The surface of the glacier opposite to my tent was much covered with debris, and many large boulders were imbedded in the ice, which was very much fissured, rising into sharp pinnacles. As the day advanced, it was traversed by numerous rills of water, and the sound of falling stones was heard in every direction.
I had hitherto been extremely fortunate in weather, considering the season; but just at sunset, a few light clouds having first appeared in the south horizon, the sky became suddenly overcast, and light snow began to fall. Very little fell during the night, but at daybreak on the 22nd of June, just as I was preparing to start, it began to snow rather heavily. I had unfortunately no choice but to proceed. The place in which I was encamped was not at all adapted for a resting-place during a heavy fall of snow; and arrangements had already been made for the relief of the baggage porters who had come with me, by a party of Zanskaries at the top of the pass on this day.
LARGE GLACIER.
June, 1848.
The first part of the ascent lay up the moraine parallel to the glacier, and was extremely steep for nearly 1000 feet of perpendicular elevation, up to the top of the very abrupt ravine in which I had been encamped. Beyond this, the valley widened considerably; and as its slope was now very gentle, the glacier was quite smooth, and the path lay over its surface, which was covered by a considerable layer (five or six inches) of last winter's snow, as well as by a sprinkling of that which had fallen during the night. The ice was a good deal fissured, but in general the fissures were not more than a few inches in width; a few only were as much as two feet. The road continued for two or three miles over the surface of the glacier, which gradually widened out as I advanced. Its upper part was expanded into an icy plain of great width, bounded by a semicircular arch of precipitous rocks, except where three ravines descended into it, down which three narrow glaciers flowed to contribute a supply of ice to the vast mass in the bay. On the smooth ice below, central moraines were very visible, and could be distinctly traced to the rocks by which the three smaller glaciers were separated. A great part of these central moraines were covered with snow; but now and then an immense detached boulder of gneiss was seen, supported by a column of clear blue ice, veined with horizontal white bands, by which it was raised high above the surface of the glacier, and the snow which covered it.
SUMMIT OF PASS.
June, 1848.
The three branches which united to form this grand sea of ice were very steep, and consequently much fissured and fractured. The road lay up that to the right, ascending by the moraine to the left of the glacier, the surface of the ice being quite impracticable. This ascent, which I estimated at the time to amount to at least 1000 feet, was exceedingly steep and laborious, as beneath a thin layer of fresh snow it was covered with hard frozen snow, on which the footing was quite insecure. On attaining the summit of this steep ascent, I found the surface of the glacier much more smooth, the inclination of the bed of the ravine having suddenly changed; it was now, however, covered with a layer of snow several feet thick, which probably tended to render small inequalities of surface unobservable. I was now in a wide valley or basin, the rocky hills on both sides rising precipitously to a height of from 200 to 1000 feet above the level of the snow. After perhaps two miles of gradual ascent, these rocky walls gradually closing in united in a semicircle in front, and the road passed through a gorge or fissure in the ridge, to the crest of which the snow-bed had gradually sloped up. This fissure, which was not more than two feet in width, was the pass, but when I reached it, snow was falling so thickly that I could not see ten yards in any direction. I therefore remained only long enough to ascertain that the boiling-point of water was 180·3°, indicating an elevation of at least 18,000 feet.
The commencement of the descent was very rapid down a narrow gorge, into which the fissure at the top widened by degrees. The fresh snow, which had fallen to the depth of at least a foot, was quite soft and yielding, so that great caution was required. After four or five hundred yards, the slope became more gradual and the ravine considerably wider. The road was now evidently over the surface of a glacier. The mountains on both sides were extremely rocky, rugged, and precipitous. Each lateral ravine brought an additional stream of ice to swell that in the central one; and on each lateral glacier there was a moraine which had to be crossed. Further on, the slope again increasing, the road left the surface of the glacier, and ascended the moraine by its side. This was at first covered with deep snow, both old and fresh; but as I advanced I found the old snow only in patches, but covered with a layer of new. At last I reached a point at which the snow melted as it fell, and not long after the glacier stopped abruptly, a considerable stream issuing from beneath the perpendicular wall by which it terminated.
IMMENSE GLACIER.
June, 1848.
Beyond the end of the glacier the valley continued very steep. It was several hundred feet across, and covered with loose stones of various sizes, over which the stream ran in a wide shallow channel. Lower down, the bed of the rivulet became contracted and rocky, and I crossed to its right bank over a natural bridge consisting of one large stone, ten or twelve feet long, which had fallen so as to lie across the rocky channel. Advancing a few paces beyond this bridge, I suddenly found myself at the end of the ravine, and overlooking a wide valley many hundred feet below, filled by an enormous glacier descending from the left. This glacier was completely covered with a mass of debris, which entirely concealed the ice, and from its enormous dimensions must have had a very distant source. I had no means at the time of determining with accuracy either its width or depth, nor do I find any estimate of it (except in superlatives) in my notes made on the spot; I cannot, therefore, at this distance of time, venture to give any exact dimensions: I can only say that it much exceeded in size any that I have before or since had an opportunity of seeing.
It was just at the termination of the upper ravine that the first traces of vegetation were observed: till reaching this point the rocks and gravel had been quite bare. The first plant observed was Primula minutissima; the only other in flower was a large purple-coloured Crucifera (a species of Parrya), but leaves of several others were beginning to expand.