Shipton's Lost Valley

by Martin Moran

Part 5: Across the Col

At midnight on 30 May our watch alarms sounded the assault on the col We had been left in isolation to share one four-person tent and an estimated eight days worth of food rations. Our equipment included static rope for abseils and river crossing, a volcano stove which could run on twigs and bark down in the forests, and a gigantic kukri knife procured from some unsuspecting villager down in Mana. With this mighty blade we might cut our way through the densest jungle or fell trees to span torrents. Not suprisingly our loads that night must have been all of 25km. The torch lit climb of the 700m face was a torture of effort and a tense game of memory to follow the only unbroken line of snow ramps. A brilliant dawn caught us just two-birds of the way up and we fought progressive enervation and fast-softening snow to gain the final snow ridge where we were amazed and delighted to be looking down on the icefall. We could trace our probings of two days earlier and felt much reliveved to be beyond its clutch.

At around 9 am Bredge and Sobat led a short traverse from the ridge on to the crest of the col, a broad snowfield a kilometre in extent at an altitude we reckoned to be 5420m. Beyond its further edge we could see nought save a deep blue sky and a line of haze which hung above the foothills, as if in emphasis of four reaching our goal. Beyond was a great nothingness, and within I felt strangely empty of emotion. However, high we aim, one must at some stage reach the limit and contemplate the infinite. Such thoughts made me long at once for the warm caress of the bamboo forest and the comforting scent of its flowers.

The col was menaced by huge seracs 1000m higher on Chaukhambas south face, so we moved 300m down easy snow slopes on the for side and made camp at 5100m where we could at last see the delineation of the great valley below. The bounding ridges, although some 4500m high, looked tame and inviting by contrast to the glacial wilderness behind us, whilst the valley itself cut a straight line westward from the glacier snout into deepening layers of forest. However, 1000m of unsighted icefall still lay between ourselves and that security.