Sherpa by Ang Tharkay

Author:Ang Tharkay
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781594859984
Publisher: Mountaineers Books

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MY SECOND EXPEDITION TO THE KARAKORAM

OUR PREVIOUS JOURNEY TO THE Shaksgam valley had given Mr. Shipton a first glimpse of the summits of the Karakoram, so he had resolved to return as soon as possible to that region, to finish his exploration.

In May 1939, he told me about his intentions and asked me to meet him in Srinagar, along with eight other Sherpas. Nine of us left from Darjeeling in accordance with the instructions we had received. The group included four sahibs, one of whom was a doctor, and two officers from the Indian Topographic Service.

We traveled through a verdant and fertile region divided by the Tragbal and Kamri cols, before reaching the foot of the giant Nanga Parbat massif. After Gilgit, we departed from the route that leads to Hunza, which we had taken on our previous journey, and we stopped in the village of Nagar.

The sahibs were very busy surveying the regions we had come through and the various ways to access them. Life was not expensive: poultry did not cost more than eight annas, and a sheep cost only two rupees. I cooked, and I also carried one of our loads, as we were traveling with very few supplies and had not hired coolies at the outset.

We arrived in a dry region, where there were few sources of water. The rivers flowed in deep, inaccessible valleys. The weather was very hot and we were dying of thirst. We were running out of water, to the point that we became obsessed with the search for it. When we arrived at the top of a ridge we found a goat shelter, and nearby there was a pool of dirty, yellowish water. The Sherpas threw themselves on the water and, for better or worse, managed to quench their thirst before the sahibs arrived and forbade everyone to drink any more, for fear that the water was contaminated. I was so tortured by thirst that I wanted to do as my comrades had done, but the sahibs forbade me. They gave me a piece of chocolate that would not even melt in my dehydrated mouth.

We continued walking, covering a few more kilometers before night fell. But we had still not found a suitable place, with water, where we could bivouac. We sat down and listened to the water rumbling at the bottom of the deep gorges. The Sherpa Pherinji told me that if he didn’t find a mouthful of water to drink, he would die. He set down his load and went off in search of a stream. He spent the entire night looking for water, without finding any. It was truly becoming impossible to continue on if we did not find water. We had all collapsed by the side of the trail with our tongues hanging out, delirious from being overcome by thirst, when we had the extraordinary luck of seeing some shepherds who were carrying containers full of powdery snow. We threw ourselves upon them and grabbed the containers after paying them a good price.

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