MOUNTAIN HISTORY

Skardu, the headquarters of Baltistan, is a popular camping site for all explorers and mountaineers going to the major Karakoram Mountains via the Baltoro glacier and the Khaplu valley. It is a beautiful town located on a broad basin of the Indus River in the lap of high mountains. Its height from sea level is about 2,438m, in Skardu Bazar It is here that one cannot miss seeing local Baltis wearing American jeans, English balaclavas, Italian climbing shoes and Japanese parkas. In 1834 that J. Henderson, a traveler, reached Leh via the Baralacha pass and then traveled to Skardu. In this way he was perhaps one of the first Europeans to visit this town. He then traveled from Skardu to Sri Nagar through the Alampi pass; Astore valley and Burzil pass (4,195m. He was followed the same year, by G.T. Vigne who passed through Skardu. In 1838 H. Falconer visited Skardu on his way to Braldu valley. He had entered this valley after crossing Skoro pass. The first scientific explorers, interested not in potential chinks in the British Empire’s borders, but in a wide range of natural and anthropological phenomena were the schlagintweit brothers, Hermann Adolf and Robert Recommended to the British East India Company by Alexander von Humboldt; they traveled the Karakorum between 1855 and 1857. Among their achievements were the description of the Deosai plains ,Nanga Parbat’s glaciers, and of the chogo Lungma ,Biafo, Baltoro, and Bilafond glaciers, Adolf reached Concordia and was first to explore the Muztagh pass. The scientist explorer of the survey of India continued to map the region, establishing a triangular network from Ladakh to Hunza by 1863. In 1856 Captain TG Montgomerie recognized K2 (8611m) as the highest Karakoram glaciers traveling up the panmah, Biafo and Baltoro glaciers in 1860 and 1861. The final step to link the British survey with that of Russia was begun in 1913, supervised by Lieutenant colonel Kenneth mason.  The schlagintweits work was surpassed only by the scientist Giotto Dainelli who first came to the Karakorum with Filippo de Filippi’s 1913-14 expeditions.

 Subsequently, in 1861 Captain (later Lieut-Colonel) Godwin-Austen, a tough military surveyor of the Survey of India, visited Skardu. It was from here that he crossed Skoro pass for entering Braldu valley. He was followed in 1892 by the famous explorer of the time, Lord W.M. Conway, who, after climbing the Pioneer peak, visited Skardu on his way to Sri Nagar, in 1899 that the famous couple, Dr. and Mrs. Fannie Bullock Workman passed through Skardu on way to Biafo glacier area. Mrs. Workman climbed the Golden Throne peak, at the head of Chogolungma glacier, which remained the highest record in mountaineering for women for a long time. The climb was, however, contested by female members of American Alpine Club, who refused her the Club’s membership. Incidentally, the Club was not open to ladies at that time, Much of the region‘s exploration was accomplished by such expeditions to high peaks and glaciers, Sir W Martin Conway’s expeditions to the Central Karakoram which in 1982 first cross the Hispar La, was on such expeditions, as were Workman’s seven expeditions., to the Chogo Lungma, Biafo Hispar Aling, Masherbrum, Gondogoro, Bilafond, Siachen and Kondus glaciers between 1899 and 1912. The vissers made four expeditions between 1922 and 1935 on one of which they made the first crossing of the chafchingol and Mai Dur passes through the Ghuzherav Mountains .The pivotal shipton Tilman expeditions to shaksgam and shimshal in 1973 and to the Biafo and Hispar glaciers in 1939 provided the basis for today’s maps of the area. The Baltoro Glacier was accurately mapped by Norman dyhrenfurth’s 1935 and 1939 expeditions and Ardito Desio’s 1954 expeditions which made the first ascent of K2. therefore not surprising that mighty mountains of the Karakorum’s should but attract the mighty adventurous persons from all over the world to make them feel stronger.