CHANGO '81

ROMESH BHATTACHARJI

14 JUNE, 03.00 hrs. 20,400 ft Camp 1 on the Reo Pargial.1 Clear sky. A cruel icy wind was reaching out to us even within the depths of our tents and sleeping-bags. As we emerged, the warmth from the night's tossing was quickly dissipated. By the time the ten of us had got into our boots and crampons and were ready to march, Rahul Sharma, Rekha Sharma and Yusuf Zaheer were petrified by the freezing wind and went back happily to snuggle some warmth into themselves. The remaining seven stepped into the icy sheen with the wind hurling stinging needles of snow into their faces. After a while my crampons broke and 1 turned back at once. There were six left. Progress was a bit fast in spite of the hostile wind. Crevasses came up, and crevasses were crossed. Till 800 ft below Reo Pargial (22,280 ft) a really wide crevasse loomed up and that was that. In that tearing and freezing wind only three were keen to go on. The rest demurred and then all retreated. With good reason! V. K. Purl, Usha Sathe and Adil Tyabji had severe frost-bite. Adil was suffering from snow-blindness too. Later V. K. Puri was to lose three of his right hand's fingers and Adil was bed-ridden for a month. This was an unfortunate denouement to an otherwise rewarding venture.

Earlier Adil Tyabji, V. K. Puri, Y. K. Puri, P. L. Thakur, Usha Sathe, D. R. Thakur, Yusuf Zaheer, Rahul, Rekha Sharma and X had left Delhi on 24 May for Chango village. This earthquake-prone border Tillage is on the Hindustan-Tibet Road, 325 km from Simla. Ours was an exploratory venture as no one not even the inhabitants of Chango - had been to Chango glacier. The oldest person in Chango recalls that his grandfather used to talk of a way along Chango river down which marauders from Tibet used to come to steal their cattle and sheep. Eventually the villagers destroyed this path. No one else could support this, and it is difficult to believe as the only pass into Tibet from Chango glacier is a stiff one. Yet these people are capable of many an impossible feat, and their name for Chango glacier is Phu, which means blue glacier, which it is. How else could this name have been given if no one had been there? There may be an earlier way to Tibet. However, as far as the present residents are concerned they know no one who had been there in living memory. Our task was to find a way there and see how many peaks there were in this glacier basin and to ascertain how difficult or easy they were to climb. It took us 15 days from the date of leaving Delhi to establish our base camp at 18,200 ft on a massive ice-cap, which was the meeting ground of two glaciers. There was no characteristic medial moraine at their junction but just a vast sheet of ice.

Footnote

  1. For name of this peak see author's note at the end of the article.—Ed.

 

All but two of our porters and all our mules were from Chango, These people are mostly of Tibetan stock. A few are Kinnauris too. They are industrious in their work and inclined to be cavalier as; porters. They will bargain for a while and then settle for a reasonable amount. Rs. 15 and food per day per person. But they sure eat well They are not particular about the loads they are given. They settle for 25 kg loads but if the need arises they will make two ferries in a day and carry as much as 40 kg. All with a smile. They are excellent climbers and dependable companions. If you treat them well, they will treat you well. Up to the second camp we had taken 10 mules and even the 3 muleteers helped in carrying loads. They do not indulge in petty blackmail to extort concessions for they have immense self-respect.

The route from the almost flat fertile Chango village (10,200 ft) passes abruptly into the arid hills above and rises very steeply over rock and pebbles and barren hills of blue and brown. Then it traverses sheer cliffs that encompass a narrow gorge where, only during the first day's march, you come across some patches of furze. After 7 hours of an arduous waterless climb Approach March Camp 1 is made, hemmed in by stone walls. For water we had to send our ever- obliging porters 300 ft down. It is still winter here. Our next day's march displays winter clearly. There is still no water. What little you see is all frozen. The Chango river is too far down to be of any use. On this day's trek we come across some moraine, and traversing it is painful. This stage is over unknown territory. There is no path. At Approach March Camp 2 we prepare shelters for the porters and platforms for our tents. It is obvious that no one had been here so far in living memory.1 There is a small frozen spring nearby from where we get our precious water. While setting up camp we disturb a herd of bharal that scampered away with enviable ease along a precipitous ledge. Up and down the valley the view is still restrictive. We see a peak ahead of us, but a high recce does not make things any clearer. This peak is not at all familiar for those of us who had gazed on thk spectacular glacier in awestruck wonder one early morning from the Col Camp at Reo Pargial a year ago.2 We are not even sure that we are on that same glacier. This we could confirm only after we reached base camp. Down the gorge we see some mountains of Lari and Tabo in Spiti valley. Nothing else. It is too narrow for wide views. Unlike the route above Nako from where one has excellent views of the peaks of Kinnaur, S'angla, Garhwal, Kulu, Lahul and Spiti and partsi of Ladakh.

From this Approach March Camp 2, which the porters call 'Khachar Camp', as beyond this mules cannot go, we spend 3 days recceing and ferrying loads to the next camp. Here is where the horrible horrible moraine starts. We tumble, stumble, and fall on it. Progress is tiresome, but our determined porters from Chango and Nako manage a fairly good way, which is modified over the next few days' carry till a good permanent way, dotted by cairns, is made. Nevertheless, we have to skirt walls of ice topped by precariously perched loose boulders, cross crevasses, waterfalls, streams, and suffer getting knocked down a number of times. There is a 600 ft high frozen waterfall on the true right side (across the side that we are travelling on) hovering in suspended animation over our toils. It is an amazing sight and we are held spellbound. Approach March Camp 3 is at height of 16,600 ft approx. It is on the medial moraine. There are two glaciers. The one on the true right is white, full of seracs and bordered by an ugly scarred and dusty hillside that rises to a ridge about 20,000 ft high. The other glacier is dirty, crevassed, full of exposed moraine from the sides of which rises an attractive peak, with a challengingly steep ice- slope, This peak is more than 21,000 ft. From this point onwards the Survey of India maps are incorrect. They do not show any peaks on the true right-hand glacier but show 3 smaller ones between the true left glacier and the glacier of Kuru Tokpo which flows on the left of Chango village. This is strange, as the former glacier has one peak of about 22,000 ft and two others around 21,000 ft. These heights of our* are only approximate heights judged in relation to our position on Reo PargiaL There are numerous glacial pools on the tortured and wrinkled glacier to the left.

The only reference to Chango glacier is in H.J. VI, photo plate opp. p. 122, —Ed.

Footnote

  1. See H.j. 37, p. 88.—Ed.

At this Approach March Camp $ we spend 4 days first reconnoitring and then ferrying our way up to the base camp (18,200 ft). Only after we had visited the site of our base camp could we tell that we were on the right glacier. This was difficult till then, as the dominant feature, Reo Pargial, could be seen from base camp only and it looks very diminutive, lower than the other prominent peaks of the Chango glacier. From this Camp 3 onwards the crazy freezing wind is always in attendance. Here too the valley opens for a while enabling us to have a clear view of Kunzam La, the Mulkilas and the Chandra Bhaga far away in Lahul. Only for a while. At base camp all this is blotted out again. Next we see them from the col when they are indistinguishable, as from there such a vast panorama of peaks, that stretch wave-like till the horizon, is unfolded that it is pointless trying to locate a peak or two. At Camp 3 the roar of the Chango river is also stilled. We enter a zone of silence disturbed only by the insistent flap-flap of our tents and rock falls. Around us at base camp is a massive icefield with covered crevasses and peaks all over. Ih front of us and to the east, just two kilometres ahead, is the ridge that separates Tibet from India. To the left is a strikingly fissured icefall and an attractive peak of 20,900 ft. This area abounds in many splendid icefalls.

From the base camp, which we established on 8 June, we ferried loads up to the col on Reo Pargial at a height of 20,400 ft. Then the weather became foul, and we could not move up till the 13th. On the 14th we made our first attempt and on the 15th the second attempt. Both came to naught. On the 15th we were surprised to find that the Dogra regiment was also attempting the same peak. It was most upsetting to say the least. On the 16th we came down and evacuated V. K. Puri and Usha Sathe to Chango village, which the plucky two reached in one day from the base camp. A very exhausting feat. Incidentally two of our porters, Tenzing Nagyal and Sonam Tondup from Nako, came up from Chango village at 10,200 ft to our base camp at 18,200 ft in one day. Adil was not evacuated, but he remained in excruciating pain till we took him to the military hospital at Pooh on the 20th, where they diagnosed his case as chilblains! Earlier they had similarly declared V. K. Puri's frost-bite to be chilblains, and he had to lose 3 right-hand's fingers, which loss he has accepted without recriminations and without a furrow on his brow. He has already retaught himself to write legibly with that handicapped hand. Adil was more fortunate. To save time he travelled as a pillion-rider on my motorcycle. He was in terrible pain all the way and it was only his tight-lipped determination to overcome it that enabled us to reach the plains quickly.

While waiting for the porters to come up and take our equipment down, we took two further days to explore the area on the eastern side. Yusuf and Rekha attempted a difficult 20,900 ft high peak just south of the base camp and came to within 600 ft of climbing it. Y. K. Puri and I went along the white glacier that came in from the right. During this effort we found a col to the right of the granite peak that dominates the glacier. This pass, about 20,000 ft high, is just next to an icefall, and the route though full of crevasses, is easy. We did not go right up to the pass, as the weather had turned bad, and no good views would be had. This pass, is, as far as I know, not marked in any of the Survey of India maps. We may be wrong. This spotting of the col (pass) had an amusing corollary. When a check-post of a border patrol wirelessed to their headquarters that our party had 'Discovered a col leading to Tibet'. . . .: pat came a panicky command 'Give full particulars and description of the Colonel found crossing over into Tibet'.

Our return was accomplished in two long marches. The crevasses were throwing off their winter cloak and the frozen streams had become fast-flowing streams. The porters would not stay a day beyond the 18th. In fact in their eagerness to force us to get away on the 18th unknown to me early in the morning, they heaped a large load on to a cleverly improvized sledge made with my skis and took it down to the lower camp before we got out. Angry we were, but we had to come down. The ast stage of the march, on 19 June, was done with a parched throat and swollen lips. This stretch requires two water-bottles not one. When after finishing the dreary traverse, we reached the top of the bare mountain above the flat fecund village of Chango we could see the clear rippling waters, but in spite of our strenuously wishing so, we could not travel as fast as our eyes. We could, however, see two asses grazing and drinking placidly with a shepherd boy listening to the latter-day equivalent of flute, a transistor, to complete the idyllic picture. Well, almost idyllic. None of them spared any thought to the thirsty homines sapientes tumbling fast down the hillside. We were very envious of asses for once. When at last we lurched up to the stream we threw off our disgusting rucksacks and lay flat out exhausted in the cooling waters. The asses with a swish of their tails moved away in disgust. The long haul was over.

Note : Before I end, I must give some idea of this area. Chango village is exactly 325 km from Simla. It is at a height of 10,200 ft. Being on the border, Inner line permits are required. These can be had only by Indians either at the D.C.'s office in Simla or the S.D.M.'s office at Hampur-Bushair. The Inner Line starts at Wangdu, which is 178 km beyond Simla. The Hindustan-Tibet road is an awesome road to put it mildly. The road has been carved out of sheer granite walls that plummet into the roaring Sutlej about 500 ft to 1000 ft below. Numerous memorials in memory of those brave men killed while building this road dot the new, quite comfortable drive. At Jeori there is a more elaborate and flamboyant memorial. From Karcham at the confluence of the Bapsa and Sutlej rivers the road is dominated by the Kinnaur Kailash massif till Akpa, from where other peaks take over. From Spilu the trees recede till at Pooh-Dabling they completely disappear. At Khab, where a narrow Sutlej roars down to meet a wider but equally turbulent Spiti, the road leaves the Sutlej gorge and enters the dry caverns of Spiti valley. Then after many traverses on horrifying rock faces we come to the open views of Yangthang (the New Field) dominated by the rocky Demon — Reo Pargial II. Then there is a gradual descent to Chango. There are no trees to be seen here except at Nako and Chango. Porters and mules are no problems. Just write to the Sarpanch, (headman) Nako and Chango and they will arrange everything.

The fifth highest peak in Chango basin, about 21,400 ft to the north of the glacier. Picture taken from the trek to BC. In foreground is the medial moraine of two glaciers.

The fifth highest peak in Chango basin, about 21,400 ft to the north of the glacier. Picture taken from the trek to BC. In foreground is the medial moraine of two glaciers.
Article 14 Photo: R. Bhattacharji

View from Col Camp (20,400 ft) on Reo Pargial I. Looking to the northern glacier of Chango basin. The peaks on the left and right are estimated to be 21,800 ft and 21,600 ft, the second and the third highest in the basin. The pass on left leads to Tibet. The convex face to the right of peak 21,600 ft is in Tibet. There is a col  (hidden from view) ahead of th eicefall )just visible) near the foot of this peak.

View from Col Camp (20,400 ft) on Reo Pargial I. Looking to the northern glacier of Chango basin. The peaks on the left and right are estimated to be 21,800 ft and 21,600 ft, the second and the third highest in the basin. The pass on left leads to Tibet. The convex face to the right of peak 21,600 ft is in Tibet. There is a col (hidden from view) ahead of th eicefall )just visible) near the foot of this peak.
Article 14 Photo: R. Bhattacharji

The fifth highest peak in Chango basin, about 21,400 ft to the north of the glacier. Picture taken from the trek to BC. In foreground is the medial moraine of two glaciers.

17. North Face of Phabrang---- 1: North ridge, 2: NW face. 3: South Face. A: Summit. B: Col. O: Bivouac, X: Accident.
Article 15 Photo: D. Nicholls

Now, with an energetic H. P. Government pushing roads and hydroelectric projects into the far corners of the State the following short but very rewarding treks can be made. The road-heads mentioned below are linked by buses leaving every day from Simla.

  1. Simla to Nachar by bus. Three-day climb to Hans Beshan 17,290 ft pk. No inner line permit. Foreigners can visit this place. Excellent view,
  2. a. Simla to Tapri, Tapri to Morang and perhaps to Thangi by bus; One trek is along the Tidong Gad via Kunu and S'hola to Shimonng La (16,300 ft) 7-8 days.
    b. Another trek is along Tidong Gad for a while and then via Charang and Sumdo Thatang to Khimokul or Gumrang La (17,100 ft) (Inner Line Permits required). 7-8 days.
  3. Simla to Spilu on the Pooh bus. Cross the Sutlej 1 km from here. Go along the Gyamthing Gad via Kekod Akh, an alp hugged by rocks and Gangtang Bralam to Keo Barang La at 17,800 ft or Roniso La (17,000 ft) (All these passes are on the Indo-Tibet border)
    This Gangtang Bralam can also be approached via Gangtang La (18,200 ft) along the Hojis Gad from Dabling via Rish Dongri and Lamache. This skirts the Rishi peak 20,630 ft (Inner Line Permit required).
  4. For those interested in climbing the 21,880 ft Manirang, a bus goes from Kalpa to Ropa, from where the base camp is only one day's march.

Those who are interested in approaching the col of Reo Pargial by yet another route can do so via Kuru Tokpo — the stream that flows near the staging hut at Chango village. Reo Pargial has never been tried from this route, which is much shorter than up the Chango river. The peaks of Chango glacier that have Kuru Tokpo on the other side cannot, as far as we could observe, be approached from the latter nullah. However, this can only be confirmed if one goes there. Between Kuru Tokpo glacier and Chango glacier near the col is a rock wall which is passable after fixing ropes.

A final word about the name of the peak Reo Pargial. The Himalayan Journal prefers to call it Leo Pargial. This is the name accepted by the Survey of India too. But this acceptance is based on ignorance. First reason for accepting Reo Pargial as the correct name is its meaning. In the local dialect it means Demon or even God of the Rocks. This does not fit Reo Pargial I but Reo Pargial H which at 22,210 ft is only 70 ft lower and 1% km to the south. It is this latter peak which is seen from many inhabited parts of Kinnaur and Spiti and thus is part of the legend there. Reo Pargial II a veritable rocky demon. Very impressive, aloof and with a forbidding visage. Reo Pargial I is not seen and cannot be seen from any inhabited area clearly as it merges completely with the surrounding ranges. Second reason is that I have asked people of five villages—v Nako, Yangthang Leo, Mailing and Chango—about their name for this peak and they have all repeatedly pronounced it as Reo Pargial or Purgyol till they were disgusted with me. The reason for this confusion could be that the British Surveyors linked the name of peak with the village Leo, which lies sprawled at its feet. However, the inhabitants pronounce each one of them distinctly as indicated above. This initial mistake is pardonable for Britishers. Its continual acceptance now is not.

Editor's Note:

The nomenclature of Leo Pargial has been a matter of discussion since 1933 when Marco Pallis climbed it. It is evident that the locals call it Reo Pargial, which fits the true meaning as the author has described above. Deputy Commissioner of Kinnaur, travellers, and locals always called it Reo Pargial as it is evident from the notes in H.J., Vol. VI, p. 106, Vol. XXVII, p. 182 and 184. Thus this seems to be a well-accepted name to the locals, travellers and officials in Kinnaur both phonetically as well as in description. However the Survey of India, all along (even in the latest maps) calls it Leo Pargial and now in all the past literature this name has gained currency. The name on the map is always accepted as authority and to change it abruptly would only cause confusion. Hence though here I have retained the name as the author spelt it, perhaps it is best at present to allow both the names.

A 21,100 ft (approx.) high peak (right) to the south of Change glacier. It is perhaps the sixth highest peak in the Chango basin. Photo taken between Approach March Camp 3 and BC.

A 21,100 ft (approx.) high peak (right) to the south of Change glacier. It is perhaps the sixth highest peak in the Chango basin. Photo taken between Approach March Camp 3 and BC. (Photo: R. BhattacharjI)

. Peak about 21,600 ft high at the eastern head of Chango glacier. This is the third highest peak. On the other side is Tibet. BC was placed on the flat shelf, 18,200.

. Peak about 21,600 ft high at the eastern head of Chango glacier. This is the third highest peak. On the other side is Tibet. BC was placed on the flat shelf, 18,200. (Photo: R. Bhattacharji)

 

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