EPIC CLIMB BY BRITONS

Evening Star, Issue 22328, 2 May 1936, Page 19

EPIC CLIMB BY BRITONS

" VALLEY OF LOST HORIZONS " Tho story of how two Englishmen reached, for the first time in history, the foot of tho highest mountain in the British Empire, is told in a book published recently. Tho mountain is Nanda Devi, 25,6C0ft, and the two Englishmen were Mr Eric Ship ton. the Mount Everest climber, and Mr H. W. Thin an. Nanda Devi rises from a mountainwalled amphitheatre, which even the best climbers of the last 50 years have failed to enter. Mr Shipton, the author of ‘ Nanda Devi,’ quotes from a description written in 1932 by Mr Hugh Ruttledge, leader of the present Mount Everest expedition, who had then just returned from the last unsuccessful attempt to reach the mountain. Mr Ruttledge wrote : “Nanda Devi imposes upon her votaries an admission lest as yet beyond their skill and endurance. A 70mile barrier ring, on which stand 12 measured peaks over 21,000 ft high, it has no depression lower than 17,000 ft —except in the west, where the Rishi Ganga River, rising at the foot of Nanda Devi, and draining an area of some 250 square miles of snow and ice, has carved for itself what must bo one of the most terrific gorges in the world. “Two internal ridges, which converge from north and south respectively upon this river, form, as it were, tho curtains of an inner sanctuary, within which the great mountain soars up to 25,660 ft.” LIVED ON FUNGI. Mr Shipton, Mr Tilmaii, and their three Sherpa porters found a way into this sanctuary along the precipitous Rishi Ganga Gorge. Sometimes they were forced right down to the swirling river, sometimes they followed narrow ledges 2,000 ft above it. At last they reached a “ Valley of Lost Horizons,” bright witli flowers and inhabited by animals fearless of man When the monsoon forced them to retreat to their base they made an exploratory expedition to the sources of the Gauges. Here they ran short of food, and. for the last days of their retreat, lived on fungi and bamboo shoots. Yet, as soon as the monsoon was over, they returned to Nanda Devi to complete their exploration, and finally climbed back to civilisation over one of the precipitous passes of the amphitheatre So ended one of the most remarkable exploits of Himalayan travel. It had occupied five strenuous months and cost less than £3OO.