found it easy to collect enough material for H.J., Vol. XIV since there was not much going on in the Himalaya, but he was helped by the last-minute arrival from Lhasa in January 1948 of two articles by Peter Aufschnaiter, one on the attempt on Nanga Parbat by the Diamir face in 1939 and one on Aufschnaiter's and Harrer's escape to Tibet. Even with this windfall, H.J., Vol. XIV was the thinnest ever, only 120 pages, and H.J., Vol. XV was only two pages longer. Tobin admitted in his preface that it might have been still-born but for the persuasion (which in truth, he said, came near to goading) exercised by Tilman who provided one new article and one old one. It was filled out with an article by John Hunt on climbing a mountain in Egypt. Its appearance gave Tobin the opportunity of saying: 'It is devoutly hoped that the issue of this volume will help to dispel from the minds of members the unnecessarily dismal apprehensions expressed last year in Vol. XIV.' He was able to report the very important news that 'restrictions on access to Nepal have, in certain cases and on special grounds, been relaxed'. With these words he ushered in the most exciting epoch in mountaineering that the world has ever known, but it began on a low note with an expedition which rediscovered the Spiny Babbler.

The first expedition which managed to get permission to enter Nepal was a scientific expedition led by Dr Dillon Ripley, Professor of Zoology at Yale, which crossed the frontier in December 1948 and his first object was to seek for a rare partridge that had last been seen in Naini Tal in 1876. Although they did not find the partridge they did find the Spiny Babbler which was last seen when some specimens were collected for Brian Hodgson in 1844, and they brought back with them about 1600 bird specimens.

The next expedition to gain access to Nepal was a Swiss expedition which included Rene Dittert and Wyss-Dunant. They were refused permission to attempt Dhaulagiri in 1948 but got permission to enter NE. Nepal from Sikkim in 1949 and they reconnoitred Kangbachen and made the first ascent of Pyramid Peak. Also in 1949 Tilman got permission to take a scientific expedition to the upper reaches of the Trisuli Gandaki.

In 1950 the Himalayan Committee of the French Alpine Club obtained permission to send an expedition to Central Nepal. So far the French had only sent one expedition to the Himalaya, the Gasherbrum expedition of 1936. This year's expedition was to be a do-or-die affair for the honour of France, an attempt to conquer the first 8000-metre peak, either Dhaulagiri or Anna- purna. The leader of the expedition was Maurice Herzog and the team included Jean Couzy, Louis Lachenal, Gaston Rebuffat and Lionel Terray, most of them professionals. On 3 June Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal stood on the top of Anna- purna I and made mountaineering history. Two weeks later Tilman was making an attempt on Annapurna IV nearby. In Garhwal there was the first Scottish Expedition to the Himalaya ; it spent several months in exploration and climbed Uja Tirche. There was also a small Anglo-French expedition to Garhwal planned by two Cambridge undergraduates, Berrill and Tissieres. They first hoped to persuade Michael Vivyan, a Fellow of Trinity, to come with them, but in the end were very lucky that Bene Dittert agreed to join them ; the fourth member was a French doctor working in East P'akistan. They all met in Delhi about which 'I need say little,' wrote Berrill, 'except to record our thanks for the hospitality we received at the Cecil Hotel. Major Hotz was kindness itself'. The manager of the bus company which took them to Chamoli had happy memories of Longstaff and Ruttledge. Although this was the year in which China invaded Tibet, they were able to cross the Mana Pass and climb Abi Gamin from the north. This year Jack Gibson took a party which included Tenzing to climb Bandarpunch. A Norwegian party led by Arne Naess came out to tackle Tirich Mir. They came by lorry as far as Dir where they were met by Tony Streather of the Chitral Scouts who joined them for the march to Base Camp. He was able to get very good work out of the Chitrali porters and the summit was reached at 6.00 p.m. on 21 July. Streather says that they had a magnificent view into 'Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, China, Kashmir and possibly Tibet'. In October, three British officers who had hoped to spend the winter in Pakistan were told that they could only spend three weeks. They decided to make a quick reconnaissance of Nanga Parbat on which two of them lost their lives. By the autumn of 1950 Oscar Houston had persuaded the Government of Nepal to let him travel from Biratnagar on the Indian frontieh to Everest on the Tibet border ; his son Charles asked Tilman to join them ; this opportunity to have a look at Everest from an unfamiliar angle was one step forward on the road that led to its ascent.

In 1951 an interesting event was the first ascent of a Himalayan Peak by a party led by an Indian, the ascent of Trisul by Gurdial Singh's party. When they reached Lata they found that the French had already passed through on their way to Nanda Devi, and had taken most of the available porters. At this moment Kesar Singh, the veteran of Kamet, appeared like a prophet and, thrilled with the prospect of scaling a familiar peak with a fellow Indian, insisted on joining them and found all the porters they needed. In this year the first New Zealand Expedition to the Himalaya came to Garhwal ; it consisted of Hillary, Ridley, Cotter and Lowe. 'It would be difficult' they wrote, 'for a party visiting the Himalaya for the first time to make forward arrangements were it not for the Himalayan Club, who engaged four Sherpas for us.' 'The Indian scene has a fascination of its own as we saw it on the long, hot, dusty, five-day train journey from Colombo upto Madras and Calcutta and across to LucknOw The climax of
heat came in Lucknow. As we journeyed to the U. P. Government buildings (for Inner Line Passes) in the afternoon by rickshaw the temperature was 113 degrees in the shade.' In Ranikhet they were helped by Mr Frapolli, the proprietor of West View Hotel and a member of the Club, and when the Sherpas arrived they found that Pasang Dawa Lama was a capable mountaineer and spoke English. They succeeded in climbing Mukut Parbat. In Badrinath after the ascent they met the survivors of the French expedition and found an Indian officer with them (Nandu Jayal) who was 'a keen and experienced mountaineer'. On their return journey to Ranikhet they found the road blocked by a landslide and this gave them an opportunity of using the pitons and carabiners that they had not needed on the mountains. Big news awaited them in Ranikhet— 'two to go to Everest with Shipton's party'. How this came about will soon be seen.

After their success on Annapurna the French wanted to see if it was possible to adopt in the Himalaya the Alpine practice of using advanced techniques to vary routes on mountains already climbed. At first they sought permission to tackle Nanga Parbat or K2 but the Pakistan government would not give permission. Hence they decided on Nanda Devi. There were eight climbers in the expedition and Major Narendra Jayal was liaison officer. The object was to make the traverse from Nanda Devi to Nanda Devi East. Roger Duplat and Gilbert Vignes set out to attempt this but were never seen again.

Meanwhile in England three climbers, W. H. Murray, Campbell Secord and Michael Ward, persuaded the Joint Himalayan Committee (which had superseded the Mount Everest Committee) to seek permission from Nepal for an attempt on Everest from the western Nepal side. This permission came through in June and these three mountaineers were busy planning a reconnaissance in the autumn when they heard that Eric Shipton had returned to England. He had been out of England almost without a break since 1939, first as Consul-General in Kashgar and then as Consul - General in Kunming. They invited him to lead the reconnaissance and, although he had been looking forward to seeing England again, he agreed. Just before leaving England, by chance he called in at the Royal Geographical Society and he found a telegram from New Zealand Alpine Club asking if two New Zealanders in Garhwal could join the expedition. He had already turned down a Swiss application, but, rather irrationally and perhaps because of memories of Dan Bryant in 1935, he cabled acceptance. If he had been more consistent Hillary might not have gone to Everest. After the reconnaissance Shipton and his party returned to England quite hopeful of the chances of climbing Everest by the new route, and it was a shock to learn that the mountain had been booked by the Swiss both before and after the monsoon in 1952.

On his return to England in December 1951 Shipton was astonished at the amount of public interest that the reconnaissance of Everest had aroused; it was quite unlike the reactions of 1935. 'Can it be,' he asked, 'that increasing fear of the encroach- ment of a universal suburbia has led to a wider sympathy with the desire to escape from it ?' While the Swiss were making their attempts on Everest another French party got permission to visit Garhwal and climbed Chaukhamba, and a Japanese party in Nepal attempted Annapurna IV and reconnoitred Manaslu. Foiled of the chance of sending an expedition to Everest the Joint Himalayan Committee decided to send an expedition under Shipton to Cho Oyu to try out new climbers and new equipment. The Committee was also wondering what they would do if the Swiss were successful on Everest ; in that case they would probably have turned their attention to Kangchenjunga. On his return from Cho Oyu Shipton met the Committee on 28 July and he says in his autobiography that he expressed doubts about whether he was the right man to lead the 1953 expedition because of his dislike of large expeditions and of the competitive spirit in climbing. The Committee, he says, expressed full confidence in him. Everyone felt that there should be an organizing secretary for the expedition who knew about the war-time improve- ments in equipment and how best to take advantage of them. John Hunt seemed the obvious choice but he said that he could not do this job unless he was made Deputy Leader, a post that Shipton had already offered to Charles Evans. At the next meeting of the committee on 8 September the first item on the agenda was 'Deputy Leader' and while it was discussed Shipton was asked to withdraw. When he was recalled he was told that Hunt had been appointed Joint Leader of the expedition. Shipton backed out. No one can doubt that Hunt was the right leader. Raymond Lambert on seeing the Everest film was impressed by 'the magnitude and the quality of the means employed. The troop of climbers manoeuvred like an army on campaign, each chosen fighting man at his post, while all possible use was made of perfected equipment to overcome the physical shortcomings of human units.' 'Our Party was in its way,' wrote Wilfrid Noyce in South Col, 'the happiest that I have ever joined'. Many people, however, felt a little sorry for Shipton as he moved on to pastures new in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.

The year 1953 was a wonderful year in mountaineering. It began with the Japanese and the French going higher than anyone had ever been on Manaslu and Dhaulagiri. On 29 May on the eighth assault Hillary and Tenzing reached the summit of Everest. It is not easy now to recall the excitement that it caused. General Williams rang me up in Dehra Dun from Delhi at three in the morning to give me the news. Londoners got it as they waited to watch the Queen go to Westminster Abbey for her coronation. But it was not the only triumph of the year. Away to the west in the Karakoram, Nanga Parbat was also climbed. Dr Herrlig- koffer, a Munich physician, who was step-brother of Willi Merkl, brought out the 'Willi Merkl Memorial Expedition'. The party flew from Rawalpindi to Gilgit. The Himalayan Club had sent some Sherpas but the Pakistan government did not allow them to reach their destination. It is somewhat ironical that the mountain which had cost so many German lives should at last have surrendered to a solitary Austrian, Hermann Buhl, who did a solo climb from the highest camp to the summit and back. There was yet another expedition in the Karakoram. Charles Houston who had made an attempt on K2 in 1938 returned to the attack with the third American Expedition. Tony Streather met them in Rawalpindi. He wrote: 'Owing to the great changes which have taken place since the beginning of the war in Kashmir, we were able to fly the first stage of our journey and land on the rather frightening air field at Skardu. This was truly a most impressive flight. We passed close under the walls of Nanga Parbat and one of the climbers even claims he was able to see the tracks of a German expedition which was later successful in bringing to a conclusion the long and epic struggle on that mountain. On up the narrow gorge we passed Rakaposhi and Haramosh, with a brief glimpse of K2 away off to the north, and then we landed at last at Skardu.' They established Camp 8 and might have reached the summit if one of the climbers had not gone down with phlebitis. In August Bernard Pierre, a friend of Hunt's, took an expedition to Nun Kun with Nalni Jayal and Johorey as liaison officers and the summit of Nun was reached by Claude Kogan, who sold swimming-suits in Nice, and thus became the holder of the woman's altitude record, and Jaul Yitos, Protestant Pastor at Leh. In the Garhwal Himalaya Nandu Jayal led an Indian Sapper Expedition to Kamet, which climbed Abi Gamin. A small Indian expedition led by Navnit Parekh attempted Pumori, the first recorded party to the Himalaya from Bombay.

The year 1954 was an almost equally wonderful year. Recently it had been the Americans who had been making attempts on K2 but it was the Duke of the Abruzzi who first visited it, and Ardito Desio, Professor of Geology at Milan University, had never forgotten it since he had first seen it with the Duke of Spoleto in 1929. He was planning an attempt when war broke out in 1939 and started again as soon as the war was over. Plans were made with great thoroughness and equipment included about three miles of rope and pitons. They also flew to Skardu. On the mountain loads were lifted by windlasses and special sledges made of a pair of skis. Two climbers reached the summit at the end of July. In the autumn the Austrian Herbert Tichy with two compatriots visited Cho Oyu with seven Sherpas led by Pasang Dawa Lama. Tichy was already suffering from frostbitten hands when out of the blue appeared on the mountain a Swiss party containing Raymond Lambert and Claude Kogan. Having been turned back on Gauri Shankar they now wanted to try Cho Oyu. At a conference the Swiss party agreed to let Tichy have one attempt before they made theirs. ‘Tichy's Sherpa Pasang had gone down to Namche Bazar for more stores. Somehow he got the news about the Swiss. Passionately he declared: 'If the Swiss reach the mountain before us I will cut my throat.' Powered by anger he climbed in one day to Camp 1, in one day from Camp 1 to Camp 4 and then he climbed to the summit with Tichy arid Joechler.

During 1954 a British party reconnoitred Kangchenjunga and thought they saw a way to the summit and so there was an attempt launched in 1955 with Charles Evans as leader. Two parties reached the summit though they kept a promise they had made not to tread on it. The first party contained George Band who had been on Everest in 1935 and taken part in a Cambridge University Expedition to Rakaposhi in 1954, and Joe Brown who climbed the West Face of the Dru in 1954. The second party contained a New Zealander, Norman Hardie, who had been with Hillary in the Barun Valley in 1954 and Tony Streather whom we have already met with the Norwegians on Tirich Mir in 1950 and the Americans on K2 in 1953. The Alpine Club considered that the ascent of Kangchenjunga as well as the ascent of Everest were part of the celebration of its centenary. It was certainly very remarkable that in three years the three highest peaks in the world had been climbed.

In our narrative we have been swept onwards by the explosion of mountaineering which took place in the Himalaya from 1950, but to follow the fortunes of the Himalayan Club we must go back to the moving of the headquarters from Delhi to Calcutta in 1947. The first job which the officials of the Club had to tackle was to try to track down Club members many of whom had been transferred during the war. What made it more difficult was that many members had lost track of the Club and did not know that it had been moved to Calcutta. At the beginning of the War the Club had had to move the equipment out of the Geological Survey where there was no longer room for it. It was stored in various places, in the Museum, in Fort William and in a boat-house of the Calcutta Rowing Club. Luckily by the time that Osmaston brought the equipment and the library from Delhi the Club had been able to rent a room from the Calcutta Light Horse Club.

The first A. G. M. after the transfer of the headquarters was held in December 1948 at the Bengal United Services Club. C. E. J. Crawford was elected President and W. E. Murphy was re-elected Hon. Secretary. After the meeting Dr West, Director of the Geological Survey, showed a coloured film of a Geological expedition to Afghanistan and Bruce Bake well, a former President of the Ski Club of India, showed a colour film of skiing in Kashmir.

In 1949 members of the Club were able to meet Tilman and members of his team on their way to the upper reaches of the Trisuli Gandaki and in August they entertained Rene Dittert and the Swiss expedition which had just climbed the Pyramid Peak, and they showed a colour film of Andre Roch's expedition to Garhwal in 1947. The President's (Crawford) report in H. J., Vol. XV showed that the Club was ready to assume its former role of welcoming foreign expeditions : 'We look forward to a revival of expeditions from other countries who wish to visit the Himalaya. The Club will always be glad to assist them in any way possible and would welcome them advising us beforehand of their intentions. Reviewing the scene in this year of the coming- of-age of the Club I think we may fairly say that its vitality was undiminished. Though at times it may have seemed to those connected with the Club here that necessary attention to administrative details was obscuring the wider objects of the Club, our aim remains "to encourage and assist Himalayan travel and exploration and to extend knowledge of the Himalaya and adjoining mountain ranges through Science, Art, Literature and Sport." The I.M.F. had not been thought of.

Apart from the A. G. M. no meetings have been reported for but in February 1950' a new section of the Club was opened in Delhi where R. E. Hotz became Hon. Secretary and was very active. In August 1950 Arnold Lunn gave a most interesting talk in Calcutta on 'The Mountain Cult from early times till the Present Day'. Several meetings were reported to have been held in Bombay where A. R. Leyden was still Hon. Secretary. Ludwig Krenek became Local Secretary in Darjeeling in March and compiled a list of 175 Sherpa porters, each with his photograph, classification number, date of birth, main expeditions and remarks. This was a very thorough piece of work. The three with the highest reputations were Angtharkey, Pasang Dawa and Tenzing whose work with Gibson had been much praised. Krenek entered the remark against his name 'great future is in store for him'. During the year many requests for porters were received. A catalogue of the library now housed at the Calcutta Light Horse Club was in preparation and 57 new members joined the Club in 1950. When H.J., Vol. XVI came out Tobin said in his Editorial: 'The year 1950 was a record year for mountaineering in High Asia, and no less than four major expeditions have provided material for a volume comparable in robustness with some of its pre-war predecessors.' He went on to add : 'In a former Editorial a somewhat gloomy view was taken of prospects for coming years, but this was proved wrong in the event. It is, however only right to say that for political and other reasons, there can be, apart from the French venture in Garhwal, but little doing in High Asia. But for 1952 certain plans are afoot which, if they materialise, should give us some very good copy for Vol. XVII.' He was not wrong.

In August 1951 appeared the first issue of the Club Newsletter. The Newsletters have been very much appreciated and they are still being issued, thirty-one having been issued so far. And, as in 1928, Technical Correspondents were again appointed for various subjects: for Geology and Glaciology ; Botany ; Ornithology ; Entomology ; Photography and for Shikar. In 1928 'Local Secretaries' were appointed at starting-off places, and in other places there were 'Local Correspondents', but now there were only 'Local Secretaries' and gradually they came to be appointed in many parts of the world ; in Pakistan, in London, New York, Japan and Australia. During the year dinners were held in Bombay in January and in Delhi in December. Several meetings were held for lectures or to receive visitors to India ; Michael Ward of Shipton's reconnaissance party spoke in Delhi and other members of the expedition were welcomed in Delhi and Bombay.

H.J., Vol. XVII reminded members, that in the cold weather of 1951-52 they would be celebrating the Club's Silver Jubilee and it quoted compliments to the Club from Bruce's Himalayan Wanderer. 'By no means the least of these children (of the Alpine Club) is the Himalayan Club.' 'It has been founded on the wisest lines.' 'The Himalayan Club are doing their utmost to facilitate access to these glorious countries, and it will undoubtedly be worth doing, and may good luck go with it.' Crawford and Tobin then add a postscript : 'In spite of changing times and difficulties we have prospered. May we continue to do so !'

In 1952 the A. G. M. was held in the Great Eastern Hotel. Dr Biswas showed a coloured film of flowers of Sikkim and T. H. Braham talked about his recent attempt on Kangchenjunga and Dr Kellas's attempt in 1912 after which 33 people sat down to the first dinner held in Calcutta since before the war.

H. J., Vol. XVII appeared after the Swiss assaults on Everest but because of copyright was not able to include any reports. Tobin in his Editorial said : 'The period under review is especially noteworthy for the interest and active participation of Indians in Himalayan Mountaineering. In addition to liaison work some have done some very creditable climbing, notably Gurdial Singh, first Indian member to scale a major Himalayan Peak and Major Nalini (sic) Jayal.'

In 1953 the Great Eastern Hotel was again the venue for the A. G. M. which was held in May and followed by films shown by Dodson and Hruska ; Hruska was a Czech skiing enthusiast who lived in Calcutta and skied in Kashmir. Afterwards more than seventy members and guests partook of a buffet supper. Only a week or so later Sir John Hunt and Sir Edmund Hillary arrived with Tenzing and they gave off-the-record talks of the ascent of Everest in Calcutta and in Delhi. The President of the Club, C. E. J. Crawford, was in England in the summer and represented the Club at several functions held in honour of the Everest team. In January 1954 there took place in Darjeeling a function which in retrospect appears to have been the high- water mark in the life of the Club. The function was a tea party for all the Sherpas, their wives and families, at which the

President of the Club, representing the Queen, presented Coronation Medals to 22, selected Sherpas who had carried loads to the South Col on the Everest Expedition. Crawford made a speech in Hindi in which he said that the last occasion when there had been a function in Darjeeling was in 1924 when Bruce returned from Everest but he overlooked the feast which Bruce gave to the Sherpas in 1934.

The Hon. Secretary's (T. H. Braham) report for 1954 which appeared in H. J., Vol. XVIII, just after the report of the tea party struck a very confident note. After referring to the difficult period which the Club had passed through during the war and the steps which had been taken after the transfer to Calcutta to revive it he claimed that 'It could now be said, six years later, that the Club was in a flourishing and vigorous state. New members have ioined and old members have been traced. On 1 April 1954 therp were 553 members of whom 189 were resident in India. A new members list was in process of being printed. We have a permanent home for our equipment and library. The Journal had appeared again, maintaining the high standards set in previous years, and members had been kept in touch with Club affairs and matters of general interest by the issue of periodic Newsletters. The various sections of the Club have also sprung into vigorous life and in various ways been able to be of much assistance to Himalayan Expeditions.' The Hon. Secretary wrote with confidence but actually three things were about to happen, which though beneficial to mountaineering in general, were to bring about a great decrease in the influence and the importance of the Club, and curiously enough the first of these things was reported on the same page of the Journal as the Hon. Secretary's report.

The H. J. said : 'It will be of interest to members to know that in addition to Tenzing Norgay G. M. the following Climbing Sirdars will arrange teams if applied to direct' and it then mentions the names of five Sherpa Sirdars. It goes on to say: 'As it was never the intention of the Club that the Hon. Local Secretary in Darjeeling should permanently be responsible for organising Sherpa porters for expeditions and as there are now Sherpa Sirdars able themselves to accept this responsibility, the Committee recommends that members should apply direct to the Sirdars. The Local Secretary will continue to maintain a register and will always be glad to render advice and assistance to members.' The Club did in fact continue to arrange for Sherpas when asked to do so and to keep a register of Sherpas and Tiger Badges, but the days of its responsibility for Sherpas were in fact numbered. In 1973 all responsibility was taken over by the I.M.F.

The second event which lessened the influence of the Club was a step that was very beneficial for mountaineering in India, the establishment of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute.

Tenzing's ascent of Everest made a deep impact on the imap tion of the people of India. When the Chief Minister of West Be visited Switzerland later in the year he asked about startii mountaineering institute in Darjeeling and the Swiss Founda for Alpine Research promised to help. Nandu Jayal was ch( to be Principal and Tenzing to be Director of Field Training with five selected Sherpas including Ang Tharkey they wenl the summer of 1954 for a course at the Swiss School of Mo taineering at Rosenlaui. In November P'andit Nehru came Darjeeling for the opening ceremony of the Himalayan Mo taineering Institute.

Tenzing was a world-famous mountaineer and an obvious chc for Chief Instructor and Major Narendra (Nandu) Jayal \ India's most experienced amateur. He had been introduced the Himalaya by Holds worth on the Arwa glacier while still boy in the Doon School and he went to Bandarpunch with Ji Gibson in 1946. In 1948 having been commisssoned in the Sapp( he became Chief Instructor at the School of Winter Warfare Gulmarg (Holdsworth had been borrowed from the Doon Schc to start it) and in 1950 he was liaison officer with the Fren on Nanda Devi. In 1952 he went on a Sapper expedition Kamet which was led by General Williams (at the age of 5E Nandu returned with his own Bengal Sapper Expedition in 191 and climbed Abi Gamin.

Every year from now on the H.M.I, ran both Basic ar Advanced Courses for which the very moderate fee charged boi no relation to the cost and it began to turn out a steady streai of well-trained climbers who changed the whole character ( mountaineering in India. More than 3000 have received Basi training and over 500 Advanced training at the H.M.I. In 196( stimulated perhaps by events on the Tibetan border in 1962, th U. P. Government followed suit and established the Nehru Insti tute of Mountaineering at Uttarkashi from where about 150i have done the Basic course and over 300 the Advanced course Both these institutions receive considerable help from the Centre channelled through the Ministry of Defence which has beer providing officers of the defence services as Principals. Anothei mountaineering institute has been established at Manali by the Government of Himachal Pradesh. The combined influence of these institutions on mountaineering is considerable, and those who have been through them have a sense of community with each other so that they do not feel the need to join a mountaineering club such as the H.C.

The third factor that has contributed to the decline in importance of the Himalayan Club is the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, now a very important body but its beginning seems almost accidental. In 1957 a Bombay lawyer, Keki Bunshah, approached the Government of India through S. S. Khera, to whom he had an introduceion, for help in an attempt on Cho Oyu Government surprised them both by making a grant of Us. 50,000 and a Sponsoring Committee was set up. When Cho Oyu was climbed the Sponsoring Committee ventured to send an expedition to Everest. Though Indians did not climb Everest in 1960 they put up a very creditable show and the Sponsoring Committee felt encouraged to organize three more expeditions in 1961, to Nilkantha, Annapurna III and Nanda Devi. The Sponsoring Committee now set up the Indian Mountaineering Foundation which was registered on 2 November 1961 with the objects of organizing mountaineering expeditions, encouraging the indigenous manufacture of equipment, and rewarding and helping Indian mountaineers. Naturally the Government of India looked to the I.M.F. to supervise foreign expeditions to India and so the provision of liaison officers passed out of the hands of the Himalayan Club. Other countries also had by now central organizations to help in the mounting of big expeditions. The Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research founded in 1940 has already been mentioned. After the ascent of Everest the Mount Everest Foundation was established in England. Encouraged perhaps by Hermann Buhl's ascent of Nanga Parbat and Tichy's success on Cho Oyu, in Austria the Austrian Himalayan Foundation was also established in 1954 and mounted expeditiojis to Saipal in 1954, Gasherbrum II in 1956, Haramosh in 1958 and Dhaulagiri in 1959. The main difference between all these and the I.M.F. was the amount of Government subsidy. Is there any other country in the world where mountaineering is so highly subsidized as India ?

Before returning to the story of the Himalayan Club a word may be said about the new trends in mountaineering, the so-called 'artificial climbing'. The new techniques were developed between the wars mainly by German climbers on the Eiger and consequently they were at first suspect in Alpine Club circles. In the 1950s the younger British climbers became interested and in his book A Century of Mountaineering Arnold Lunn tells us that even the guides on Chamonix were astonished when Don Whillans and Joe Brown climbed the West Face of the Dru in 1954 in forty - eight hours. Arnold Lunn tells how in June 1956 he attended a meeting of the Alpine Club 'at which Gaston Rebuffat showed a superb film in which every form of climbing, free and artificial, was displayed. His audience included some who disliked artificial climbing but none who could have failed to recognise in the lecturer not only one of the most distinguished climbers of all time but also a man whose love of mountains was as disinterested and as single minded as that of the most conservative of traditionalists.' Two weeks later Lunn wrote an article on artificial climbing in The Times in which he said 'surely it would have been unreasonable to expect the young to acquiesce in the perpetual virginity of the last unsealed, peaks of the Alps merely because these could not be conquered by the orthodox methods so brilliantly described in Mr G. W. Young's Mountain Craft.' Gaston Rebuff at was born in Marseilles and became a professional guide because it was the only way in which he could satisfy his tremendous love of mountains. He took his film Starlight and Stonn on a world tour and in April 1957 he showed it in Calcutta and Delhi. In 1973 at the International Mountaineer's Meet in Darjeeling he showed another most moving film called Between Heaven and Earth.

 

 

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Part V. The Himalayan Club 1954-1978; In a New Era

The establishment of Sherpa Sirdars and the foundation of the H.M.I, marked the beginning of a new era in the Himalaya in which there was an inevitable decline in the importance of the Club. This was especially so when the I.M.F. became responsible for providing liaison officers and otherwise checking on foreign expeditions. Before 1954 most expeditions received help from the Club and so were part of its story but from now on this is no longer the case. It is indeed a new era in which an ever- increasing number of expeditions come to the Himalaya using techniques and achieving goals which would have filled the founders of the Club with amazement. In a limited space to keep track of it all is impossible but to give a background to the story of the Club and to give 'an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative' some of the major expeditions will be mentioned. An attempt will also be made to indicate the development of Indian mountaineering.

The first reference to Indian mountaineering in the Mountain World appeared in 1954 when Marcel Kurz said : 'the Indians are becoming very enterprising and keeping up a remarkable pace— Bandarpuneh, Trisul, Kamet—what next V The credit for these went to two Doon School masters, Jack Gibson and Gurdial Singh, and an Old Boy, Nandu Jayal. What came next was the H.M.I., with Nandu as Principal, and the much bigger expeditions it was able to put on. H. J., Vol. XVIII which contained the account of the first ascent of Everest contained also the first two articles by Indians to appear in the Journal, one by Navnit Parekh on his attempt on Pumori and one by Nalni Jayal on the I.A.F. Flight over Everest.

The A. G. M. for 1954 was held in July in Calcutta with the retiring President, Crawford, in the chair and Latimer was elected in his place. After the meeting Dr William Siri gave a talk about a Californian expedition that he had taken to Makalu in the previous year and the French Annapurna film was shown. This was followed in January 1955 by a dinner attended by 86 guests when Professor G. I. Finch of the National Chemical Laboratory, Poona, gave a talk on 'The Effect on Man of High Altitudes' and he showed slides of the 1922 Everest Expedition on which he had been a strong advocate of the use of oxygen.

T. H. Braham spoke of his experiences on the 1954 Kangchenjunga reconnaissance and Dr D. S. Matthews showed a colour cine-film taken on the same expedition.?

The main mountaineering event of 1955 was the ascent of Kangchenjunga which has already been mentioned, but another great success was the French ascent of Makalu by a party led by Jean Franco. Thanks largely to the use of oxygen all eight climbers and Sherpa Gyalzen reached the summit. On the way back in the Planters' Club in Darjeeling Jean Franco met Charles Evans returning from Kangchenjunga and from him learned about Jannu; the seeds were sown of another French success. In Garhwal Nandu Jayal took a combined team of climbers from the H.MJ. and the Bengal Sappers to Kamet and on the same day parties climbed Kamet and Abi Gamin. H.J., Vol. XIX commented : 'A very fine effort indeed, and a notable example of the great strides forward which mountaineering has taken in India The lust for mountain adventure appears to have maintained its post-Everest increase.' The H. J. also mentioned the first British Ladies' Expedition to the Himalaya, a party of three who visited the Langtang Himal and climbed a peak of about 22,000 ft.

The first Club event of 1955 was a farewell dinner in Calcutta to Mrs Henderson. When the Japanese wrote the account of their third expedition to Manaslu they said: 'In arranging for the Sherpa team we received the utmost assistance from the Himalayan Club. In particular we must not forget the kindness shown by Mrs Jill Henderson, the Club's Local Secretary in Darjeeling.' The Japanese had to be protected from the inhabitants of a local village who blamed them for annoying the local god, but Imanshu and Gyalzen reached the summit in May. In the same month the Swiss put two parties on the summit of Everest and one on the summit of Lhotse and the British press congratulated them on performing the hat trick. Arnold Lunn, who was in Switzerland, had to assure the wife of one of the members of the expedition that it was by no means an insult. The returning Swiss were given a reception by the Club at the Roshanara in Delhi and by the Swiss Consul in Calcutta. A remarkable ascent of the year was that of the Muztagh Tower, a most formidable-looking peak in the Karakoram well-known to European mountaineers from a photograph taken by Vittorio Sella in 1909. The flight to Skardu was described by Guido Magnone of the French expedition : 'Our Dakota took off and was soon zigzagging in a labyrinth of valleys between peaks that shut in the horizon on all sides. The Indus winds its way like a snake at the bottom of an abyss while above are unfolding the formidable ridges of Nanga Parbat.' On arrival at Skardu the French were shocked to hear that a British party led by John Hartog was already on the mountain claiming prior authorization. They met and agreed to climb by different ridges. Joe Brown and Ian Macnaught Davis reached the summit on 6 July and John Hartog and Tom Patey the next day. The French got up a week later.

When in 1955 Joyce Dunsheath heard that three British ladies had climbed in Nepal she determined to visit the Himalaya in 1956. She enlisted Hilda Reid, a theatre sister with whom she had climbed in Canada, and Eileen Gregory, a biochemist, and, wanting a fourth, they heard about Frances Delaney, a geologist working in French Equatorial Africa. Joyce Dunsheath and Hilda Reid drove out overland, Eileen Gregory came by sea with the equipment and Frances Delaney flew from Nairobi. Under Major Banon's hospitable roof in Manali they met each other and the Sherpas who had been sent from Darjeeling. They then explored the Bara Shigri glacier and Eileen Gregory and two local porters climbed Deo Tibba.

In November there was another farewell party in Calcutta to the departing President, Risoe, and the film of the 1953 Nanga Parbat expedition was shown.

In January, 1957, Lt-Colonel H. W. Tobin D.S.O., O.B.E., editor of the Journal, died in harness at the age of 78. An original member of the Mountain Club he became the Club's first Local Secretary in Darjeeling. On his return to England he organized Club dinners in London in 1937, 1938, 1939 and 1946. He became Editor in 1947 and Vice-President in 1950. In 1947 he expressed doubts about whether Indians would ever climb, but he made ample amends when they did. With Indian names he was always rather at sea; he confused Nandu with his cousin Nalini Jayal, posted Gurdial Singh to the I.M.A. and when K. P. S. Menon provided some photographs for the H.J. he expressed his thanks to Krishna Menon; but no other member of the Club served it so zealously or for so long. Tobin's last issue of the Journal (Vol. XIX) had been printed in Calcutta instead of in Oxford, mainly because of the difficulty of transferring funds to England, and Risoe had helped in its production as Assistant Editor. T. H. Braham edited H.J. Vols. XX and XXI from Calcutta with George Band as Assistant Editor in England for one volume and J. A. Jackson for the other.

In February and March, 1957 members of the Club in Delhi and Calcutta were able to meet Jurg Marmet who had been with the first Swiss party on the summit of Everest in 1956. This year the Nepal Government introduced new rules for expeditions which involved parties paying a royalty for the mountain to be climbed. In April J. O. M. Roberts flew to Kathmandu to pay the royalty and collect the liaison officer before joining the rest of his party at Pokhara for an attempt on Machhapuchhare. At Base Camp Roger Chorley went down with polio but with the help of Miss Steel of the Mission Hospital at Pokhara he was successfully evacuated. Noyce and Cox reached within 150 ft of the summit. Nandu Jayal attempted Nanda Devi but was driven back by a blizzard and in the Karakoram an Austrian expedition climbed Broad Peak and then made an attempt on Chogolisa in which Hermann Buhl lost his life in an avalanche.

After the A. G. M. in August 1957 members saw a film of the work being done by Outward Bound Schools in England and Nandu Jayal showed a film of the H.M.I.'s expedition to Saser Kangri in 1956. During the year the Alpine Club was celebrating its Centenary with meets in north Wales and in Zermatt and a dinner at the Dorchester Hotel in London to which the Presi- dent of the Club, Bruce Bakewell, was invited; he asked Risoe to represent him. The climax of the celebrations was a reception in the Central Hall of Lincoln's Inn in December at which Sir John Hunt, as President of the Alpine Club, welcomed the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh; many members of the Himalayan Club were present. The Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research found its own very gracious way of celebrating the centenary of the doyen of Alpine Clubs; it commissioned Sir Arnold Lunn, who, as related above, was once black-balled by the Alpine Club, to write its history, a book called A Century of Mountaineering, and it presented a copy to every member of the Alpine Club.

The year 1958 was a remarkably successful year in the Kara- koram. A British Services Expedition led by Mike Banks and including Warwick Deacock, who afterwards was to be a great link between the Club and Australia, climbed Rakaposhi. The porters were as full of superstitious dread of the faeries on the tops of the mountains as they had been with Burn in 1929 but Mike Banks was very lucky to have as his liaison officer an uncle of the Mir of Hunza whose influence with the porters was paramount. An Austrian expedition to Haramosh was not so fortunate; in his efforts to get the porters up the mountain the liaison officer drove them to a point at which they started to plan his murder and they had to be sent down. The Austrians reached the summit without them. Three expeditions to the Baltoro area were successful; Americans climbed Gasherbrum I, Japanese Chogolisa and Italians Gasherbrum IV; Bonatti and Carlo Mauri reached the summit after a fourteen-hour climb of Grade IV and Grade V. In Nepal Keki Bunshah's expedition was successful on Cho Oyu and Sonam Gyatso and Sherpas Sonam Gyalzen and Pasang Dawa Lama reached the summit, Pasang for the second time. Nandu Jayal had promised Bunshah that he would lead on the mountain. After handing over charge of the H.M.L to Colonel Gyan Singh he hurried after the expedition by forced marches and overstrained himself. He died of pneumonia near Base Camp after insisting that the expedition went on without him, and was buried in the snow. Another Indian success of this year was Gurdial Singh's ascent of Mrigthuni with Aamir Ali and R. V. Singh. Antonia Deacock and other wives of the officers on the Rakaposhi expedition drove out overland with the hope of visiting Ladakh. They arrived in Delhi in time to attend the reception for the returning Cho Oyu climbers, which they enjoyed, but they had difficulty in getting an Inner Line pass.

Some girls at the Y.M.C.A., where they -were staying, suggested that they should write direct to the Prime Minister. It was a good suggestion and they were hospitably received by Pandit Nehru and Indira Gandhi and they got their Inner Line pass.

The A. G. M. for 1958 was held in August with R. E. Hotz in the chair as President. Bruce Bakewell, a former President of the Ski Club of India, had died in June and Hotz was elected President in his place. In December there were dinners in Bombay, Calcutta and Delhi. After the Bombay dinner at the Willingdon Club, Navnit Parekh showed a film of a trek to Mukti- nath and after the Calcutta dinner at the Great Eastern Hotel, where the chief guests were Col. Gyan Singh, the new Principal of the H.M.I., and Tenzing. Gyan Singh gave an account of the efforts being made to manufacture equipment in India. During the year a critical situation arose because the landlord of the Calcutta Light Horse Club where the Club's library and equip- ment were stored gave them notice to quit. Once again the Geological Survey came to the Club's rescue.

H. J., Vol. XXI (Braham's second issue) contained a perceptive note on mountaineering.
'In the new era that appears to have begun since the fall of the giants there are welcome signs that the competitive spirit, which is alien to mountaineering, is disappearing. More expeditions are coming nowadays to attempt climbs of a standard of difficulty hitherto considered impracticable on peaks of between 24,000 and 26,000 ft. Only two 8000 metre peaks remain unclaimbed, Dhaulagiri, 26,795 ft, with its objective dangers has turned back many strong attempts but a long line of contenders awaits its turn under the "bookings by rotation" system adopted by the Nepal Government. Very soon no doubt another 8000-metre victory will be recorded. Gosainthan, 26,291 ft, situated behind the Yellow Curtain, is of course inviolable.

'A notable feature deserving of special mention is the increasing interest shown by Indians in trekking and climbing. There is no doubt that this "feeling" for the mountains has come to stay, especially among the younger generation, increasing numbers of whom spend their holidays walking or scrambling in the hills. The largest single influence under which this changing outlook has flourished is the H.M.I, in Darjeeling which runs regular courses combining theoretical and practical training.' Soon after the appearance of this volume Braham had to give up being Editor as he left India in November 1959. It was not until April 1960 that the Club was able to persuade Dr Biswas to take the job on. In April, 1959, the Calcutta members had a meeting to see the Annapurna film and another in June to meet Jean Franco's party on their return from their attempt on Jannu; they showed films of the reconnaissance and the ascent of Makalu in 1954 and 1955. The year 1959 was a good year for Indian mountaineering. Lt M. S. Kohli took a naval team to Nanda Kot; all the members of the team had done the Basic Course at the H.M.I, and Kohli had also done the Advanced Course. The summit was reached on 24 May by Kohli, K. P. Sharma, and Sherpa Ang Tsering and Kohli admitted that tears of joy came into his eyes. An Indian Air Force team, led by Air Commodore S. N. Goyal, climbed Chowkhamba after bivouacking in a crevasse. Jag jit Singh took a team of Gunners to climb Bandarpunch Black Peak. It was not a good year for foreign expeditions and many lives were lost, including that of Claude Kogan who died in an avalanche on Cho Oyu. An expedition which was not much noticed at the time but which had important results was that of Harold Biller from Nuremburg. He drove his Volkswagen bus from Germany to the Hindu Kush and found a relatively inexpensive route to a wonderful new playground for mountaineers. By the mid-sixties there were usually about twenty expeditions a year to the Hindu Kush.

For the people of India the most important event of 1960 was the attempt on Everest which will be referred to later, but the greatest success was the ascent of Dhaulagiri by Max Eiselin's International Expedition which included Norman Dyhrenfurth who was an American and Kurt Diemberger an Austrian. The expedition used a Glacier Aircraft, 'the Yeti', to drop climbers and loads on the north-west Col, but some of the climbers had to be brought down again in order to recover from the experience. 'The Yeti' had to go for repairs after dropping the party on the Col and then after it had been repaired it crashed altogether. Four climbers and Sherpas Nawang Dorje and Nima Dorje reached the summit on 13 May and two more climbers on 23 May. J. O. M. Roberts took an Indo-British Services team to Annapurna II which included Capt. Jag jit Singh and Lt Chris Bonnington who reached the summit. Hillary's Scientific and Mountaineering Expedition went for a nine-month stay in the Solu Khumbu area where their main objective was the study of human physiology at high altitudes but they also started Hillary's programme for schools for Sherpa children by founding a school at Khumjung and they climbed Ama Dablam and attempted Makalu. Hillary's programme led to the establishment of seventeen schools, two hospitals, landing-strips and a water-supply, a fine way by which part of the debt owed by mountaineers to Sherpas could be repaid. The first Bengali expedition to the Himalaya made its appearance in Garhwal when a party led by Sukumar Roy climbed Nanda Ghunti and their success aroused the most tremendous enthusiasm in Calcutta so that from this year on there is almost always an expedition from Bengal to the Himalaya. In the Karakoram among many other ascents an American-Pakistani expedition which included George Bell and Willi Unsoeld climbed Masherbrum while Wilfrid Noyce and Don Whillans climbed a mountain called Trivor after which Don Whillans drove home solo on a motorcycle.

The A. G. M. for 1960 was held in October in Calcutta and General Sir Harold Williams was
elected President. After the meeting everyone was very interested to see the slides of the Everest Expedition shown by Brigadier Gyan Singh. In November members were able to hear about the Masherbrum expedition from Kauffman, and in December Norman Hardie on his way to join Hillary in Nepal talked about the mountains of New Zealand. In December there was a dinner for Sherpas in Darjeeling so that General Williams could hand over a cheque to Tenzing as the representative of the Sherpas' Climbing Association. In 1953 The Statesman had opened a fund to help Tenzing build himself a house in Darjeeling and it had been oversubscribed. The balance had been put in a Sherpa Trust administered by the Club but now that the Sherpas' Climbing Association had been formed it was decided that the money should be handed to them. Next day General Williams presented Tiger Badges at the Passing- out Parade of the H.M.I.

Everyone was relieved to hear in April that Dr Biswas had agreed to edit the Journal. He had been Superintendent of the Sibpur Botanical Garden and Director of the Botanical Survey and for nearly thirty years as member of the Club. ^ nen H.J., Vol. XXII came out it contained an editorial written by General Williams in which he said: 'The reader should know that Dr K. Biswas, who took over the editorship of this volume at a very critical moment, delegated the writing of this editorial, and the writer is accordingly in a position to make a reference to the part that he has played in its preparation. It is not easy to describe the relief which the Committee felt when Dr Biswas agreed to become the editor or its gratitude when he was able to report that the volume was ready to go to press.' It emerged from the press in an attractive new plain grey cover bearing the badge of the Club that had been designed by C. R. Cooke in 1946. It must have been a source of some satisfaction to Dr Biswas that the first article was Gyan Singh's 'Indians on Everest'. He described how the summit party consisting of Sonam Gyatso, Captain Kumar and Sherpa Nawang Gombu set out in high spirits on 24 May to establish Camp 7. During the attempt on the summit the next day the weather suddenly deteriorated and went from bad to worse ; at about 28,000 feet they decided to retreat. Gyan Singh wrote: 'If we were disappointed, we also had reason to be proud. Mountaineering is, for Indians, a relatively new sport. Yet we had been fit, and I think properly so, to challenge the world's loftiest summit. We had organized and conducted a major expedition, solved seemingly impossible logistical problems, reached a point only a few hundred feet below the crest of Mount Everest, and, most important, had all returned safely. India had shown herself capable of manufacturing and supplying intricate and serviceable items of equipment comparable in quality with those available in parts of the world which have a far older mountaineering tradition. Not the least of our achievements was the stimulus to mountain climbing in India provided by the publicity which accompanied our efforts. More and more the young men and women of India will now go out and seek vigour, health and happiness which only a sojourn to the high snowy mountain regions can provide. Everest is1 always there^ waiting for our successors. These will come and, standing on our shoulders, will some day succeed where we so narrowly failed.'

Part of the publicity was achieved by the publication of Gyan Singh's book The Lure of Everest (a phrase of Nehru's) by the government at the reasonable price of Rs. 12.50. John Bias' account of the second attempt was to cost Rs. 27.50 and Nine Atop Everest was priced at Rs.
75.00. Gyan Singh's book was reviewed in the H.J. by J. O. M. Roberts who said : 'When some of us British climbers who had followed the blossoming of Indian Himalayan mountaineering with sympathy and admiring interest heard the Indians were going to Everest in 1960, it was difficult to resist the thought that this was a premature move, made more in thei interests of national pride than in the development of Indian mountaineering along sound and non- sensational lines.' He admitted that they were wrong.

In February 1961 another New Zealander passed through Calcutta on his way to join Hillary in Nepal ; he was John Harris and he gave an illustrated talk on the 1957 New Zealand Antarctic Expedition. Two of the Club's keenest supporters were now in London, V. S. Risoe and T. H. Braham, and in March they organized a Reunion at the Oriental Club which became a very popular annual event. The first one was attended by more than sixty members including two founder-members, Arthur Moore, once Editor of The Statesman, and E. O. Shebbeare. Club members in England were very glad to have their memories of India revived and this was helped by the showing of two films; one of the Darjeeling railway and one of the work done at the
H.M.I. In 1963, General Sir Roger Wilson attended at the age of 81 and T. H. Somervell at the age of 73.

As was expected the Indian attempt on Everest encouraged more expeditions in 1961. The Indian Mountaineering Foundation sponsored three expeditions ; one led by M. S. Kohli to Anna- purna III which was climbed by Kohli, Sonam Gyasto and Sherpa Sonam Giri; an expedition led by Kumar to Nilkantha and one led by Gurdial Singh to Nanda Devi which climbed Devistan I and Maiktoli. There were two expeditions from Bengal, one led by Biswadeb Biswas which attempted Mana. An expedition from Bombay led by Jagdish Nanavati attempted Nilgiri Parbat ; it seems to have been the first Bombay expedition to the Garhwal. There were several expeditions to Nepal including many Japanese ones. Chris Bonington as a member of J. Walmsley's party climbed Nuptse. What can conveniently, if not quite accurately, be described as the Punjab Himalaya was now the only part of India accessible to foreign expeditions and they were visited by

Robert Pettigrew, J. P. O'F. Lyman, Barbara Spark and Josephine Scarr. There were five expeditions to the Karakoram.

In 1962 there was another Indian attempt on Everest led by John Dias who was unfortunately to die of cancer in 1964. On 30 May Sonam Gyatso, Mohan Kohli and Hari Dang started for the summit but bad weather turned them back at 28,600 ft. The main event of the year was the accent of Jannu by a party led by Lionel Terray who had been with Jean Franco in 1959. Eight climbers and Sherpa Gyalzen Mikchung reached the summit. Terray afterwards described his feelings as he stood on the summit : 'I knew that for the rest of my life the memory of those transcendental minutes would be a treasury on which to draw for a ray of light or a shaft of hope, when sadness, ugliness the mediocrity of human existence encompassed me.' Lionel Terray, like Gaston Rebuff at, was a professional guide with a real love of the mountains. He had to hurry home from Jannu to accompany an expedition to the Andes but he was back in Nepal in the autumn with a party of Dutch geologists who climbed Nilgiri Peak. In 1963 he turned up in Bombay and showed members of the Club a breath-taking film of the ascent of Jannu.

Also in 1962 the Himalayan Association of Calcutta sent an expedition to Garhwal led by Amulya Sen which climbed Nilgiri Parbat. An Indian Army Mountaineering Association Expedition went to Leo Pargial and there took place the first fatal acsident to an Indian climber; Captain P. S. Bakshi lost his life together with Gyalzen Mikchung who less than two months before had been standing on the summit of Jannu and Karma Wanchoo (who had been with Sukumar Roy on Nanda Ghunti in 1960 and Biswadeb Biswas on Mana in 1961).

In 1962 Nanga Parbat was climbed once more. When Willi Merkel died on Nanga Parbat in 1934 his friend Bechtold hoped that by laying down his life he would be a way and a light for those who came after, and so it proved. His step-brother, Dr Herrligkoffer of Munich, in 1953 brought out the Willi Merkl Memorial Expedition when the Austrian climber, Hermann Bahl, made a solitary ascent from the Rakhiot (or northern) flank. Herrligkoffer then returned to the attack from the Diamir (or western) Face and on 22 June 1962 three climbers, Kinshofer Mannhardt and Loew reached the summit but Loew fell ill and died on the way down. Undeterred, Herrligkoffer returned to attack Nanga Parbat by the Rupal (or southern) Face, a 14,000 ft precipice, probably the tallest in the world. On 27 June once more a solitary Austrian, Reinhold Messner, was making his way towards the summit when he was shocked to see far below his brother, Gunther, climbing towards him, without a rope. Together they reached the summit and then bivouacked for the night. Gunther became ill, too ill, to descend by the Rupal Face. Reinhold felt that the Diamir Face would be easier and they started down it and again bivouacked for the night. Next day they got separated and Gunther was never seen again. Two other members of the expedition reached the summit on 28 June. It was an altogether strange story and when they returned to Germany it led to litigation.

In 1962 the A. G. M. was held as an experimental measure in Bombay and General Williams came down from Roorkee and B. W. Ritchie, Hon. Treasurer, came from Calcutta ; 14 local members attended the meeting at the Bombay Gymkhana, after which Dr H. V. R, lengar showed slides of an expedition to Kangchenjau in 1960.

H. J., Vol. XXIII contained an obituary notice of Wilfrid Noyce who died on Hunt's Anglo- Soviet Expedition to the Pamirs in July 1962. In his Editorial, General Williams appealed to members to give full details of their successes and attempts ; some reports had been 'so vague as to give rise to controversy and this all who are keen on climbing must surely not want to provoke.' His warnings however fell on deaf ears and H. J., Vol. XXIV contained letters questioning some of the claims that had been made. In his Editorial General Williams first of all apologised for the delay in the appearance of the Journal due to the war with the Chinese to which he referred as 'events on the Indo-T'ibetan border towards the end of 1962', and he then once again pleaded that accounts of expeditions be made complete and accurate because 'no one enjoys questioning the integrity of another, least of all a friend and a fellow mountaineer'.

The main event of 1963 was the American Mount Everest Expedition (A.M.E.E.) led by Norman Dyhrenfurth. When he was passing through Kathmandu on the way back from Dhaulagiri in 1960 he applied for permission for Everest in 1961 and in 1961 he was told he could go in 1963. J. O. M. Roberts offered his services in organizing the transport of 909 loads. Dyhrenfurth planned an ambitious traverse of Everest. On 1 May James Whitaker and Nawang Gombu reached the summit from the South Col and by the same route Barry Bishop and Lute Jerstad reached the summit at 3.30 p.m. on 21 May. Three hours later Willi Unsoeld and Tom Hornbein arrived via the West Ridge. They then followed the tracks of Barry and Lute whom they found waiting for them at 9.30 p.m. and they all bivouacked together. Hillary was also in Nepal. He had given a talk in Calcutta on the way through and was now with the School House Expedition establishing more schools but members of his team found time to attempt Taweche and to climb Kangtega. In Garhwal the Paribhraman of Ahmedabad attempted Sri Kailas and climbed two other peaks in the Gangotri area, K. P. Sharma's party climbed Tharkot and Sonam Gyatso's Hathi Parbat.

Club members in Bombay held their annual dinner at the West End Hotel and were entertained afterwards by a programme of films, slides and music entitled 'Sikkim 1962' arranged by Ronnie Pillai and Soli Mehta. Members in Delhi were able to

listen to a talk by Charles Houston on the American K2 expedition and P. F. R. Jackson of Reuters told them how he had been able to follow everything that happened on the American Everest expedition from the expedition's transmitters while he sat in Delhi. The A. G. M. in Calcutta was followed by a talk by Lynam on the Bara Shigri glacier and a film shown by R. P. Ghandhy of an expedition to the Black Peak.

In 1964 Kumar took an expedition sponsored by the I.M.F. to Nanda Devi. As there was a shortage of porters a helicopter was used to drop loads in the inner sanctuary. Two Sherpas, Nawang Gombu and Dawa Norbu, reached the summit and to prevent anyone disputing their success Kumar got the helicopter to photograph the flag that they had planted there. There were many other expeditions to Garhwal. Joyce Dunsheath, who was a girl Guides Commissioner, came out from England to lead a girl Guides Expedition to climb Mrigthuni, the first Indian ladiesExpedition. L. R. Chari brought a Climbers' Club Expedi- tion from Bombay to attempt Nar Parbat. Colonel Jaiswal took an expedition from the H.M.I., as a preparation for Everest, to climb Rathong and Biswadeb Biswas attempted Kabru Dome. In Nepal, a German expedition which climbed Cho Oyu was led by Rudi Rott was afterwards entertained by a combined meeting of climbing clubs in Bombay. Don Whillans made an attempt on Gauri Shankar but met bad weather. There were, as usual, several Japanese expeditions, and the Chinese climbed the last 8000-metre peak, Gosainthan (or Shisha Pangma). They aimed at climbing it on 1 May; actually ten climbers reached tin summit one day late.

Peter Taylor showed a film in Bombay and Calcutta of an attempt on Mount Temple in the Canadian Rockies and in Delhi Braham talked about a visit to Indus Kohistan.

The year 1965 was a great year for Indian mountaineering because the Indian team led by Mohan Kohli put nine men in four parties on the top of Everest. They were only just in time BECAUSE Nepal was about to be closed. Two other parties which just got in were J. O.
M. Roberts' R.A.F. Expedition to Dhaulagiri IV (now identified as VI) and Gunter Hauser's German expedition which climbed Gangapurna. The Karakoram were also closed except for two Japanese expeditions which got in just in time. There were quite a few expeditions to Garhwal. An Indian Police team led by Sheoraj Singh climbed Ganesh parbat and pilot Officer Raju's party climbed Chandra Parbat. K. P. Sharma was beaten back by bad weather on Tirsuli. L. R. Chari took a Climbers' Club Expedition which climbed Deo Tibba (in Kulu).

In January 1965 Calcutta members were able to hear J. P. O’F. Lynam talk about the 1964 Irish expedition to Rakaposhi of which he had been Deputy Leader and they entertained the Everest team on their way to Everest. Norman Dyhrenfurth gave talks in Calcutta and Bombay about the American Everest Expedition. In April, Bombay clubs combined together to see the 1958 Swiss Dhaulagiri film. The Delhi section gave a reception to the victorious Everest team at which 13 Tiger Badges and 3 bars were presented.

At the A. G. M. in December F. C. Badhwar was elected President and when in April 1966 he sat down to write the Editoriai for the Journal he felt sad about the closing of the Karakoram and Nepal. 'We have witnessed,' he said, 'the passing away of an interesting era, stretching back to the early 1950s', but on the other hand he felt happy that so many schools and colleges had started climbing clubs and to accommodate such people he got the Club to introduce a change in the rules so that students could become Student-Members of the Club by paying an entrance fee of Rs. 10 and annual subscription of Rs. 12.

In 1966 when there were no expeditions to Nepal or the Karakoram there were eleven Indian expeditions to Garhwah Chanchal Mitra's Himalayan Association team from Calcutta climbed Tirsuli which had defied several parties since the Poles first attacked it in 1939. Biswadeb Biswas's Abhiyatra team, also from Calcutta, climbed Mana. A mixed team from Gujarat University visited the Gangotri glacier and a party of young ladies climbed Gangotri I and of young men Gangotri II. A 'Giri Vihar' team from Bombay led by Professor Chandekar climbed Hanuman Parbat. St Stephen's College climbed Garuda Bank and Doon School boys Jaonli. Mountaineering in India was no longer the monopoly of the Defence Services, but Jagjit Singh took an N.D.A. team to climb Kulu Pumori (so named by Pettigrew) and Pettigrew (he was now on the staff of the Raj kumar College, Rajkot) took a Bombay party to climb Hanuman Tibba which was also climbed by an Indian Ladies Expedition.

During 1966 the Club Library was moved into what were believed to be excellent quarters at Belvedere, premises of the National Library. Mohan Kohli gave talks in Calcutta, Delhi and Bombay on the ascent of Everest. The A. G. M. was held in December and followed by a talk by Biswadeb Biswas on his ascent of Mana. Hillary and Dr Max Pearl were in Nepal putting up a hospital for Sherpas and for Christmas they were joined by their wives each with three children. They all had a marvellous time described by Lady Hillary in her book A Yak for Christmas.

H.J., Vol. XXVII which appeared in 1967 was the last Journal edited by Dr Biswas, and it contained an obituary notice of Joan Townend and a list of Sherpas who had been awarded the Tiger Badge which she had helped to institute in 1939. Biswas was succeeded by Soli Mehta who for many years had been in charge of producing the Newsletter and was consequently in touch with all the Club's overseas correspondents, He brought a tremendous zest to the job and produced his first issue early in 1969 and the next one only four months later. In the Editorial to H.J., Vol. XXIX he wrote, 'It has probably been the first time that two volumes of the H.J. have appeared in the same year and within four months of each other'. From now on there was a great improvement both in the size and the quality of the Journals, but, largely because of printing difficulties, they did not become so very much more regular in their appearance.

H. J., Vol. XXVIII contained an obituary of Sonam Gyatso who had died in Delhi in his forties. He was the son of a postal clerk who worked in a village at the foot of Kangchenjunga and he went to a Scottish Mission school in Kalimpong. While at school he was married to a Sikkim nobleman's daughter which prevented him taking any exams. After a short spell in the R.A.F. he got a job in a post office for Rs. 15 per month of which he sent Rs. 10 to his mother. He was selected for the first course at the H.M.I, and after that spent most of the rest of his life climbing, Nanda Devi in 1957, Cho Oyu in 1958, Everest in 1960 and again in 1962 and 1965 when he reached the summit.

H. J., Vol. XXVIII contained an obituary of Sonam Gyatso who had died in Delhi in his forties. He was the son of a postal clerk who worked in a village at the foot of Kangchenjunga and he went to a Scottish Mission school in Kalimpong. While at school he was married to a Sikkim nobleman's daughter which prevented him taking any exams. After a short spell in the R.A.F. he got a job in a post office for Rs. 15 per month of which he sent Rs. 10 to his mother. He was selected for the first course at the H.M.I, and after that spent most of the rest of his life climbing, Nanda Devi in 1957, Cho Oyu in 1958, Everest in 1960 and again in 1962 and 1965 when he reached the summit.

H.J., Vol. XXIX contained an article reprinted from the Climbers' Club Bulletin by Ashok Madgavkar entitled 'After Everest—the Future of Indian Mountaineering' which was an individualist's protest against the dominant position of sponsored expeditions. 'The present pernicious and utterly demeaning system of subsidized expeditions must be condemned and abandoned for it is contrary to our traditions and has failed to develop either climbers or guides.' He made various proposals about how costs could be reduced by the establishment of climbing huts and making light equipment and rations more easily available. In spite of the rising costs and restrictions on entry to various areas the numbers of expeditions each year continued to increase. The H.J. listed. 32 in 1967, 36 in 1968 and 40 in 1969.

In 1969 expeditions were once more allowed to certain mountains in Nepal. This gave the Japanese at last the chance to visit Everest which they had been long awaiting. They had applied for permission in 1963 and been granted it for 1966 by which year however Nepal was closed. They were now given permission to go before and after the monsoon in 1969 and before the monsoon in 1970. In 1969 they concentrated on reconnaissances and photo- graphy using chartered planes from Kathmandu to Luglha. These expeditions were organized by the Japanese Alpine Club which in 1970 sent the biggest ever expedition with 39 regular climbers and 79 additional members. They made two successful attempts from the SE. ridge and an abortive attempt from the SW. Face. An entirely separate expedition at the same time was the Japanese Skiing expedition when a member skied with the aid of a parachute from the South Col. In 1973 the Japanese were back on Everest to make the first post-monsoon ascent, and in May 1975 a Japanese Ladies Expedition climbed Everest. No other country in the world has sent anything like as many expeditions to the Himalaya as the Japanese. They have also made some very splendid contributions to the botanical literature of the Himalaya, and Yoshikazu Shirakawa's book of photographs is an achievement without parallel; one is sorry that in spite of four years of effort he could not get permission to photograph any of our own mountains in India (except those in Sikkim). In addition to all this the Japanese have established a Five-Star Hotel near Thyangboche.

It was with the third volume that he edited (Vol. XXX) that Soli Mehta really broke new ground. In his Editorial he said : 'A "NEW LOOK" has been attempted this time to bring it in line with other mountaineering journals of the world. We trust that this will be acceptable—the price has also been enhanced not only to make up for the extra expense but to adequately cover the rising cost of printing and raw materials.' H.J., Vol. XXX had a really beautiful illustrated cover, 343 pages of text (compared to the previous maximum of 229 in 1938), over a hundred pages of photographs, including several panoramas, and 34 articles, nearly all on climbing expeditions. The price however was Rs. 25 compared to Rs. 5 when the Journal was started and Rs. 14 from 1952. One of the articles was by Chris Bonington on his ascent of Annapurna I by the South Face and in it he said : 'Our ascent of the South Face of Annapurna I does not mark the end of Himalayan climbing but rather the start of a new era, when expeditions will tackle increasingly hard mountain problems, while at the same time probably trying to reduce the size of the parties as equipment and techniques improve.'

In 1970 the Indo-Tibetan Border Police made their debut with an ascent of Trisul, but in 1971 they climbed six peaks and every year from then on they have had notable achievements to their credit. The ascent of Saser Kangri, led by Commander Joginder Singh, in 1973 was the highest first ascent by an Indian party and the ascent of Shivling in 1974 astonished all those who had seen the mountain. A few days later the Principal and Instructors of a Girls' Advanced Course from the N.I.M. followed in their footsteps but fixed their own ropes.

During the year 1971 the Club faced two crises. Everyone concerned had been happy when the Library was moved into premises at Belvedere in Calcutta but in 1971 the National Library suddenly presented the Club with a bill for rent of Rs. 7000 which was entirely unexpected. Very fortunately the Ministry of Education came to the rescue with a grant that covered all that was needed and with it the offer of space and facilities at the Central Secretariat Library in New Delhi. The Library stayed there until May 1976 when it was moved again to the India International Centre because here it could be kept open at hours that were more convenient. It consists of Over 2000 volumes and is open for consultation by members of the Club, members of the I.I.C. and researchers.

The second crisis was explained by a note in the H.J. : 'It has been found increasingly difficult of late to find sufficient members in Calcutta to run the affairs of the Club effectively and it is therefore proposed in the better interests of the Club to move the principal office to Bombay where there is a larger and more active membership.' An Extraordinary General Meeting was held in June 1971 to give effect to this. Former mem-bers of the Mountain Club of India must have turned in their graves and it is indeed a little difficult to understand the lack of support since there were then about twenty mountaineering clubs in Calcutta and Calcutta was certainly sending many successful expeditions to the Himalaya.

The main mountaineering event of 1971 was Norman Dyhren furth's International Everest Expedition which provoked a great deal of controversy. The only Indian member of the expedition, Harsh Bahaguna, died of exposure and was posthumously awarded the I.M.F. Gold Medal for Distinguished Mountaineering. Several articles on the expedition appeared in H. J., Vol. XXXI which was larger than ever with 372 pages of text and 50 pages of advertisements, in spite of which the price had to be raised to Rs. 40. An interesting article was reprinted from the Alpine Journal called 'The Himalayan Ethic—Time for a Rethink?' by Dennis Gray, in which he said that the progress in techniques since the first ascents of Annapurna and Everest made those two far-off ventures as relevant to this day as the stage coach to jet travel. Tf quality of mountaineering is the yardstick, then the fabulous lesser peaks of the Himalaya, such as Shivling, Changabang, the Ogre, Menlungtse and Gauri Shankar will provide the most rewarding climbs in mountaineering history. ... It is very important, though, that when these objectives, the true "Everests" of the mountain world, are attempted, they are approached in a spirit in keeping with the essential challenge of mountaineering. I hope they are to be climbed and not subjugated.'

Meanwhile it was inevitable that the rising cost of the H.J. should present problems and these were considered at an Extraordinary General Meeting in December 1972. 'With a view to spread the cost of production equitably between Ordinary Members and Life Members, the Committee, after deliberation and obtaining views from various centres Of the Club, came to the conclusion that the free issue of the Journal to Life Members could no longer be justified and that Life Members should in future be called upon to contribute partially towards the cost of the Journal.' Annual subscriptions were raised to Rs. 55 for Resident Members and Rs. 40 for Overseas Members and Life Members would only receive the Journal on payment of Rs. 100 in advance for the next five issues.

H.J., Vol. XXXII was printed in Bombay instead of Calcutta us the headquarters of the Club were now in Bombay and the Editor was sometimes posted there. It contained articles on expeditions of the new type, for example Robert Paragot's ascent of the Makalu West Pillar in 1971 and Maurice Gicquel's ascent of the South Face of Pumori and Chris Bonington's attempt on the SW. Face of Everest in 1972 which he got up after the monsoon in 1975. It also gave good coverage to the International Mountaineers Meet in Darjeeling hosted by the I.M.F. to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the ascent of Everest. Sarin, President of the I.M.F., presided over the function and guests were welcomed by the Governor and the Chief Minister of West Bengal. A galaxy of famous mountaineers attended, including: Chris Bonington, Jean Coudray, Warwick Deacock, Rene Dittert, Norman Dyhrenfurth, Albert Eggler, Maurice Gicquel, Sir Edmund Hillary, Heinrich Harrer, Maurice Herzog, Lord Hunt, Lute Jerstad, Raymond Lambert, Fritz Luchsinger, Jurg Marmet, Fritz Moravec, Karl Oblmuller, Dolf Reist, Gaston Rebuffat, Ernest Schmeid, Von Gunten, and Eduard Wyss-Dunant. Brig. Gyan Singh spoke about the Scientific Exploration of the Himalaya, Surgeon-Captain Malhotra about High Altitude Physiology, Lute Jerstad gave a very moving impromptu talk about Therapy Mountaineering, and Warwick Deacock a very topical talk about 'Loving Our Wilderness to Death'. Twenty years after Everest had been climbed, pollution and conservation were beginning to be major problems. Jack Gibson, President of the Himalayan Club, was given the opportunity to say something about the work of the Club. He claimed that the Library was the finest collection of mountaineering literature in the country and considered that the production of the Journal was now the Club's most important activity. His aim during his tenure was to add to the stock of equipment. He hoped that the Club would be able to co-operate with the I.M.F. in the conservation of the environment of the Himalaya. Jack Gibson was more or less made an honorary Indian by being requested to thank the hosts on behalf of the Indian guests. The meeting came to a close with a Dinner Dance hosted by Tenzing with lots of chang and dancing.

From Darjeeling many participants went to Lidderwat in Kashmir for the International Meet Rock Climbing Camp when an assortment of new equipment brought out by Chris Bonington for the I. M. F. was demonstrated. At the end of May there was a Symposium on conserving the Himalayan environment at the India International Centre at Delhi. It was while they were at Lidderwat that Chris Bonington and Balwant Singh Sandhu felt that they would like to do a climb together and this led to the expedition to Changabang in the following year.

Before the monsoon in 1973 a 64-membered Italian expedition put seven members on Everest on 7 May. It was reported to be the most expensive and luxurious expedition that ever went to the Himalaya and it had its vegetables flown daily from Kathmandu to Luglha and then helicoptered to Camp 2.

The committee of the Club were worried that whereas the membership of most climbing clubs in the world was on the increase their own membership remained static at about 600 members, at least two-thirds of whom were overseas members. An Extrodinary General Meeting was held in September 1975 at which Student Membership was replaced by Associate Membership which was open to persons between the ages of 17 and 35. Elections were held at the A. G. M. on the same day and for the in first time all the office-bearers were Indians with Aspie Moddie as President. H.J., Vol. XXXIII was delayed because of power of cuts in the printing industry and by the editor's absence in the Sudan but when it came out it contained a note on the future of the Club. 'The role and function of the Club during the last two decades have been changing in the flux of circumstances. Numerous Mountaineering institutes and clubs have sprung up in different parts of India. The Indian Mountaineering Foundation, with Government patronage, has come on the scene as a powerful factor in the promotion of Indian mountaineering. Basically, the Club still remains the only international body in India interested in Mountaineering in the Himalaya, Karakoram and Hindu Kush, and the Himalayan Journal is still the most definitive record of mountaineering in these areas. . . . The Himalayan Newsletter is a valuable supplement. The bulk of the members' subscriptions of whom three-fourths are overseas, is spent on providing these services.

‘The Club is well-placed to perform a wider role in drawing attention to the problems of conservation and ecology of the Himalaya. In conjunction with the I.M.F. the Club plans to set in motion moves for mountain huts at suitable places in the Himalaya, especially as costs of porters are becoming prohibitive except for the larger expeditions. The Club is also working for greater availability of suitable maps for trekkers and climbers.' Soon after the above was written the Club was able to acquire fROM Government sixteen sets of maps of relevant areas which are available to members. Steps were also taken to improve the stocks of equipment at Delhi, Calcutta and Bombay.

Fifty years after the founding of the Himalayan Club it seems certain that more and more expeditions will come every year to the Himalaya both from India and from overseas. Plans are on foot, for reducing the costs of expeditions by various measures such as building club huts and if they are successful numbers will increase still further. Mountaineers everywhere all hope that restrictions on movement such as Inner Lines will gradually disappear and that whatever bodies deal with permissions and liaison officers will act liberally and with speed. As climbing techniques improve those in charge of the welfare of Sherpas and other porters have an obligation to make sure that they are well enough trained to hold their own especially with expert expeditions from overseas. A second point about porters is that as they become more familiar with modern techniques they will often find themselves with amateur climbers who are much less experienced than themselves and who will rely very greatly on the help of their porters to get them to their chosen summits. No one can object to this but it is very important indeed that in the published accounts of such expeditions credit is fully given where it is due.

In an ideal world every mountaineer would know something about botany, ornithology, geology and anthropology. It is not an ideal world but a true mountaineer will appreciate his surroundings as well as aim at reaching his peak. Such mountaineers will surely be careful not to disfigure the mountainside with refuse and litter. Mountaineers should also try to learn something about the inhabitants of the mountains that they visit. To extend knowledge of the Himalaya has always been an object of the Himalayan Club.

It is the great glory of private voluntary organizations that their achievements are the result of the keenness and devotion of their members. It is right that in the year of the Golden Jubilee the Himalayan Club should remember those who over the years have served it well, a few of whom may be especially mentioned, e.g., Sir Geoffrey Corbett since it was his initiative that brought the Club into existence. His main help was Kenneth Mason who should also be remembered for the twelve volumes of the Journal that he edited. Colonel Tobin served the Club for nineteen years for the last ten of which he was editor. Mrs Townend, Local Secretary in Calcutta and Vice- President, did a great deal for Sherpa welfare. Of all the Presidents C. E. J. Crawford served longest in office and also helped to start the Newsletter. Major Clark was Hon. Secretary for six years during the war, and T. H. Braham was Secretary for as long and also edited two volumes of the Journal, but it seems that the present Hon. Secretary, Jagdish Nanavati, may serve longer than either of them and undoubtedly the seven volumes of the Journal that Soli Mehta has so far produced constitute the Club's main achievement in recent years. Let us remember with gratitude those we have named and all others who have done good service for the Club.

 

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