We selected this spot to make our camp, and a very cold camp it was, too. We pitched our tent alongside a big rock, and with fuel we had brought [[74]]up, tried, after sundown, to make a fire inside the tent in order to keep ourselves warm. But we were nearly suffocated by the smoke. During the night, while my men were asleep—and the fire gone out—I changed the plates in three magazine cameras, forty-eight plates altogether; a job which with semi-frozen and trembling fingers, and careful packing of negatives already exposed, took me the best part of two hours. Indeed, one of the great tortures of exploration in cold climates, is the immense care with which one must nurse one’s surveying and other instruments under most adverse circumstances, and the inexpressible trouble which photography, if done seriously, involves. For similar kind of work I always found plates infinitely more reliable than films; but, of course, with them the use of a red lantern becomes imperative, and often leads to the use of a good deal of bad language. If you adopt an oil-lantern the oil gets frozen into a solid mass, and it is somewhat troublesome to keep the lantern burning, whereas candles have other disadvantages. As for feeling the film side with your fingers, and changing plates in the dark, it is, of course, out of the question when your hands are too cold.
Author’s Camp, Nepal
Maybe another hint when mountaineering at [[75]]great altitudes will be useful to you. Never use a waterproof sleeping-bag, such as those you see advertised and recommended, as the very thing you want on a mountain. If you do, and the night is a cold one, you will find yourself and your blankets soaked in condensed moisture from the heat of your body coming in contact with the cold waterproof sheet, through which it is unable to escape. Of course it is wise to use a waterproof sheet to lie on under one’s blankets.
On that particular night, feeling extra cold and not thinking of consequences, I wrapped myself up, over my blankets, in a waterproof. The results were disastrous. Everything got drenched, and, when I got up, blankets and clothes became solid sheets of ice! [[76]]
CHAPTER VIII
Having seen that all my instruments were in good condition, I selected about a dozen of my strongest men to accompany me on my ascent on one of the Lumpa peaks. It had been sleeting and snowing during the night, and when I roused my men shortly before five in the morning there was a thick mist which seemed to penetrate to the very marrow of one’s bones. With chattering teeth and a chilly nose, we got all things ready, and brewed a parting cup of hot tea, after which we set out on our errand, the other men remaining to take care of the camp.
Every now and then the wind cleared the mist, and we could see a bright, clear sky above us which gave us hope that we might have a fine day. I am not a believer in early rising; as a rule eight or nine o’clock is my favourite hour for starting on a [[77]]march, when the sun is already high above the horizon. You then start off in comfort, instead of waking with an angry feeling that you are being done out of some hours’ sleep. On this occasion, however, we had such a long distance to cover, and in all probability troublesome and dangerous marching before us, that I wished to have as many hours of daylight before me as possible.
No sooner had we started, following the main glacier in a direction of 120°, than a thick fog set in which made progress somewhat troublesome. It seemed to get thicker and thicker as we were rising higher upon the glacier. We had to find our way among numerous pits and crevasses. We kept as close together as was practicable, but we were not roped together. It has ever been my rule when mountaineering that every man must look after himself. I take all sensible precautions to avoid all accidents, and collective accidents in particular. If there has to be a mishap, which is not likely, and some unfortunate man slips into a crevasse, do not let him by any means drag down the whole party, as is frequently the case when roped together. Besides, the rope in itself is a great hindrance to one’s progress, and on very rough marching exhausts much of the traveller’s strength, [[78]]being either too tight or too slack, and always getting in the way when it should not.