N.Z. EXPEDITION IN HIMALAYAS

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27374, 12 June 1954, Page 9

N.Z. EXPEDITION IN HIMALAYAS

Exploration Party To Choyang Valley

(From CHARLES EVANS, a Member nt the r,. r, , in the Zealand Alpine Club Expedition c «• u ■ BASE CAMP ’ BAR UN VALLEY, May 6. ®t°Sedua vallev whkh lies sJ?.h PI T the Upper part of the Choyang valle j.wnicn lies south and west of the Iswa, and to cross from it, if possible, into the Honnn • • .< . . B "“ ™““"which l"h“

We expected that it would be a long journey perhaps impracticable and so we took with us three wee J food for ourselves and six Sherpas. luuu lor

In the first two days we crossed the spur between the Kasuwa Khola and the Iswa, and climbed to Nurgaon, a Sherpa village at 10,000 ft, on the south bank of the Iswa.

Here I intended to pay off our lowland coolies, and engage local men who would know the way into the Choyang. We had arrived on a feast day, and everyone was out to meet Us Everyone was drunk. No-one had seen anything like us before, and for half an hour we underwent an intimate inspection, and inhaled at close quarters the fumes of chang and arak. “Could we hire five men to carry loads into the Choyang,” I asked Certainly, I was told: Nothing could be easier, the whole village' would come with us. We could expect no more that day, and I engaged five men to start early on the morrow.

At midmorning they appeared, the worse for wear and regretting their promise of the day before. It was late before we got away and climbed the crest of the ridge between the Iswa and Choyang.

On our left was the wooden gorge of the Choyang, on our right that of the Iswa, and we followed the crest through rhododendrons and magnolia which were in full bloom, although their trunks at 12,000 ft were buried in deep drifts of snow.

The track was often obscured and the Nurgaon men found it hard going After two days on a bleak hillside above the tree-hne, in snow and mist, they had had enough, although it was still many days to the head of the Choyang We now had to relay our loads, and the Snerpas covered each section of the trail twice. View Cut off by Bluffs On April 18, after a long spell of step-cutting, we left the Iswa side of the ndge with a sigh of relief, passed through a narrow gap, and found ourselves at last in a narrow side valley which dived steeply into thick rhododendron bush. The view ahead, up * he was cut by precipitous bluffs.

We tried to find a way. down into the gorge, and found ourselves in all-but-impenetrable bush. The red and pink blooms which had seemed so beautiful lower down were now reviled, and we began to believe, as we were in fact told later, that the middle part of the Choyang is impassable. The few villagers who from time to time have entered it have nevef returned. Unable to go down we went up and crossed the first bluff above its steepest Qart. In cloud, we made a blind descent over snow into a valley like that we had left and, unable to see farther camped on a boulder-strewn slope. It was a day typical of our progress along the north bank of the Choyang Khola. Three days later, after crossing the highest of these bluffs at 16.000 ft, we saw the head of the Choyang for the xirst time. It has two branches, east and west, and we were entering the east branch. At the head of the west branch were savage-looking ice peaks, to the south of which we saw a pass leading towards the Hongu. It would be a long way round by that route. However, at the head of the branch or me Choyang we saw a snow saddle leading straight, it seemed, for the Iswa; east of the saddle was a snow peak marked 19,600 ft on our map. Ten days from Sedua, we camped not far below the saddle. At last we had got into the upper Choyang, and our first thought we must admit, was: How are we going to get out?” We had taken too long to get so far ff w e were to reach the Hongu at all we had to find a simple pass and cross it quickly. In the meantime, we were glad to have arrived and excited at having

found that day as we came up to our camp footprints that the Sherpas decl®r®d were those of the Yeti. They were fresh tracks, probably of the previous evening, clear in hard, frozen snow. They were the prints of L£ rg £ an \ mal foll °wed by a smaller, J arger P rin ts were eight inches by four broad. At the side of the print of the sole was a rounded mark like the ball of a thumb, and at the end of the sole were the marks of toes, and of unmistakable claws. a April 25 I sent three Sherpas, Annullu, Changjup and Ang Norbu, over into the Iswa to explore the pass, S? lle Harrow and I with the Sherpa Fhurchita, climbed the peak we had se ? n the right of the pass. We had an exhilarating climb along nign narrow snowridges and saw now the shape and origin of the Iswa glacier and the great south face of Chamlang from which small ice avalanches were falling at' intervals. But by the time we reached our peak, the usual morning cloud had come and we could see nothing that would help us get towards the Hongu.

w . .. George Lowe’s Party While on the summit, a thin edge of snow, we heard “cdoees” from the Iswa below and were able to call to our friends, George Lowe’s party, who had spotted us, although we could not see them.

Three days later we were still trying to find a way into the Hongu. We carried our gear to the highest glacier basin of the Iswa and climbed a steep snow slope to a deep gash in the rock ridges which enclose the head of the valley.

At noon we stood on a sharp divide of snow and rock, looking down to the Hongu, but although we could see that valley m the distance, the outlook was discouraging. The descent on the Hongu side of the pass, not difficult for unladen climbers, was too formidable for a convoy of tired and heavily-laden men, some ot them inexperienced on slopes of rock and ice such as this. Moreover, the valley into which we looked ran almost south and joined the Hongu far lower than we had expected. We must return down the Iswa and reach the Barun by the pass already crossed by Lowe’s party. I started down the slope up which we had come with Ang Dawa. Ang Norbu, and Pemba Kitar on the rope before me.

.. The first few yards were steep. Then the slope curved over into space and our .eyes met the slope above the glacier far below. A|ter a few steps Ang Norbu s foot went into a soft patch and he heeled outwards. Ang Dawa held him, but not his load which was attached only by a headband. It slid out of sight and broke into fragments somewhere below; we watched it bounding and sliding down andtfinally rolling to rest on the glacier. \ We resumed' our cautious descent, Ang Norbu a little chargrined, but perhaps relieved to be without his burden. That was the end of our attempt to reach the Hongu valley, and we were a very tired fiarty when we got back that night to our camp in the Iswa.

Two days later we had crossed into the Barun. We still had some food left, and so, instead of going up the Barun to base camp, we crossed the valley and camped on the side of an attractive mountain of more than 20.000 ft which we had seen from the IswaBarun pass. Unknown to us. it was a mountain already climbed by Michael Ball.

On May 4 Harrow and I reached the top on a most lovely morning when Makalu, close at hand, Lhotse and Everest, seen up the Barun valley, made a vivid and clear picture. By noon we were back at our high camp, and that same afternoon found our companions at their base camp among the moraines of the Barun.