Cho-Uyo.
On June 25 we crossed the stream at Chöbuk. Tibetan bridges are so constructed as to offer the passenger ample opportunities of experiencing the sensation of insecurity and contemplating the possibilities of disaster. This one was no exception. We had no wish to risk our stores, and it was planned that the beasts should swim. They were accordingly unladen and driven with yell and blow by a willing crowd, until one more frightened than the rest plunged into the torrent and the others followed. We now found ourselves on the right bank of the Rongbuk stream, and knew we had but to follow it up to reach the glacier at the head of the valley. An hour or so above Chöbuk we entered a gorge with high red cliffs above us on the left. Below them was a little space of fertile ground where the moisture draining down from the limestone above was caught before it reached the stream—a green ribbon stretched along the margin with grass and low bushes, yellow-flowering asters, rhododendrons and juniper. I think we had never seen anything so green since we came up on to the tableland of Tibet. It was a day of brilliant sunshine, as yet warm and windless. The memory of Alpine meadows came into my mind. I remembered their manifold allurements; I could almost smell the scent of pines. Now I was filled with the desire to lie here in this “oasis” and live at ease and sniff the clean fragrance of mountain plants. But we went on, on and up the long valley winding across a broad stony bay; and all the stony hillsides under the midday sun were alike monotonously dreary. At length we followed the path up a steeper rise crowned by two chortens between which it passes. We paused here in sheer astonishment. Perhaps we had half expected to see Mount Everest at this moment. In the back of my mind were a host of questions about it clamouring for answer. But the sight of it now banished every thought. We forgot the stony wastes and regrets for other beauties. We asked no questions and made no comment, but simply looked.
It is perhaps because Everest presented itself so dramatically on this occasion that I find the Northern aspect more particularly imaged in my mind, when I recall the mountain. But in any case this aspect has a special significance. The Rongbuk Valley is well constructed to show off the peak at its head; for about 20 miles it is extraordinarily straight and in that distance rises only 4,000 feet, the glacier, which is 10 miles long, no more steeply than the rest. In consequence of this arrangement one has only to be raised very slightly above the bed of the valley to see it almost as a flat way up to the very head of the glacier from which the cliffs of Everest spring. To the place where Everest stands one looks along rather than up. The glacier is prostrate; not a part of the mountain; not even a pediment; merely a floor footing the high walls. At the end of the valley and above the glacier Everest rises not so much a peak as a prodigious mountain-mass. There is no complication for the eye. The highest of the world's great mountains, it seems, has to make but a single gesture of magnificence to be lord of all, vast in unchallenged and isolated supremacy. To the discerning eye other mountains are visible, giants between 23,000 and 26,000 feet high. Not one of their slenderer heads even reaches their chief's shoulder; beside Everest they escape notice—such is the pre-eminence of the greatest.
Considered as a structure Mount Everest is seen from the Rongbuk Valley to achieve height with amazing simplicity. The steep wall 10,000 feet high is contained between two colossal members—to the left the North-eastern arête, which leaves the summit at a gentle angle and in a distance of about half a mile descends only 1,000 feet before turning more sharply downwards from a clearly defined shoulder; and to the right the North-west arête (its true direction is about W.N.W.), which comes down steeply from the summit but makes up for the weaker nature of this support by immense length below. Such is the broad plan. In one respect it is modified. The wide angle between the two main arêtes involves perhaps too long a face; a further support is added. The Northern face is brought out a little below the North-east shoulder and then turned back to meet the crest again, so that from the point of the shoulder a broad arête leads down to the North and is connected by a snow col at about 23,000 feet with a Northern wing of mountains which forms the right bank of the Rongbuk Glacier and to some extent masks the view of the lower parts of Everest. Nothing could be stronger than this arrangement and it is nowhere fantastic. We do not see jagged crests and a multitude of pinnacles, and beautiful as such ornament may be we do not miss it. The outline is comparatively smooth because the stratification is horizontal, a circumstance which seems again to give strength, emphasising the broad foundations. And yet Everest is a rugged giant. It has not the smooth undulations of a snow mountain with white snow cap and glaciated flanks. It is rather a great rock mass, coated often with a thin layer of white powder which is blown about its sides, and bearing perennial snow only on the gentler ledges and on several wide faces less steep than the rest. One such place is the long arm of the North-west arête which with its slightly articulated buttresses is like the nave of a vast cathedral roofed with snow. I was, in fact, reminded often by this Northern view of Winchester Cathedral with its long high nave and low square tower; it is only at a considerable distance that one appreciates the great height of this building and the strength which seems capable of supporting a far taller tower. Similarly with Everest; the summit lies back so far along the immense arêtes that big as it always appears one required a distant view to realise its height; and it has no spire though it might easily bear one; I have thought sometimes that a Matterhorn might be piled on the top of Everest and the gigantic structure would support the added weight in stable equanimity.
On June 26 we pitched our tents in full view of Everest and a little way beyond the large monastery of Chöyling which provides the habitations nearest to the mountain, about 16 miles away. After three days' march from the Expedition's headquarters at Tingri we had found the object of our quest and established a base in the Rongbuk Valley, which was to serve us for a month.
The first steps in a prolonged reconnaissance such as we were proposing to undertake were easily determined by topographical circumstances. Neither Bullock nor I was previously acquainted with any big mountains outside the Alps; to our experience in the Alps we had continually to refer, both for understanding this country and for estimating the efforts required to reach a given point in it. The Alps provided a standard of comparison which alone could be our guide until we had acquired some fresh knowledge in the new surroundings. No feature of what we saw so immediately challenged this comparison as the glacier ahead of us; in so narrow a glacier it was hardly surprising that the lower part of it should be covered with stones, but higher the whole surface was white ice, and the white ice came down in a broad stream tapering gradually to a point when it was lost in the waste of the brown grey. What was the meaning of this? Even from a distance it was possible to make out that the white stream contained pinnacles of ice. Was it all composed of pinnacles? Would they prove an insuperable obstacle? In the Alps the main glaciers are most usually highways, the ways offered to the climber for his travelling. Were they not to prove highways here?
Our first expedition was designed to satisfy our curiosity on this head. Allowing a bountiful margin of time for untoward contingencies we set forth on June 27 with five coolies at 3.15 a.m., and made our way up the valley with a good moon to help us. To be tramping under the stars toward a great mountain is always an adventure; now we were adventuring for the first time in a new mountain country which still held in store for us all its surprises and almost all its beauties. It was not our plan at present to make any allowance for the special condition of elevation; we expected to learn how that condition would tell and how to make allowances for the future. We started from our camp at 16,000 feet—above the summit of Mont Blanc—just as we should have left an Alpine hut 6,000 feet lower, and when we took our first serious halt at 7 a.m. had already crossed the narrow end of the glacier. That short experience—an hour or so—was sufficient for the moment. The hummocks of ice covered with stones of all sizes—like the huge waves of a brown angry sea—gave us no chance of ascending the glacier; one might hopefully follow a trough for a little distance but invariably to be stopped by the necessity of mounting once more to a crest and descending again on the other side. Nevertheless, we were not dissatisfied with our progress. We were now in a stream bed between the glacier and its left bank and above the exit of the main glacier stream, which comes out on this side well above the snout. The watercourse offered an opportunity of progress; it was dry almost everywhere and for a bout of leaping from boulder to boulder we were usually rewarded by a space of milder walking on the flat sandy bed. Our pace I considered entirely satisfactory as we went on after breakfast; unconsciously I was led into something like a race by one of the coolies who was pressing along at my side. I noticed that though he was slightly built he seemed extremely strong and active, compact of muscle; but he had not yet learnt the art of walking rhythmically and balancing easily from stone to stone. I wondered how long he would keep up. Presently we came to a corner where our stream bed ended and a small glacier-snout was visible above us apparently descending from the Northwest. We gathered on a high bank of stones to look out over the glacier. I observed now that the whole aspect of the party had changed. The majority were more than momentarily tired, they were visibly suffering from some sort of malaise. It was not yet nine o'clock and we had risen barely 2,000 feet, but their spirits had gone. There were grunts instead of laughter.
The glacier's left bank which we were following was now trending to the right. To the South and standing in front of the great North-west arm of Everest was a comparatively small and very attractive snow peak, perhaps a little less than 21,000 feet high. We had harboured a vague ambition to reach its shoulder, a likely point for prospecting the head of the Rongbuk Glacier. But between us and this objective was a wide stretch of hummocky ice which had every appearance of being something more than a mere bay of the main glacier. We suspected a western branch and proceeded to confirm our suspicion. After a rough crossing below the glacier above us we were fortunate enough to find another trough wider than the first and having a flat sandy bottom where we walked easily enough. Presently leaving the coolies to rest on the edge of the glacier Bullock and I mounted a high stony shoulder, and from there, at 18,500 feet, saw the glacier stretching away to the West, turning sharply below us to rise more steeply than before. Cloud prevented us from distinguishing what appeared to be a high mountain ridge at the far end of it.
It was evident that nothing was to be gained at present by pushing our investigations further to the West. Our curiosity was as yet unsatisfied about those white spires of ice to which our eyes had constantly returned. We declined the alternative of retracing our steps and without further delay set about to cross the glacier. It was now eleven o'clock and we were under no delusion that the task before us would be other than arduous and long. But the reward in interest and valuable information promised to be great, for, by exploring the glacier's right bank during our descent we should learn all we wanted to know before making plans for an advance. And we hoped to be in before dark.
The stone-covered ice on which we first embarked compared favourably with that of our earlier experience before breakfast. The sea, so to speak, was not so choppy; the waves were longer. We were able to follow convenient troughs for considerable distances. But at the bottom of a trough which points whither it will it is impossible to keep a definite direction and difficult to know to what extent one is erring. An hour's hard work was required to bring us to the edge of the white ice. Our first question was answered at a glance. It had always seemed improbable that these were séracs such as one meets on an Alpine icefall, and clearly they were not. We saw no signs of lateral crevasses. The shapes were comparatively conical and regular, not delicately poised but firmly based, safely perpendicular and not dangerously impending. They were the result not of movement but of melting, and it was remarkable that on either side the black ice looked over the white, as though the glacier had sunk in the middle. The pinnacles resembled a topsy-turvy system of colossal icicles, icicles thrust upwards from a common icy mass, the whole resting on a definable floor. The largest were about 50 feet high.