Shipton's Lost Valley

by Martin Moran

Part 4: The Leaning Tower or Pisa

The center of the icefall looked as though it had recently emerged from an underground nuclear test, its center being caved in and ruptured from the flanks Neither flank appealed; the left side was several fractured and sported a slim leaning tower some 60 m high that looked ripe for collapse whilst the right side would be menaced by any avalanches that might choose to drop from Chaukhambas 1600m south face. So we opted to explore the centre and on 29 May all of us, bar John Harvey and Pete, set out with 15km loads. This crucial reconnoitre coincided with our first day of bad weather. Towering cumulo-nimbus clouds that had gathered daily on the Kedarnath side of the range now spilled over the col and enveloped us in mist and light snowfall.

We dumped our loads at around 5150m and while Brede, John Shipton, Ben and Naveen returned to camp, Heera, Sobat and I continued up into the jaws of the icefall. The 1934 party had made a camp hereabouts and enjoyed a tense night which fell in Shiptons words to the accompaniment of an almost continuous roar of ice avalanches from the great cliffs of Chaukhamba above us. Several times during the night I was brought to a sitting position, trembling, as some particularly large avalanche fell close at hand. I was similarly afflicted by the creeping dread of objectives danger and in spite of the bad weather and lassitude became almost desperate to prove the feasibility of this route to the col

Some 60m higher we entered the labyrinth via a tenuous snow bridge which spanned the huge chasm behind the leaning tower. Our way was then barred by misted ice walls. Knowing that Shipton and Tilman had found a vertical jumble of broken ice blocks in place of the rocky gully a simple snow couloir lay just 40m away, but I could see no safe way to reach its sanctuary. Suddenly, I wanted to be out of this ice fall for good. We turned tail, repacked seven persons load into three sacks and, with burdens of 30km each, ploughed back down the glacier. When positioned well within the potential crash site of the leaning tower, an ominous crack enchoed from its base and a shard of ice broke off. For a second I stared at the tower, riveted with fear and convinced that the whole edifice was quivering.

Run, screamed to the others and we staggered wildly across the slopes until we collapsed from exhaustion to the realisation that the tower had stayed in place. But I returned to camp with my conviction clear the we should not return to the ice fall.

In its place we espied a line on the face of Pt. 5758, the peak left of the col A series of snow ramps and gullies led to a ridge which rose to the level of the col, thus avoiding the icefall and all its risks. Without a healthy cover of spring snow this option may not have been available, but its steepness was sufficient to persuade John Shipton to go back. Had he only had some recent experience of snow and ice climbing, I would have had no qualms whatsoever about his continuing, for he was as fit as any of us. With his jutting temples and troubled brows he was the image of his father and he bore the genetic stamp of the mountain explorer, revelling in the discomfort of the trip, glorying in the mountains and his beloved flowers, becoming suitably more scorched and shrivelled by the day. How he would have loved to tread in the bamboo valley, but safety came first.

Pete Francis was troubled by the altitude and a weak knee and decided to join John in returning to Badrinath together with Naveen and Heera. They planned to take jeeps and buses a hundred miles round to the Kedarnath side of the range and then trek from Kalimath along the ridges bounding the far side of the fabled valley. We were thus streamlined to a team of five, which in honesty was an ideal number to enable sharing of equipment and trail-breaking effort, yet minimise joint risk exposure on a route where one sprained ankle could jeopardise everyones life.