The K2 Man (And his Molluscs): The Extraordinary Life of Haversham Godwin-Austen
22 February 2017
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| Henry Haversham Godwin-Austen |
If early Victorian map-makers and explorers in northern Indian and high Asia were mysterious, shadowy figures, Henry Haversham Godwin-Austen was rather unlike them. Not that his work was any less significant than that of, say, William Moorcroft or George Hayward (both died tragically in remote regions); indeed, the quality and quantum of Godwin-Austen’s work is phenomenal. But unlike others, Godwin-Austen was fortunate to brave all and come home to retirement — unfortunately not as glorious as one would wish for a man of his accomplishments.
This current biography, the first-ever of this great mountaineer explorer, by Catherine Moorehead, is a much belated but useful piece of work. It is useful because outside the circle of mountaineers and students of the history of exploration and mapping in the Himalaya-Karakoram-Hindu Kush region, Godwin-Austen is all but unknown. Now for the first time we know there is much more to this name than it being appended to the mountain K2.
Born in 1834, Godwin-Austen was commissioned from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst as a subaltern in 1851 before moving out to India. At Sandhurst, Godwin-Austen, the artist of remarkable exactitude, had come into notice and it took only six years of service — most of it in Burma — before the young man was seconded to the Kashmir Survey at Srinagar. There began a quarter century of the most meritorious service to unravelling the geography and topography of the greatest knot of mountains on Earth.
Labels: Adventure, Book Review, Books, Travel
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Trek through the Himalaya, Karakorum and the Hindu Kush
04 February 2015
"Let's go, let's go. The donkey is here," said the foul smelling man impatiently as he burst into the room at precisely seven o'clock in the morning. Mohammed Rafi, the drover, spoke only his native Brushaski and owned a perky little animal that trotted along and within minutes we had left Darkot behind.
Two hours later as we passed the village of Umalsat I suggested we stop for tea. Rafi pointed into the distance where, he said, was the house of some uncle who was waiting for us with tea and something to eat. We carried on for another two hours in the course of which I repeated my suggestion at least twice to be met with the same response on both occasions. Finally I tried another angle.
"Where is your uncle's house?" I asked.
"In Darkot," came the bland reply.
"You fool, you mean there is no uncle up front?"
"Uncle. Yes." he said pointing into the distance.
"Screw your uncle. We're stopping right here to make some tea," I said.
"No, no. We'll have tea at uncle's house," he protested.
Read more »Labels: Adventure, Between Two Burrs on the Map Travels in Northern Pakistan, Books, Gilgit–Baltistan, Himalayas, Hindu Kush, Karakoram, Northern Pakistan, Trekking
posted by Salman Rashid @ 08:00,
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Ishkoman Valley
26 January 2015
The jeep ride from Imit to Chatorkhand took two hours, where the last jeep for Ishkoman had left "five minutes ago". I found the fly blown tea shop and drank my tea with about two dozen men staring at me while they diligently scratched their crotches and between squirts of spit told each other that I was an Angrez. Then one of them ventured a tentative query (in English) to which I replied in Punjabi, which of course was not understood by anyone but which told them that I was not what they had imagined.
Labels: Adventure, Between Two Burrs on the Map Travels in Northern Pakistan, Books, Gilgit–Baltistan, Northern Pakistan
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Between Two Burrs on the Map - Travels in Northern Pakistan
19 January 2015
Salim Mushtaq, working for a tour operator in Islamabad, had a load of what he called "soft tourists" from Germany to drop off at the check post and his sobriquet for them was as apposite as any. The girls all had manicured and freshly polished nails and prim hairdos, while the men were all meticulously shaven. Their neatly pressed clothes advertised the best fashion designers of Europe and the interior of the coach reeked with a profusion of Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci and Cartier. I, with my shorn head, frayed collar and discoloured patch covering the tear on the seat of my only pair of trousers, certainly did not belong with this lot.
They stared dumbly out of the windows, occasionally ordering the coach to be stopped in order to scramble outside to show off their expensive still and video cameras. The lot went absolutely bananas as we came abreast with the white tongue of the Passu Glacier, ending about five hundred metres short of the road. The coach was stopped and the cameras clicked and whirred long and hard amid a babble of excitement. Seated once more they were as grim faced as before and I could not help thinking that they probably felt as wretched as I did on the scree slopes of Shimshal.
Read more »Labels: Adventure, Between Two Burrs on the Map Travels in Northern Pakistan, Books, Gilgit–Baltistan, Northern Pakistan
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Lonely at Shimshal
14 January 2015
We had barely finished breakfast at Azizullah's house when Khushal Khan arrived to lead us home to another breakfast, after which he presented us with a huge loaf of dildungi -- the oven baked leavened bread, for our journey to Passu. Then with the two of them at the head of a procession comprising the entire male population of Shimshal village (except the headman) we were lead out beyond the corn fields. A round of frenzied hand shakes and bear hugs and we were alone in the dusty landscape.
Dawar clomped sullenly along and I drowsily followed, trying not to think of the heat that was pouring out of the clear sky. Suddenly I stopped in my tracks, wide awake. There in the dust before us were the tracks of a bicycle! It was imbecility to bring this machine into Shimshal for it could not be ridden more than ten metres without the rider having to dismount to carry it over a ditch or a stone wall. But it was there. This was perhaps another sign of the times; a sign of the decay of Pakistani society, where acquisitions were made without any consideration whatsoever of functionability. This bicycle was as grand a status symbol in Shimshal as the fancy Japanese four wheel drive vehicles were in the bigger cities of the country -- and with as much use.
Read more »Labels: Adventure, Between Two Burrs on the Map Travels in Northern Pakistan, Books, Gilgit–Baltistan, Northern Pakistan
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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The Great Asiatic Watershed
07 January 2015
We did not notice the two yak caravan until it had sloshed into the frigid Braldu. Soon they were in mid stream, struggling to keep their footing against the strong current and then they hauled themselves out, their shaggy coats dripping in a thousand little streamlets. Azizullah, freshly shaven and dressed in a natty pink sweat suit rode the one in front while the dark Tibetan faced Zaman Khan brought up the rear. It was eight forty five in the morning; Azizullah was fifteen minutes ahead of schedule -- without doubt one of the few times in Pakistan that an appointment had been kept with punctuality in mind.
Dawar and I clambered atop the equipment after it had been properly secured while Azizullah and Zaman clung to the animals on the lee side. The river that had, from the banks, seemed languid and shallow was very fast and almost a metre and a half deep. The yaks grunted ominously as they strained against the current, with them Azizullah and his mate exerted equally, not only to maintain their hold against the pressure of the flow but also to guide them in the shortest line to the other side, for the ungainly beasts tended to head into the current.
Read more »Labels: Adventure, Between Two Burrs on the Map Travels in Northern Pakistan, Books, Gilgit–Baltistan, Northern Pakistan
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Celebration at Lukpe La
31 December 2014
"If you do not get underway before three in the morning the slog will be extremely difficult for the snow on Sim Gang turns to mush by mid morning." Mark had warned me. But I had found this a most unsavoury proposition, particularly when the night had been so dreadfully cold that even my companions, acclimatised as they were, found it difficult to get started. It was not before the sun had warmed up the camp site that Khushal Khan emerged from the tent to start breakfast.
Mark had been absolutely right. For the first three hours or so the going was good over firm snow then we ran into the mush. This was the snow that had fallen when we were confined to the shepherds' hut south of Skoro La, and it provided a deceptive covering to the crevasses of Sim Gang. I was at the end of the rope with Azizullah leading, and by the time I stepped on these frail snow bridges, most were ready to collapse. Twice I found myself hanging above a dark abyss with a deathly cold breeze wafting up from the unseen depths.
Read more »Labels: Adventure, Between Two Burrs on the Map Travels in Northern Pakistan, Books, Gilgit–Baltistan, Northern Pakistan
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Between Two Burrs on the Map
25 December 2014
Long before the first European ventured into the heart of the Karakorums these barren gorges and the high, wind swept passes connecting them were being traversed by the Indians and Chinese. Most of them were merchants plying their caravans of trade, some were Buddhist pilgrims from China seeking Nirvana by doing obeisance at the many sites in India connected with the great Buddha. And there were roving bands of brigands and freebooters from the states of Hunza and Nagar lying to the north west of Askole and separated from it by a system of glaciers.
These marauders and their ruthless depredatory raids kept the people of Askole in constant dread. In the middle ages when summer ice conditions permitted travel over the Hispar-Biafo glacial system connecting Askole with Nagar, these raids were very frequent with the looters periodically swarming out of the gorge of the Biafo to drive away cattle and slaves over the glaciers to their country.
Read more »Labels: Adventure, Between Two Burrs on the Map Travels in Northern Pakistan, Books, Gilgit–Baltistan, Northern Pakistan
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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World's End
15 December 2014
Northeast of Skardu, on the right bank of a stream that flows with the colour of molten slate lies the small village of Askole. Here the seemingly interminable web of glaciers punctuated by a jumble of great, icy peaks takes over and spreads north and eastward as far away as the deserts of Tartary and the Tibetan plateau. Askole has been referred to as "World's End", for that is what it truly is -- the last village before an endless wilderness.
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| Entrance to Askole [Image from the Apricot Road to Yarkan] |
Labels: Adventure, Between Two Burrs on the Map Travels in Northern Pakistan, Books, Gilgit–Baltistan, Northern Pakistan
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Little Tibet
08 December 2014
"Baltistan consists exclusively of rocks, streams and dried apricots" wrote Crowley, the mountaineer-magician. What he somehow missed was the curious juxtaposition of jagged snow peaks towering above the rippled sand dunes that march along the Indus River. The only other spot on the globe where this unusual combination of sand dunes and snow peaks can be found is the Chinese province of Xinjiang.
To mediaeval Tibetans the Indus was the Lion River for they believed it rose in Singhi ka Bab, the Mouth of the Lion, somewhere on the western shores of Lake Mansarowar at the foot of sacred Mount Kailas in Western Tibet. And it truly is a lion of a river as it thunders northwest through Ladakh and Baltistan, roiling, crashing, pounding rock into sand, spewing forth clouds of mist, occasionally claiming the odd human or animal sacrifice as it cuts, ever so imperceptibly, deeper into the chasm it has carved for itself over the eons.
Read more »Labels: Adventure, Between Two Burrs on the Map Travels in Northern Pakistan, Books, Gilgit–Baltistan, Northern Pakistan
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Wilderness of the Giant
03 December 2014
I had met Captain Mukhtar at Mount Balore Hotel where he had been waiting for someone and had got to talking with me. He had said the Deosai was still under snow, but he nevertheless offered to help: he would see what he could do to organise porters in case a horse was available neither at Astore nor at Chillam Chauki, the last habitation before the great wilderness of the plateau. Moreover, he offered accommodation both at Astore and at Chillam Chauki.
Jaglot was in the grip of a minor sandstorm when I arrived. It seemed to belong to some desert, but having incongruously been placed in that nameless land between the Himalaya and Karakorum Mountains, was living an uncertain life clenched within those brown and grey walls. The town itself was hidden away in a grove of trees but the army billets were arrogantly spread out on the sandy shelf bordering the Indus. I was warmly received, fed a lunch of stewed vegetables and put on a truck for Astore. We crossed the Indus on a skimpy looking suspension bridge and were soon in Shaitan Nala -- the Devil's Gorge. Neither the driver nor any of the soldiers could tell me if it got this appellation for its unbearable summer heat or the many rock slides that rake its dusty slopes.
Read more »Labels: Adventure, Between Two Burrs on the Map Travels in Northern Pakistan, Books, Gilgit–Baltistan, Northern Pakistan
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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'Horse Trading'
26 November 2014
Bashir arrived with Riaz who, he said, was a "brother". This could have meant that he was anything from a cousin thrice removed, to someone who simply lived in the same village. The loads were arranged, some last minute shopping done and we set off just before eleven with Bashir making dark observations about this being no way of running an expedition. From years of being a guide for Westerners, Bashir was almost de-culturised: he did not look upon his work as something to be done with quickly and his clients as useless baggage to be escorted from one point to another. He enjoyed being in the mountains, had a healthy respect for them and felt there was a bond between man and mountain. Riaz, on the other hand, had never been a porter and was a morbid fatalist who began every sentence with, "If tomorrow we live, if death does not overtake us...." considered it madness to be walking to Chilas when we could easily have taken the bus from Mansehra.
Past the clump of red roofed buildings that are the Tourism Corporation's resort we tramped into a broadening valley with fields lush with the vibrant green of young wheat, where women gave up whatever they were doing to shout greetings to Bashir and Riaz. Sometimes there were protracted discussions about how far they were going and when they would return. It defied explanation how both parties could make themselves heard above the roar of the river. Thus it was for the next three and a half hours until we got to Battakundi.
Read more »Labels: Adventure, Between Two Burrs on the Map Travels in Northern Pakistan, Books, Gilgit–Baltistan, Northern Pakistan
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Between Two Burrs on the Map - Epilogue
17 November 2014
By six in the evening we had left Golain Valley and were on the jeep that the mad mullah drove as though we were being pursued by all the demons of hell.
"After a journey of three and half months and over a thousand kilometres the slaty waters of the Yarkhun River are not the most appropriate of ends." I said to Thun Khan. He laughed and we got to Chitral without mishap. But there was no air ticket waiting as had been promised -- I was consigned to the sixteen hour bus ride over the winding Lowari Pass to Peshawar.
The driver who had promised to leave at four in the morning was still asleep at five. Nevertheless, fourteen hours and three buses later I was in Peshawar. But just as the rickshaw trundled into the station the night train to Lahore was pulling out. Someone shouted that we could still catch it at the outer station and for the first time I felt thankful to whoever had invented the rickshaw. It is the only mode of transport that can go over and under other vehicles, into the gutters and out again and defy gravity in several different manners as it attempts to get from one place to the other.
It was a muggy dawn with remnants of the monsoon persisting cloyingly in the thick air of Lahore. In the foyer of the railway station I paused to stuff my ice axe and rope into my rucksack. I had unwittingly stopped near a pair of taxi drivers: pot bellied, unkempt, unshaven, scratching their groins and spitting all over the place.
"Hey, is he an Angrez?" I heard one asking the other.
"Don't be silly. Ever seen such a dark Angrez," came the reply.
"But he's got all the stuff that the Angrez carries." This made some sense. The other one came towards me with one hand still on his groin.
"Taxi, Sur. Pearl Continental. Four hundred rupees," he tried. Ye gads, four hundred rupees for four kilometres!
"Hey, is he an Angrez?" I heard one asking the other.
"Don't be silly. Ever seen such a dark Angrez," came the reply.
"But he's got all the stuff that the Angrez carries." This made some sense. The other one came towards me with one hand still on his groin.
"Taxi, Sur. Pearl Continental. Four hundred rupees," he tried. Ye gads, four hundred rupees for four kilometres!
"Oy Angrez, teri bhen di siri!" one of them called after me and they both guffawed.
Hey White Man, your sister's head. As Punjabi invectives go this one is almost innocuous; something that could only have been invented by Lahoris.
Labels: Adventure, Between Two Burrs on the Map Travels in Northern Pakistan, Books, Gilgit–Baltistan, Northern Pakistan
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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