EXPEDITION TO THE DHARLANG VALLEY, PANGI AND ZANSKAR

N. A. PITTS-TUCKER

THE IDEA came from a general addiction to the Himalaya and a particular craving to explore the knot of mountains that lie around the junction of Pangi and Lahul in Himachal Pradesh, and Padar and Zanskar in Jammu and Kashmir State. On the old maps and the new ones there are only two clear features in this knot: the 40-mile long Dharlang Valley which descends from the centre of the Great Himalaya Range and runs westwards to meet the Bhut Nala in Padar, and an uncertain track crossing two high points on either side of the Dharlang Valley: firstly the Sersank Pass, calculated to be 17,635 ft high; secondly the Poat La at 18,752 ft. In the course of a fragmented search, we could find no evidence of anyone having been there: the surveyors of the Great Trigonometrical Survey had not — there were no spot heights and no firm contours on their original maps. Of the older explorers, Dr Thompson had been nearest when he crossed the Umasi La — the Padar Pass as it is known. The Schlagintweits who recorded just about everything in the Himalaya, whether it moved or not, had only passed by the Zanskar side on their way to the Bara Lacha La. The Gazetteer of Chamba State for 1905 was obscure: it gave the heights of the two passes, and observed, 'difficult, not for horses'. We could not think of anyone modern who had been in or expressed himself about the area.

The Party

It was this very obscurity that lent the lustre of the truly unknown to a logistically, rather than technically, challenging route. That appealed to the four of us: Bill Blackbourne and myself, who had crossed a pass in the Hindu Kush similarly in 1974: Roger, my brother, and Tim Noble who were both more advanced climbers, but had no experience in the Himalaya. The concept was sold, as Shipton classicly recommends, on the back of a postcard: the details of equipment and food were left largely as an excuse to drink beer and smoke cigars in each other's houses. Finally, we found ourselves all together on 20 September in Delhi — surrounded with ice-axes and rope, carabiners and tent-poles, quantities of laxative, quantities of Kaolin, a lot of clothing for a very hot Indian summer, 72 bouillon cubes, 32 canisters of film and 2 kilo packs of caterers' pie fillings — gooseberry and blackcurrant. We could just carry the lot!

Initiation

Trial by steam train to Pathankot, trial by country bus to Chamba and trial by jeep to the last little village in Chamba district — Trella.From there we acclimatized by crossing the Sach Pass, 14,500 ft — a well-trodden path which is the quickest route of the three long passes into Pangi. We descended to the Chenab and crossed in a desperate dabba slung on two antique cables held taut by enormous piles of stones on each bank of the river. We soon left this valley too, and set off up the Sural Nala.
Photos 32-33

History

This seems rather a curious point at which to incorporate cultural material: after all we had progressed definitively into 'beyond' and were now advancing up a side valley into the back of it. But we saw two striking objects near Dharwas. First was an enormous OM MANE PAD ME HUM carved on a rock slab facing out over the Chenab; it is known that there was plenty of Buddhist influence in this area in the middle ages, but it was a surprise to see a Buddhist inscription so close to the Rajput sphere of influence. Second was a crudely patterned standing stone with a rock collar, now at its feet, which had once rested on the stone's shoulders. This was exactly like the stones we had seen in the Padar Nala from Gulabgarh onwards. As we passed on up the Sural Nala, the cultural identity of this valley was confirmed. The same monumental masonry around all the springs and washing places, the same old carved stones lying around in fields and walls, and very ancient wooden temples. These remnants of some earlier and substantial civilization surprise the traveller in today's Pangi: the villagers are aware of their antiquity but all knowledge is lost. One thing is certain — there was a substantial, common civilization reigning in all the fertile valleys running north up to the passes — Padar, Gandhari, Sural, Hundan and Secchu — and there is a lot more to be found.

The Beginning

Sural is the first Buddhist village this side of the Great Himalayan Range, but the last village in an otherwise Hindu valley. We reached there late on a hot, tiring day — and were very thankful to be met with hot tea from the two lamas and their sisters. Their gompa was situated high overlooking the village. Inside were new paintings of meticulous detail and freshness. Here we sent our Gurkha load-carriers back and negotiated with the village men. Of the 160 people in Sural, half were children, half were women, half were less than able-bodied, half were harvesting and half were working on the road. This left five for us and we needed six if we were not to carry ourselves. One day later we set off with five and a half, and the rapid blessings of the Lama and his sister.

Sersank (or Shivsank)

The approach from Sural (10,500 ft) is gentle: short birch forests in a wide valley flanked east and west by ridges rising to 19,000 ft. At the head of the valley all other features — whether sapphire river, golden forests or black rock peaks — are overpowered by cascade upon cascade of ice and snow falling from the magnificent Shivsank, a peak of 20,000 less 4 feet. The pass lies to the left of this. This we did not know, and, as it is best for our reputation to let a veil fall on what precisely happened in the next three days, suffice it to say that we had made a very thorough exploration of two ancillary glaciers to the west of our route before we were assembled at a camp of 13,000 ft on the last of the grass and on the corner of the Sersank glacier. We had a memorable meal of wild onions and caterer's mince.

The Pass

A respectable 17,635 ft translated itself into an impossibly sheer- looking gully rising from the glacier over scree to a nick in the rock- shoulders of Shivsank. Our one and only advocate insisted that this was the way, and, though we went on in disbelief, the foreshortening lessened, and we were finally convinced when we saw the Buddhist prayer flags on their jandas poking up on the skyline. For all that, the ascent was arduous, and the incline sufficient to make standing alone difficult. There are no technical difficulties and the snow was firm enough. We reached the top at 1 p.m. and stayed till 2 p.m. The Sersank is a very fine pass.

The Descent to Dharlang

This proved almost as much a challenge as the ascent. The route is not clear and loses itself after a mile of glacier in an utterly precipitous rock face flanked by a horrific icefall. We camped at 16,800 ft and next morning one of our porters, an ox-like rustic named Sunam Jit, but with a nose that Justerini & Brooks would be proud of, scented the key to life in those parts — yakdung. Without yakdung a path is not a path, a route is not a route. Yakdung is the way and the truth and the life. With religious fervour we pursued the tenuous trail of welcoming lumps, passed the crackling seracs and down on to the North Shivsank Glacier. By 1 p.m. we were mixing up gooseberry pie- filling in the Dharlang Valley.

The Dharlang Valley is extremely large, long and remote. Down its long vast sides, you could see great towers of rock and guess at their heights. Right down to the Kishtwar peaks above Machail you could see steep glaciers falling chaotically into desolate moraines. We were hungry and short of food. We had only six days' supply thanks to our involuntary three days on the wrong side of the Sersank. We abandoned reluctantly our original plan of 'doing a peak' - there were at least ten to chose from — and decided to go all out for the Poat La and thus out into Zanskar.

The Poat La, 18,752 ft is certainly one of the highest passes in the whole of the Himalaya. It is used perhaps once or twice a year, either conjointly with the Sersank or by shepherds taking little sheep into the grazing of the lower Dharlang. We saw the yakdung of just one party for this year 1979: fortunately they had crossed only two weeks before us from Munne in Zanskar. The configuration of the pass does not correspond significantly with that given in the maps: the surrounding mountains bore no relation at all. We counted and tried with bearings and inclinations to fix the positions of up to twenty fine groups in the ‘Knot’, whose heights ranged between 18,500 ft and 21,000 ft. The outstanding peak is perhaps 21,000 ft high and visible from near Burdan in Zanskar: memorable also were two linked by a long saddle running east-west, similar to Nanda Devi, and one vast sheer unsullied south rockface near the now defunct Haleli Jot. These I have recorded because more would cloy the taste: for the eight of us there it will be hard to forget the blistering vistas of rock and ice or the bitter cold once the sun was gone and the cracking joints of the dormant glacier beneath our silly tents.

Sunam Jit led us with his nose off those glaciers and on to the path: we spotted and slowly passed the friendly jandas: three yak corpses on this stretch of boulders: a snowfield: rocks: another snowfield: and a choice. Right and left of a cliff were the final jandas. Our boys had been advised to take the left-hand pass: no one had much breath to argue. The final ascent was via a stiff scramble up a long ramp across the cliff. The weather was rough on top: cold, windy and a big storm raging not more than a mile to the east. We could just sight and fix the peaks running down from the 'Knot' to Zanskar. We hurried down in bitter cold — for miles and miles: camping on frozen sand just off the Pyramid Peak North Glacier at about 15,800 ft. We were all very tired: and did not care to notice we had finished our journey.

Epilogue

There is much we could say about the rest. We were an amateur party, without great resources and without great pretensions. We crossed what we think was an area certainly unrecorded and possibly unexplored. We have recorded what we could of it, and, if anyone who reads this is interested, we would each or all of us be delighted to share that knowledge. We enjoyed it.

 

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