Besides the branch which we had already explored the Rongbuk Glacier has yet another which joins the main stream from the East about 10 miles from Everest. It had always excited our curiosity, and I now proposed to explore it in the initial stages of a journey across the unknown ridges and valleys which separated us from Kharta. I calculated that we should want eight days' provisions, and that we should just have time to organise a camp in advance and start on the 25th with a selected party, sending down the rest to join Howard-Bury. And it was an integral part of the scheme that on one of the intervening days I should ascend a spur to the North of the glacier where we proposed to march in order to obtain a better idea of this country to the East. But we were now in the thickest of the monsoon weather; the 21st and 22nd were both wet days and we woke on the 23rd to find snow all around us nearly a foot deep; it had come down as low as 16,000 feet. It was hardly the weather to cut ourselves adrift and wander among the uncharted spurs of Everest, and we thought of delaying our start. Further it transpired that our organisation was not running smoothly—it never did run smoothly so long as we employed, as an indispensable Sirdar, a whey-faced treacherous knave whose sly and calculated villainy too often, before it was discovered, deprived our coolies of their food, and whose acquiescence in his own illimitable incompetence was only less disgusting than his infamous duplicity. It was the hopeless sense that things were bound to go wrong if we trusted to this man's services—and we had no one else at that time through whom it was possible to order supplies from the natives—that turned the scale and spoilt the plan. Even so, in the natural course of events, I should have obtained my preliminary view. But on the night of the 22nd I received from Howard-Bury an extremely depressing piece of news, that all my photos taken with the quarter-plate camera had failed—for the good reason that the plates had been inserted back to front, a result of ignorance and misunderstanding. It was necessary as far as possible to repair this hideous error, and the next two days were spent in a photographic expedition. And so it came about that we saw no more until a much later date of the East Rongbuk Glacier. Had our plan been carried out even in the smallest part by a cursory survey of what lay ahead, I should not now have to tell a story which is lamentably incomplete in one respect. For the East Rongbuk Glacier is one way, and the obvious way when you see it, to the North Col. It was discovered by Major Wheeler before ever we saw it, in the course of his photographic survey; but neither he, nor Bullock, nor I have ever traversed its whole length.
We should have attached more importance, no doubt, in the early stages of reconnaissance, to the East Rongbuk Glacier had we not been deceived in two ways by appearances. It had been an early impression left in my mind, at all events, by what we saw from Shiling, that a deep valley came down to the East as the R.G.S. map suggests, draining into the Arun and having the North-east arête of Everest as its right bank at the start. Further, the head of this valley seemed to be, as one would expect, the gap between Everest and the first peak to the North which itself has also an Eastern arm to form the left bank of such a valley. The impression was confirmed not only by an excellent view from a hill above Ponglet (two days before Tingri and about 35 miles North of Everest), but by all nearer and more recent views of the mountains East of the Rongbuk Glacier. The idea that a glacier running parallel to the Rongbuk started from the slopes of Everest itself and came so far to turn Westward in the end hardly occurred to us at this time. From anything we had seen there was no place for such a glacier, and it was almost unimaginable that the great mountain range running North from the North Col, Chang La, was in no part a true watershed. We saw the East Rongbuk Glacier stretching away to the East and perceived also a bay to the South. But how, if this bay were of any importance, could the glacier stream be so small? We had found it too large to cross, it is true, late in the afternoon of our first expedition, but only just too large; and again it seems now an unbelievable fact that so large an area of ice should give so small a volume of water. The glacier streams are remarkably small in all the country we explored, but this one far more surprisingly small than any other we saw.
It was some measure of consolation in these circumstances to make use of a gleam of fine weather. When the bad news arrived on July 22 about the failure of my photographs we had ceased to hear the raindrops pattering on the tent, but could feel well enough when we pushed up the roof that snow was lying on the outer fly. It was a depressing evening. I thought of the many wonderful occasions when I had caught the mountain as I thought just at the right moment, its moments of most lovely splendour—of all those moments that would never return and of the record of all we had seen which neither ourselves nor perhaps anyone else would ever see again. I was not a cheerful companion. Moreover, from the back of my mind I was warned, even in the first despair of disappointment, that I should have to set out to repair the damage so far as I was able, and I hated the thought of this expedition. These were our days of rest after a month's high-living; we were off with one adventure and on with another; tents, stores, everything had been brought down to our base and we had said good-bye to the West Rongbuk Glacier. The clouds were still about us next morning and snow lay on the ground 9 inches deep. But by midday much of the snow had melted at our level and the clouds began to clear. At 2 p.m. we started up with the Mummery tents and stores for one night. I made my way with one coolie to a spot some little distance above our First Advanced Camp. As we pushed up the stormy hillside the last clouds gathered about Everest, and lingering in the deep North cwm were dispersed and the great white-mantled mountains lay all clear in the light of a glorious evening. Before we raced down to join Bullock my first dozen plates had been duly exposed; whatever the balance of hopes and fears for a fine morning to-morrow something had been done already to make good.
Summit of Mount Everest and South Peak
from the Island, West Rongbuk Glacier.
My ultimate destination was the Island which I had found before to command some of the most splendid and most instructive views. I was close up under the slopes of this little mountain before sunrise next morning. It has rarely been my lot to experience in the course of a few hours so much variety of expectation, of disappointment and of hope deferred, before the issue is decided. A pall of cloud lying like a blanket above the glacier was no good omen after the clear weather; as the sun got up a faint gleam on the ice encouraged me to go on; presently the grey clouds began to move and spread in all directions until I was enveloped and saw nothing. Suddenly the frontier crest came out and its highest peak towering fantastically above me; I turned about and saw to the West and North-west the wide glacier in the sun—beyond it Gyachung Kang and Cho-Uyo, 26,870 to 25,990 feet: but Everest remained hidden, obscured by an impenetrable cloud. I watched the changing shadows on the white snow and gazed helplessly into the grey mass continually rolled up from Nepal into the deep hollow beyond the glacier head. But a breeze came up from the East; the curtain was quietly withdrawn; Everest and the South Peak stood up against the clear blue sky. The camera was ready and I was satisfied. A few minutes later the great cloud rolled back and I saw no more.
Meanwhile Bullock had not been idle. He paid a visit to the North cwm, more successful than mine in July, for he reached the pass leading over into Nepal under the North-west arête and had perfectly clear views of Chang La, of which he brought back some valuable photos. But perhaps an even greater satisfaction than reckoning the results of what we both felt was a successful day was ours, when we listened in our tents that evening at the base camp to the growling of thunder and reflected that the fair interval already ended had been caught and turned to good account.