The Ascent of Nanda Devi by H W Tilman

Author:H W Tilman [Tilman, H W]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781910240151
Publisher: Vertebrate Publishing
Published: 2014-10-14T11:00:00+00:00

– THE GORGE –

The day after these memorable events dawned fine, and having discussed the position and decided on a plan, we started sorting out loads and re-bagging the food. Food was almost the only item on which much weight could be saved, so it was arranged that only enough for forty days should be taken on from here. Having fixed the amount of each kind, it was easy to fill in the varieties, for by now we knew our likes and dislikes. Even so it was a long job which was only just finished before the rain began again at ten o’clock.

One other way in which weight was saved was the abandonment of two pressure cookers. Their scrapping did cause us some heart-burning, since it was from here onwards that their need would be felt. Cooking at high altitudes becomes difficult owing to the low temperature at which water boils; even at 15,000 feet this temperature is eighty-five degrees instead of one hundred degrees and of course it decreases as you go higher. Tough things like rice, lentils, beans, or dried vegetables will not cook properly at these temperatures, but the difficulty is got over by using a cooker that cooks by steam under pressure, and in which, I think, even a pair of boots would be made edible. It is a thing like a heavy saucepan with a steam-tight lid, fitted with a safety valve, and a whistle which can be adjusted to go off when the desired pressure is reached. We had two of them, and they were left behind with less reluctance because, so far, we had used hardly any rice or lentils – perhaps Loomis and I had had a surfeit of them on the earlier trip.

By the time this work was finished the Mana men had brought everything up from the bridge, and although they were rather expecting to have the day off we persuaded them to make the trip. The plan was to carry some loads as far as the foot of the ‘Slabs’ and to return here for the night, and at midday we all moved off in drizzling rain carrying sixty-pound loads. It was about 1,500 feet up to the ‘Slabs’ and the first few hundred feet immediately above camp were as steep and exposed as any part of the route. Numerous birch trees growing out of the cliff face were of great assistance, and provided the branch did not break or the tree pull out bodily it was impossible to fall.

At the top of this bad stretch was a short rock pitch known to us as the ‘Birch Tree Wall’, where considerable amusement could be had watching the efforts of the purists to climb it with a load on and without a pull from above.

The difference of climbing without or with a load is not always realised; when bowed down under a load places, which otherwise would not be given a thought, appear to bristle with difficulties and have to be treated with the utmost respect.

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