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
UNKNOWN REGIONS IN THE KARA-KORUM.
Ÿ:;
453
the Indian and the Central Asian systems of drainage. For a hundred miles east of K2 there is no pass over this range known to the natives, and when Dr. Longstaff set out to explore the region last spring his aim was to cross the Karakoram range by a pass named the Saltoro, the existence of which was based upon tradition only, and the position of which was doubtful.'
Then we are told of the discovery of the old Saltoro Pass (1 8,200 feet).
On the further side an immense glacier was seen turning south, piercing the main Kara-korum Range, and being an important feeder of the Indus. The Upper Indus was therefore found not to be limited by the Kara-korum Range. The glacier was about 48 miles long, 1 o miles longer than the Biafo which so far had been regarded as the largest of the Kara-korum.
The perpetual solitude of these high glacial valleys is brought home to us when we reflect that the greatest glacier outside polar regions had not been seen by living man till Dr. Longstaff's party reached it, and that though it has been for centuries one of the main sources of our river Indus, it has been unknown to geography till 1909.
Finally we are told about the sensational discovery of an immense chain of mountains situated to the north of this glacier, »a chain that is not shown upon any map». Its highest peak visible was measured from three places by Longstaff, »and its height appears to be between 2 7, 500 and 28,000 feet. This height is only surpassed by four known peaks. No mountain exceeding 27,000 feet in altitude has been discovered since 1858, and the elevations of the only mountains hitherto found to surpass 27,000 feet were all brought to light by the scientific operations of the Great Trigonometrical Survey. Dr. Longstaff has named the newly discovered peak Teram-Kangri. Here, therefore, a discovery had been made that exceeded everything in the way of records in altitude for 51 years.
In the same periodical Dr. Longstaff had an article on The Saltoro Pass.
He regards the Kara-korum Range as a very unpromising field for mountaineers. Pioneer Peak was the highest actual summit which had been gained. What he calls the »eastern section of the Karakoram», was, however, very little known. He says:2
East of the Baltoro basin the main water-parting of the Karakoram has never been attained, much less crossed, by any European, until the Karakoram Pass itself is reached. In this region there is still an area of some three or four thousand square miles which has never been entered by any European and the mapping of which is still quite conjectural. Native report and tradition, however, indicate the former existence of a passage in this direction from Baltistan to Yarkand known as the Saltoro Pass, and it was to find this that I set myself in the summer of 1909.
He mentions the travellers who have approached »this almost Arctic wilderness of mountains» : VIGNE 1835, HENRY STRACHEY 1848, HAYWARD 1868, YOUNG-HUSBAND 1889.
I Alpine Journal. February 191o. Vol. XXV, p. 38 et seq. 2 Alpine Journal. May 1911, p. 485 et seq.
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