On the Siachen Glacier, 1998

by Harish Kapadia

Part 1: Siachen Glacier

How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died? The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind.
- Bob Dylan

The Siachen glacier, 72 km, in the East Karakoram is one of the longest glaciers in the Himalaya and Karakoram. It has number of peaks, side valleys and at its head lies the Indira Col, the divide between South and Central Asia. The Nubra river drains the glacier and ultimately joins the Shyok river near Khalsar. On the west lies the West Karakoram (now under Pakistani control) and towards the east is the Shyok basin, forming the border with China. The northern slopes of the Indira Ridge leads to the Shaksgam valley. The Siachen glacier was not much visited by the mountaineers in the recent years due to the on going conflict on its heights between India and Pakistan.

In the 1970s and early eighties Pakistan permitted several mountaineering expeditions to climb high peaks on this glacier. This was to reinforce their claim on the area as these expeditions arrived on the glacier with a permit obtained from the Government of Pakistan. In many cases an liaison officer from the Pakistan army accompanied the team. Mountaineers by their climbing activities here, thus played a different role in history of the glacier. In 1984, when the Indian army positioned itself on the heights of the Siachen glacier, the Government of India as a policy decided to encourage mountaineering expeditions to this glacier from the Indian territory to counter the Pakistani policies of the past. Expeditions consisting of Indian mountaineers or joint expeditions with foreign mountaineers were to be allowed to climb on the Siachen glacier. However after 1988 no expeditions visited the upper glacier. We came to the glacier in 1996 but were turned back suddenly.