Its glory bursts upon us as we top the last rise to the Aghil Pass. Across the deep valley is arrayed in bold and jagged outline a series of pinnacles of ice glistening in the brilliant sunshine, showing up in clearest definition against the intense blue sky, and rising abruptly and incredibly high above the rock-bound Oprang River. They are the mighty peaks which group around K2—the noblest cluster in the whole Himalaya.
There are here no inviting grassy slopes and no enticing forests. The mountain-sides are all hard rock and rugged precipices. And the summits are of ice or with edges sharp and keen direct from Nature's workshop. But the sight, though it awes us, does not depress us or deter us. We are keyed up by high anticipation when we arrive on the threshold of this secluded region, and a fierce joy seizes us as we first set eyes on these mountains. We know we have before us one of the great sights of the world—something unique and apart, something the like of which we shall never see again. And awed as we are by the mountains' unsurpassed magnificence, we do not bow down in any abject way before them. We are not impressed by our littleness in comparison. They have, indeed, shown us that the world is something greater than we knew. But they have shown us also that we too are something greater than we knew. The peaks in their dazzling altitude have set an exacting standard for us. They have incited us to rise to that standard. Their call is great, but a thrill runs through us as we feel ourselves responding to the challenge, collecting ourselves together and gathering up every stiffest bit of ourselves to rise to their high standard. We feel nerved and steeled; and in high exhilaration we plunge down into the valley to join issue with the mountains.
Arrived on the Oprang River we can turn either to the left or the right. If we turn to the left we get right in under a knot of stupendous peaks. Towering high and solitary above the rocky wall which bounds the valley on the south is a peak which may be K2, 28,250 feet in height, which must be somewhere in the neighbourhood. But the investigations of the Duke of the Abruzzi throw a doubt as to whether this can be K2 itself. If it is not, it must be some unfixed and unnamed peak. At any rate it is a magnificent, upstanding peak rising proud and steep-sided high and clear above its neighbours. Then beyond it, farther up the Oprang Valley, we catch glimpses of that wondrous company of Gusherbrum Peaks—four of them over 26,000 feet in height, with rich glaciers flowing from them.
But if we turn to the right on descending from the Aghil Pass, and if we turn again in the direction of the Mustagh Pass, we come to an icy realm which has about it, above every other region, the impress of both extreme remoteness and loftiest seclusion. As we ascend right up the glacier—either the one coming down from the Mustagh Pass or the one to the east running parallel with the general line of the Karakoram Range—we feel not only far away from but also high above the rest of the world. And we seem to have risen to an altogether purer region. Especially if we sleep in the open, without any tent, with the mountains always before us, with the stars twinkling brightly above us, do we have this sense of having ascended to a loftier and serener world.
At the heads of these glaciers there is little else but snow and ice. The moraines have almost disappeared—or, rather, have hardly yet come into being. And the mountains are so deeply clothed in ice and snow, it is only when they are extremely steep that rock appears. The glacier-filled valley below and the mountain above are therefore almost purely white. The atmosphere, too, is marvellously clear, so that by day the mountains and glaciers glitter brightly in the sunshine, and at night the stars shine out with diamond brilliance. The effect on a moonlight night is that of fairyland. We see the mountains as clearly as we would by the daylight of many regions, but the light is now all silver, and the mountains not solid and substantial but ethereal as in a vision.
The pureness of the beauty is unspotted. It is the direct opposite of the voluptuous beauty of Kashmir. No one would come here for repose and holiday. But we like to have been there once. We like to have attained even once in a lifetime to a world so refined and pure.
Cold it may be—and dangerous. But we soon forget the cold. And the dangers only string us up to meet them, so that we are in a peculiarly alert, observant mood. And we have a secret joy in watching Nature in her most threatening aspects and in measuring ourselves against her.
White it may be, but not colourless. For the whiteness of the snow is most exquisitely tinged with blue. The lakelets on the glacier are of deepest blue. They are encircled by miniature cliffs of ice of transparent green. The blue-ness of the sky is of a depth only seen in the highest regions. And the snowy summits of the mountains are tinged at sunset and dawn with finest flush of rose and primrose. So with all the whiteness there is, too, the most delicate colouring.
Standing thus on the glacier and looking up to the snowy peaks all round us, we think how, wholly unobserved by men, they have reared themselves to these high altitudes and there remain century by century unseen by any human being. From deep within the interior of the earth they have arisen. And they are only touched by the whitest snowflakes. They are only touched by snowflakes fashioned from the moisture which the sun's rays have raised off the surface of the Indian Ocean, and which the monsoon winds have transported in invisible currents, high above the plains of India, till they are gently precipitated on these far-distant heights.
"Blessed are the pure in heart," we are told, "for they shall see God." And blessed are they who are able to ascend to a region like this, for here they cannot but be pure in heart, and cannot help seeing God. For the time being at least, they have to be pure. In the spotless purity of that region they cannot harbour any thought that is sordid or unclean. And they pray that ever after they may maintain what they have reached. For they know that if they could maintain it they would see beauties which in the murky state of common life it is impossible to perceive. In the white purity which this high region exacts they are forced to pierce through the superficial and unimportant and they catch sight of the real.