A LEGENDARY PASS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 257, 27 September 1935, Page 15

A LEGENDARY PASS

REDISCOVERY IN KASHMIR. The Delhi correspondent of the London Times telegraphs : The legendary mountain pass over the , lower southern Baltoro Range in Kashmir is beleived to have been rediscovered by Lieutenant James Waller, Royal Artillery, leader of the recent expedition to the Karakoram mountains. It is at the head of the Chinkang Nulla, and he named it Chinkang La. In a message to the Statesman Mr Waller says he made the discovery while accompanied only by one coolie and a dog. He did not cross the pass, as he had run short of money, but from the top he saw “dead easy snow slopes” leading to a glacier without crevasses and a low winding valley. . The rediscovered pass is mentioned in the Shyok legend as leading to the long-used Mustagh Pass, which was last crossed by Sir Francis Younghusband in 1899. The pass appears to have been much used in the days of the Hunza raiders as a direct route from the Yarkand Valley via the Mustaglr Pass and the Baltoro Glacier to the fertile Kliapulu Valley. When advancing ice made the passage of the Mustagh too difficult this smaller pass must have fallen into disuse.

A party of four Englishmen under Lieutenant Waller attempted in June to climb Peak 36 (26,400 ft.) in the Baltoro Range. Owing to bad weather conditions the attempt was abandoned when the advance party were only 900 ft. from the summit.