Read Annapurna for Free Online

famous Tilicho Pass was not where it was marked.
    Meanwhile our path skirted the cliffs. Looking down through the conifers we could barely make out the wild, rumbling waters of the Krishna Gandaki; tremendous waterfalls gushed here and there from the limestone cliffs. We gained height imperceptibly, and realized it by the party’s heavier step and slower pace.
    At Ghasa it began to get chilly, for we were now about 6500 feet up, with another 1600 feet to climb up to Tukucha. There were no longer any bananas or rice, only a few poor-looking crops, mostly barley. A little further on we saw the upper slopes of Dhaulagiri, streaked with blue ice. The south-east ridge running down towards us, of which we had had some hope, extended endlessly, as sharp as the blade of a knife and bristling with ice pinnacles and snow cornices – absolutely impregnable, as seen from here.
    We all craned our necks to get a view of the gigantic walls which disappeared nearly four miles up into the clouds and the blue sky. The rock was dark brown, the snow dazzling, and the light so intense it made us blink. To try to pick out a route seemed presumptuous. Nevertheless we couldn’t hide our pleasure, so happy were we to be in the mountains and able, from now on, to devote ourselves to the real object of the whole expedition. As for myself, I should at last be able to give up a role which was more that of a carrier or impresario than leader of a mountaineering expedition.
    At Lete we passed, with some surprise and feeling, through a pine-wood which reminded us astonishingly of our own mountains – the same trees, the same scattered blocks of granite and cool mosses. I could not know that two months later this beautiful idyllic place would witness my sufferings.
    We came out on to a long stony plain formed during the centuries by the impetuous and irregular flow of the Gandaki which had cut a colossal corridor right through the great Himalayan chain. Tremendous gales blew down this funnel and held up our advance. These hurricanes rage all the year round, and prevent any kind of growth. Columns of dust were whirled up into the air, the wind howled round this gloomy, rocky inferno, and Ichac, who was protecting himself as best he could, yelled in my ear, ‘We might be in the Karakoram!’
    The barefoot coolies doubled themselves up and kept together in tight little groups for mutual protection. Everyone was in a hurry to reach Tukucha.
    Angtharkay soon felt quite at home. He is an ardent Buddhist and he had just caught sight of Larjung with sacred streamers flying from its housetops, their prayers agitated by the wind.
    In the distance, at the far end of the stony desert, we could see a village gay with hundreds of prayer masts and encircled by what looked like fortifications.
    ‘Tukucha, Sahib!’
    We all hurried on, forded the swirling torrent – the Dambush Khola, of which we shall hear more later – and so made our entry into Tukucha.
    There were, after all, far fewer people than we had expected. Numbers of dirty children surrounded us, observing our every move with curiosity, and playing about in the water conduit in the middle of the village in which the women washed their pots and got the water for their tea. The old men remained on their doorsteps, suspicious and mistrustful of these white men who were here with such obscure intentions. We were through the village in a few minutes, and before us lay an open stretch. On a Buddhist temple with rose-coloured walls flags flapped in the wind. Although it was not a very prepossessing spot, and was made rather gloomy by a naked grey cliff rising above it, it was the only suitable place for our camp.
    The preliminary marches were now over. The date was April 21st and we had taken just over a fortnight to travel practically right across Nepal.
    1 A large river, a tributary of the Ganges, which we were to follow to Tukucha (map, see here ).
    2 See maps, see here and here .

3
    The Hidden Valley
    THE