blank on map by Eric Shipton

Author:Eric Shipton [Eric Shipton]
Language: eng
Format: epub

– CHAPTER TWELVE –

K2

We did not spend long in luxurious idleness at Suget Jangal. The very next day, July 9th, we again split up into groups, each with a separate task. Seven porters, under the charge of Angtharkay, were sent up the Sarpo Laggo glacier to Mone Brangsa to relay all the loads that had been left there down to the junction of the Sarpo Laggo and Crevasse glacier valleys. I estimated that this would take a week, and our plans were arranged to coincide with this. Spender, with Angtensing and Nukka to help him, was to accompany the porters up the glacier, and from a suitable base he was to explore and survey the country to the east, between the Sarpo Laggo glacier and the main watershed. Auden, Tilman and I, with Lhakpa Tensing and Ila, were to spend a week exploring the glaciers rising about the northern flanks of K2, and to connect up with the Duke of Abruzzi’s surveys at the head of the Baltoro glacier, and those that Spender had planned.

The other two parties left Suget Jangal in the morning, carrying a large supply of fuel. Tilman and Auden and Lhakpa went with them to our main dump, three miles away, to fetch food, warm clothes, spare films and tobacco that had been left there. Ila and I spent a delicious morning lazing on the grass in the hot sun. Later we attended to various domestic jobs, such as airing sleeping-bags, washing and mending clothes, until the others returned. We packed up and started after lunch; this required a considerable effort of will.

We followed the same route that we had taken when we had been hunting bharal nearly four weeks before. On the way I visited a nest that I had seen on that occasion, and found that the young birds had flown. We crossed the high ridge into the K2 nullah, contoured along a thousand feet above the stream, and camped when we came to a deep gully containing a trickle of water.

We climbed 2,500 feet the next morning, to a rocky point about 16,300 feet high. It commanded a view up the K2 glacier to a wonderful circle of ice peaks in the country ahead of us. In the opposite direction we could see an enormous distance to the west, far up the Crevasse glacier. The weather was clear and still and we stayed for a long time, taking a wide round of angles and photographs, and discussing lazily the many questions that are raised by any view into unexplored country. Not far below us on a little saddle there was a herd of bharal, grazing peacefully on a meagre pasture. The descent to camp took us only a few minutes of swift scree-running.

After a short halt for a meal of tsampa and tea, followed by a pipe, we packed up and climbed down to the valley, carrying a supply of firewood besides our usual loads. When we reached the snout of the glacier,

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