Harish Kapadia's book on key expeditions in Himalayas is a compelling read

One of the moving accounts of expiditions in this book is by the legendary Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner, entitled 'Odyssey on Nanga Parbat'

Legendary Maps From the Himalayan Club

Author: Harish Kapadia

Publisher: Roli Books 

Pages: 240

Price: Rs 1,495

The Himalayan Club was founded in 1928 and its Himalayan Journal began to be published regularly from the subsequent year. The Journal has provided a welcome forum for mountaineers, adventurers and even humble trekkers from India and from countries across the world to share their experiences with each other and a wider audience. Harish Kapadia, a celebrated mountaineer, explorer and writer, currently edits it. He wears his love of the Himalayas on his sleeve. One must thank him for putting together a selection of articles from the Journal archives accompanied by rare hand-drawn maps and sketches setting out the terrain features, landmarks and routes taken on various expeditions. Although the focus is on maps, the Legendary Maps From the Himalayan Club carries several fascinating accounts of expeditions spread over several decades. Kapadia’s own recent expedition into Arunachal Pradesh to trace the course of the mighty Brahmaputra as it emerges south, cutting across the Himalayas through a deep gorge, is a most absorbing account. He has also recounted the history of attempts to confirm that the Brahmaputra in India was the same as the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet.

The maps and sketches in the book, each with an accompanying narrative and editorial comment, is organised in six sections covering different segments of the Himalayan range. These are Kashmir, the Karakoram, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Nepal-Tibet and finally Sikkim-Arunachal and Bhutan in the eastern Himalayas. This is useful because the various accounts reflect the immense diversity of these mountains in terms of morphology, terrain conditions and weather patterns. For those of us who travel frequently in these mountains, every peak has an individuality and unique personality to which one must relate and learn to respect. Kapadia’s compendium conjures up that magical quality with which these mountains are invested.  In an age of Google maps and satellite imagery, these maps hark back to an era when mountaineers were literally traversing uncharted territory. Their sketches and photographs provided invaluable guides to those undertaking breath-taking but dangerous forays into the forbidding mountain ranges crowning the Indian sub-continent from east to west. 

In 1970, Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner and his brother Gunther climbed the Nanga Parbat (shown above) in Pakistan. The brothers were separated and Gunther was never seen again. His body was discovered in 2005 when the glacier receded

In his Introduction, Kapadia explains that the main consideration in selecting various articles from the Journal was whether they were accompanied by good sketch maps. So some of the articles are not necessarily good, even though they have good sketch maps or charts. There are eight pages of rare photographs of well-known mountaineers, of famous expeditions and mountain ranges but in collage form, which means that each photograph is small, almost passport size. The book would have been more appealing if these photos had been enlarged. 

Those who love the mountains will find Harish Kapadia’s book a compelling read. Among the different accounts of expeditions, I particularly enjoyed Maurice Herzog’s celebrated piece  on his Annapurna expedition of 1951. Having been on the Annapurna trekking circuit some years back I marvelled at the fact that today, the Annapurna trail is one of the easier and popular treks enabling even weekend trekkers to go right up to the base camp at 18,000 feet. Another gripping account is H W Tilman’s article “Exploring Nanda Devi,” which is accompanied by one of the best maps in the book, a 3D depiction of the Nanda Devi sanctuary, drawn by D Macpherson (page 112-3). The Nanda Devi expedition was undertaken by two of the best-known figures in the annals of mountaineering, Tilman and Eric Shipton.  As Kapadia writes in his brief introduction to the article, “Some explorations remain etched in memory. The method of exploring, people involved, their writing about it and the historical relevance, has ensured that the world of mountaineering will never forget this exploration.” 

One of the more moving accounts is by the legendary Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner, entitled “Odyssey on Nanga Parbat”. In 1970, Messner and his brother Gunther climbed the Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, one of the 14 Himalayan peaks exceeding 8,000 metres. Running into worsening weather and dangerous terrain, the brothers were separated and Gunther was never seen again. His body was discovered in 2005 when the glacier receded. He had probably been swept away by an avalanche. Reinhold Messner survived, but recounts his sense of loss when he could not locate his brother along the icy slopes. He himself was exhausted and delirious before he was eventually taken to safety by a Pakistani military officer.

The sections on the Karakorams are informative and of interest because they also sit at the heart of competing claims among India, Pakistan and China. Having travelled extensively in these areas as part of several border infrastructure surveys I was commissioned to carry out between 2004 and 2015, I have always been struck by the stark, sombre beauty of the Karakorams, the grandeur of the Siachen and Remo glaciers and marvelled at the ancient caravan trails that threaded their way through this bleak and treacherous landscape, crossing into Central Asia through the Karakoram Pass. This landscape is a rare and fragile ecological treasure house and I can sympathise with Kapadia’s advocacy of turning Siachen into a peace park.

The reviewer is a former foreign secretary and a Senior Fellow at CPR. He is a frequent visitor to the Himalayas