We left the next morning, May 1, in good weather. The party consisted of Professor Dyhrenfurth, Kurz, Woodland, Duvanel, Wood Johnson, and myself. Hoerlin, Schneider and Dr Richter were to follow in a few days; the first two were not fit, and had been bothered by stomach trouble, whilst Richter was suffering from a strained heart. Hannah also was to follow in a day or so, and remain in charge of Camp One.
Whether or not the rest at the Base Camp had been as beneficial to the health of the party as had been hoped was doubtful. It is a curious fact that during the whole expedition, we never felt really fit at the Base Camp. Probably, it was not so much the altitude as the damp and boggy ground on which it had been pitched, and the relentless winds and snowstorms that chilled us every afternoon. At all events, we were glad to leave it, and get to grips with our opponent.
In order to get on to the middle of the glacier, we had to thread our way through moraine mounds; the route had, however, been facilitated by the cairns made the previous day by Schneider and Kurz, who had visited the glacier for mapping purposes.
For a considerable distance the gradient of the Kangchenjunga Glacier is a gentle one, and in five miles it does not rise more than 1,500 feet. The day before, Wood Johnson and I had noted a snowy corridor running up the middle of the glacier, which seemed to offer an easy route and this we gained after negotiating the maze of moraines.
As we marched on up the glacier, the mountain wall began gradually to shut us in on either hand. We were passing through the portals of an immense gateway into another world. Kangchenjunga gained in magnificence as we approached the foot of its northern face. From the Base Camp the edges of its hanging glaciers had looked but a few feet high, but now we began to appreciate their real scale – huge walls of ice hundreds of feet in height. Once there came the sound of an avalanche from the icy recesses of the great mountain; its deep growl echoing menacingly from peak to peak seemed to threaten us for our invasion of these solitudes.
The corridor, at first wide, became a narrow trough through ice hummocks. The sun poured down upon us a fierce heat in which the snow became more abominable every hour. Once again we experienced the energy sapping effects of glacier lassitude.
Progress was slow, but there was no need for hurry, save at one place, where we were forced by the roughness of the glacier under the cliffs of The Twins. Here, the glacier was liable to be swept occasionally by ice avalanches discharged from a hanging glacier and we hurried across a level stretch, which was strewn with fallen ice blocks. The way became rougher. Presently, there came into view an unknown mountain to the west, about 23,000 feet high, situated between Wedge Peak and the North-West Ridge of Kangchenjunga, on the watershed of the western tributary of the Kangchenjunga Glacier and the Ramthang Glacier. Between it and Wedge Peak a steep glacier flows downwards to join the main ice stream of the Kangchenjunga Glacier. It is a serene and stately mountain, with icy ridges converging to a summit of purest snow. So impressed were we by its beauty, that we named it Madonna Peak. This name was, however, subsequently changed by Professor Dyhrenfurth to Ramthang Peak.
The Indian Survey authorities have wisely decided to adhere to native nomenclature in the Himalayas. They are justified in doing so by the fate that has overtaken the peaks of the American and Canadian Rockies, where anyone with any pretensions to fame, and sometimes none at all save to be the first to tread a summit, has dubbed his name (or it has been dubbed by admirers) to inoffensive mountain tops. Only in very exceptional cases is there any justification for this. Among these may be mentioned the case of a member of the Alpine Club (Mr LS Amery), who, hearing that a peak had been named after him, considered it his duty to make the first ascent.
We were anxious to see round the corner of The Twins, and up the Eastern Tributary Glacier to the North Ridge, but soon we saw that the glacier dropped so steeply above its junction with the main ice stream of the Kangchenjunga Glacier that no view would be obtained until we had mounted some distance up it.
The first object was to find a suitable place for Camp One. It was necessary to camp out of the range of ice avalanches from The Twins and Kangchenjunga. The most level site for a camp was under the cliffs of The Twins, but as this was by no means safe, we were forced to pitch camp some way out on the glacier itself. Here the glacier was very rough, and there were several crevasses near the camp artfully concealed by snow. Professor Dyhrenfurth fell into one of them up to the waist. It was a deep one, and he was unroped. Had all the snow-bridge given way, the odds are he would have been killed.
A few yards from the camp we discovered another deep crevasse running in the direction of the camp itself. Determined probing, however, failed to reveal any crevasse actually under the camp, so that there seemed reasonable hope that we would not disappear into the bowels of the glacier in the middle of the night.
We were a happy party in camp that evening. Happier than we had ever been at the Base Camp. The feeling of lassitude so often experienced at the Base Camp had disappeared; we felt fitter and stronger. Most important of all, we were sheltered by Ramthang and Wedge Peaks from the abominable afternoon winds. Only an occasional puff stirred along the snowy surface of the glacier. Higher it was different. Far above, the icy bastions of Kangchenjunga jutting defiantly out into space thousands of feet above our heads like the prows of some ghostly midaerial fleet were being lashed by tortuous columns of snow spray. Thin shreds and sinuous tendrils of blown snow writhed from the crest of the North Ridge. Sometimes they would rise steadily, like smoke from a factory chimney on a calm day, the next moment they would be captured by the vortex of a local whirlwind, and drawn upwards convulsively, to vanish into the deepening purple of the evening sky.
Excerpted with permission from The Great Himalayan Ascents, by Frank S Smythe, Speaking Tiger.
