IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Southern Tibet : vol.7 |
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Citation Information
THE KARA-KORUM GLACIERS.
235
granite. Two cone-shaped peaks (K 3 and K 3a), or Gusherbrum, were visible ahead. Higher up on the glacier he saw »the great Peak K 2 on the watershed of Asia! — the worthy culminating point of a range whence those waters have their sources which drain such vast regions. The elevation of Peak K 2, as determined by Capt. T. G. Montgomerie, R. E., is 28,265 feet.» I
The Biaho glacier he estimates to be 35 miles long. The Biafo, on which he made a short trip, he estimates at 4o miles in length. Then he went down the Braldoh valley, passing Hoh Loombah with a large glacier, and had a dangerous crossing of the river Braldoh in skin-rafts.
Regarding the Braldoh trackways, GODWIN-AUSTEN gives us some interesting information.
The principal exit from the Braldoh valley is that to Yarkund over the Mustakh. According to the reports given me , the glacier on the northern side is as long as that on the southern, but in my opinion the journey would be longer, as I do not think that the way lies down its main stream, but that the main body of the ice would be towards the great Peak K 2, with another from the Peaks of Nobundi Sobundi. About four marches from the Mustakh Pass a track branches off to the westward, up a lateral stream, and over a ridge to the Hunzè river, by which the Braldoh people have often gone, as being safer than by Nagayr ... .
Many years ago the main traffic lay up the Baltoro glacier, twelve miles east of the present Mustakh pass. The former pass became impracticable owing to the great increase of snow.
On August 28th he started for the Basha branch of the Shigar River, visited Arundu and went up on the glacier of Chogo or Basha. Of the grand view he enjoyed from here he says:2 »To the northwest there was the great glacier of the Basha, with the little village of Arundu at its termination, its fields touching the ice. On the west there was Peak B14, or Haramosh, with its fine summit of eternal snow towering above all the minor cones and from which the lateral feeders in that direction were evidently derived. But the Nushik La and its glaciers were not visible, being shut out by the great intervening mass of ridges, and spurs, and glaciers.»
On September 3rd he made a new start, and went up the valley of the Kèro Loombah. Glaciers from side-valleys now and again close a main valley, by which
I In an article: On the Trigonometrical Survey and Physical Configuration of the Valley of Kashmir, WILLIAM H. PURDON says: »A recent letter from Northern India informs me that Captain Montgomerie has discovered in the Kåråkorum, or Trans-Tibetan Chain, a peak measuring 28,400 feet above the sea; and Colonel Waugh, in his letter to Government, alludes to a peak measuring 28,27o feet above the sea; so that it is probable that here a rival will be found even to Mount Everest itself. We know as yet little of this region. Dr. Thomson ascended the Kdrikorum Pass in 1846. He found it to be 18,66o feet above the sea; a great height for a pass even in the Himalaya.» — Journ. Roy. Geogr. Society. Vol. XXXI. 1861, p. 20.
2 Ibidem, p. 47.
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