In snow and sleet and wind next morning, July 25, our tents were struck. We turned our backs on the Rongbuk Glacier and hastened along the path to Chöbuk. The valley was somehow changed as we came down, and more agreeable to the eye. Presently I discovered the reason. The grass had grown on the hillside since we went up. We were coming down to summer green.
Footnotes:
[8] Calculated from the readings of two aneroids, allowing a correction for the height of the camp as established later by Major Wheeler.
[9] The survey established the height of this peak as 22,520 feet, and our subsequent experience suggests that aneroid barometers habitually read too high when approaching the upper limit of their record.
[10] In the Rongbuk Valley there was no wood and our supply of yak dung had to come up from Chöbuk.
[11] A useful coolie with experience in the Indian Army. I had used him as second Sirdar.
CHAPTER XIV
THE EASTERN APPROACH