GODDESS OF THE MOUNTAINS
01 April 2018
My Indian friends insist Sharda was a university in ancient times. I, however, find no reference to a school at the site. Sources only mention the temple. Nor, too, did I find any archaeological trace in the area around the temple compound.
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| The ruins of the Sharda Temple |
Up in the valley of the Kishanganga (duly Islamised to Neelam) River, in the elbow where the Madhumati flows into it from the south-east, the ruined Sharda temple sits on a hill above the village named after the temple.
Read more »Labels: Heritage, Kashmir Diaries, Mountains
posted by Salman Rashid @ 11:40,
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On Mintaka
29 April 2017
Labels: Gilgit–Baltistan, Mintaka, Mountains, Northern Pakistan, Urdu
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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God on a mountain
06 February 2017
Nazir Sabir, Pakistan’s foremost mountaineer and the first Pakistani Everest summiteer, says as a young man he was driven by the desire to climb peaks to see what lay on the far side. Shahid Zaidi, first-class rock climber, mountaineer and unmatchable mountainscape photographer climbed for the joy of it, for the feeling of freedom on a rock face or atop a summit. Elsewhere, someone is believed to have said they climbed the mountain ‘because it was there’.
High, snow-draped peaks are the ultimate wilderness of the world. To enter their realm is to know the true anxiety-making adventure. On those pristine white slopes where the climber is alone against the elements, he is a hair’s breadth from life-threatening perils. There a false step that can send him plummeting thousands of metres is not the only danger; the piles of avalanche-ready snow and ice are an equal and endless dread. The unseen crevasse, deceitfully lying in wait under its thin cover is the killer; and the unpredictable and sudden wind, sleet and snow, a very real threat.
Read more »Labels: Mountaineering, Mountains
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Climbers’ hangouts
22 October 2015
There would be white people from places you did not even know existed, some Japanese and Korean, and a couple of Pakistanis. The talk, mostly in English, was generally about mountaineering and trekking. Great tales were swapped, new trekking routes were bandied around and sometimes immortal friendships were cemented. I think that is where I met Matthew (French) and Mareille (German) who later married and even came to stay with us in Lahore. We kept in touch long after the couple had left Pakistan and settled in Thailand and were having babies. But I lost contact after I changed my email address because the old server went defunct.
Read more »Labels: Mountains, Northern Pakistan, Travel
posted by Salman Rashid @ 08:59,
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Pakistan International Mountain Film Festival
22 June 2015
Hassan Karrar, is thin as a rail, stands six and a half feet tall and teaches history at LUMS. He walks with a long step and is known in Baltistan as ‘lumbi tango walla’ – long-legged man. At Pakistan International Mountain Film Festival he and I talked of the philosophy of mountaineering and the question of ‘conquering’ peaks.
First things first. No one conquers peaks. We conquer enemies; not peaks. The only thing anyone has ever conquered attempting a summit is their own fears. That’s all.
Read more »Labels: About, Between Two Burrs on the Map Travels in Northern Pakistan, Books, Guest Speaker, Mountaineering, Mountains, Salman Rashid, Salt Range, The Apricot Road to Yarkand
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Mountains' Might
05 June 2013
This became my favourite haunt after this episode. Every other Friday (we had Friday and Saturday off in those days) I would be here with a small haversack, the military kind got 'on payment' from an Air Defense regiment in Malir, that contained my food and water. In the beginning it was only a day's dash out and back to get the bus back to Karachi. But then I found a place where a bend in the river (it is the Malir) had gouged out a deep pond filled with clear, emerald water in which I could see fish. This became my haunt. I would come out here all by myself and spend the night by this pond sleeping on a rock that was large and flat enough for me to lie on. I would eat whatever I had brought out with me and in the morning cook tea with water from the pond. Then I would bathe in it and walk back.
Read more »Labels: Mountains
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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On my way back from Mintaka Pass
12 May 2013
The best way to go is by one’s own shanks or one’s own wheels. Riding camels, donkeys, horses what have you is unnatural business: if Nature had meant humans to ride these creatures, She would have fitted the beasts with handle bars. On a bicycle the handle bar lets you steer quickly this way or that and you can hold on to it in order to prevent a fall in case someone knocks against you or if you have to brake very hard.
You can hardly tell that inside these boots I have bleeding feet
But what is a flimsy bridle? It cannot keep the rider steady. It cannot prevent a fall and I have never been able to figure out how polo players and other equestrian experts bloody well stay in the freaking saddle.
Read more »Labels: Gilgit–Baltistan, Mintaka, Mountains, Northern Pakistan, Travel
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Hill Walker’s Requiem
10 May 2013
If nightfall is the hour of the ebbing of the spirit, dawn rejuvenates. At shortly after four, I peeked out of my tent to see a glorious star-studded sky with a hint of a pastel dawn in the east. The agonising chafing of my blisters with every single step yesterday was forgotten and I was ready to press on in my quest of Mintaka Pass. The Killik was no longer within my reach, that much I knew with certainty.
An hour later I roused my young companions. Irfan and Amanullah had slept in the shepherd’s hut of Murkushi and word was that it was infested with cockroaches. As they cooked dinner, they had seen the creatures crawling about the walls and into the many holes between the stones. One of the trio from Misgar that had joined us the previous evening had baked a loaf of bread and left it in the pot uncovered. In the morning it was found crawling with virtually hundreds of those horrid insects.
Labels: Gilgit–Baltistan, Mintaka, Mountains, Northern Pakistan
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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