Unfortunately they were not quite so easy as we should have liked; not only did they involve an ascent from the camp of 7000 to 8000 feet, but also a considerable amount of the climbing under a pressure of about half an atmosphere. Then the interminable ice slopes, which in the Nanga Parbat district are very much more common than in the Alps, meant many hours of step-cutting, and the softened state of the snow directly after the sun had shone on it added considerably to our labour. Besides these drawbacks, which render the ascent of a mountain 20,000 feet high not altogether easy, the utter confusion and wearisome monotony of the stony and rugged hill-sides between the valley and the snow-line must not be forgotten.
On August the 11th, we all started early in the morning by lantern light, taking with us Ragobir and Lor Khan (as well as Goman Singh and two coolies who were to accompany Hastings as far as Astor). We first climbed up a small moraine coming steeply down the side of the main valley almost to our camp from the glacier on the north-west side of the Diamirai peak, and in about an hour and a half came to the glacier itself. Here Hastings parted company with us, and, crossing a pass (which he has named Goman Singh pass), to the westward of the Diamirai peak, got safely over down to the Lubar glacier, whence by way of the Mazeno pass he came to our camp in the Rupal nullah. Mummery and I, accompanied by Ragobir and Lor Khan, turning slightly to the left, made for a gully leading higher up to a snow ridge which ran upwards nearly to the summit of the peak. At the foot of the gully we were confronted by a small bergschrund. This we easily turned, and began scrambling up the rocks on our left hand.
Gradually the grey dawn melted into a Himalayan sunrise. Far away over the lower ridges we could see—
'The ever-silent spaces of the east Far folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.'
Above there was very little colour, pale greens verging into oranges and yellows, whilst below, in the shadows of the valleys, cold, dark steel blues, clear and deep, were the predominating shades. For a long while we watched the orange sunlight, catching first one part of Nanga Parbat and then another, as slowly the patches widened and spread creeping always down the mountain-side. Away to the north, on the opposite side of the Diamirai nullah, two minor rock peaks on the ridge were tipped with the rays of the morning sun. At the height we had already gained there was visible over the intervening ridge all the country above Gor on the further side of the Indus, while to the south of Gilgit stretched away mile after mile of mountain ranges. But by far the most striking sight was the enormous snow range beyond Gilgit and Yasin, the extreme western end of the Mustagh or Karakoram range. Rakipushi we could not see; it was just cut off by the western spur of the Ganalo peak, but from a point just west of the Kilik pass almost to the mountains above Chitral, snow summit after snow summit rose up into the heavens clear cut and distinct in the wonderfully translucent air.
View of the Diamirai Pass from the Red Pass.