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January
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Page 2 of 7
Nanga Parbat - the killer mountain
Nanga
Parbat Photos Courtesy www.concordia-expeditions.com
Early
History This
much is known now that around 500 BC, there were “rock art” hunters
/gatherers in the vicinity of Nanga Parbat, who worshipped the mountains.
Their art is still visible in some of the northern areas of Pakistan (Chilas,
Skardu). According to a Lok Virsa publication [ see reference below], the
western Tibet population was
the result of the blending of
at least three distinct peoples - Central Asian Dards/Shina tribes of Gilgit,
and the Mons of Northern India [
Kashmir]. The third, numerically greater to these two, are the Mongolians
who are the Tibetan Nation. Herodotus, the Greek Historian mentions the
Dards – so do Ptolemy and Pliny, the Roman historians. Later the Scythians,
Parthians [Taxila Buddhist influences– Stupa making, Brahmi &
Kharoshti script era] influenced this area. In its heyday, the Roman empire
traded vigorously [silk, cotton, muslin, paper making, china, etc] and
manufacturing techniques spread to the Middle East & Europe via the many
arms of the Silk Route with India and China. The Karakoram arm went via many
passes in Kashmir, Ladakh and Baltistan. The
Shina Tribe people have a dying language, Shina. This language is spoken by related tribes living on both
sides of the "Line-of-Control" near Chilas, Gilgit and in the
Gurez valley along the Kishen Ganga River. Due to use of other [Urdu, Hindi]
languages, its use has steadily decreased. The Gurez Valley in Indian
Kashmir, being isolated in the mountains, is unique in the sense that it has
preserved and protected the culture of the Dard / Shin and their language, "Shina". Baltis
and the Sherpas of Nepal have migrated from various regions in Tibet. The
word Sherpa means Easterner in Tibetan. The early settlers of western Tibet
were the “Mons”. Baltistan is also known as Tibet-e-Khurd in Persian
[Little Tibet]. Baltis are
actually part of the western Tibetan people. The people of Baltistan are
from mixed races - the majority coming from the Tibetan stock. The other
races found are Dardic, Central Asian Turks and Kashmiris. The language
spoken is Balti, which is an archaic form of Tibetan similar to Ladakhi
spoken in Ladakh nearby on the east. Ladakh
formed part of the old Tibetan kingdom. [See the excellent book “Baltistan
& Ladakh”, - A History by A.H.Francke – Lok Virsa, Pakistan edition
1986]. The names of Skardu [originally Skardo] and those such as Biafo,
Baltoro, ending in the letter or sound of “O” indicate that these names
were originally Tibetan. Balti porters have achieved great climbing feats as
described in the section on Karim, the Balti Porter, by Greg Mortensen
below. The
people of Hunza, the Hunzakuts, are believed to be the descendants of the
five wandering soldiers of Alexander the Great. The people of Hunza speak
Brushuski, an aboriginal language. Incidentally, the two Pakistani K2
climbers, Ashraf Aman and Nazir Sabir, are from Hunza. Various dynasties
have ruled the areas here. They are Tarkhans of Gilgit; Maglots of Nagar; Ayash
of Hunza; Burushai of
Punial; Makpons of Skardu; Amachas
of Shigar; Yabgus of Khaplu.
[AD 600 to AD 1800]. Hunza is also considered to be the
“Shangri-La” from James Hilton’s book “Lost Horizons”. The famous
Hunza diet of apricots is legendary; so too is the longevity myth of its
people as documented by the National Geographic, November 1975 – Hunza. ,
March 1994 –High Road to Hunza -by Jonathan Blair The
rock carvings and images of Buddha in the region date back to the period of
Great Tibetan Empire. When the Buddhist people of Gandhara migrated and
passed through the present northern areas of Pakistan, they settled at some
places temporarily and carved drawings of stupas, scenes of their
experiences and images of Buddha with texts in Kharoshti language. Rock
carvings have been discovered along the road between Gol and Khapulu, and
Skardu and Satpara Lake. However these rock carvings are probably similar to
the ones seen near the Indus river rocks at Chilas and belong to the
Shina-Dard people. In Skardu, the only surviving rock with Buddhist carving
is located on Sadpara road. In his book “The Gilgit Game”, John Keay [OUP,
1993], writes that somewhere
around AD 1400, Baltis started to convert to Islam.
“Before
starting back down to the drowsy world of Gilgit, there is more to be seen
……………………. Turn back from the peaks of the Karakorams, and
face due south. Here lies the true horror of the Himalayas. This time there
is no deep and distant perspective; the horizontal is unrepresented. You are
staring at a wall; it rears from the abyss at your feet to a height for
which the neck must crane back. Such is Nanga
Parbat,”the Naked Mountain”; its navel now confronts you. More a
many peaked massif than a single mountain, Nanga Parbat marks the western
extremity of the Great Himalaya; it is a buttress worthy of its
role……………………… Beautiful is not an appropriate adjective.
It is too formless; there is no slender fang like that of Rakaposhi or the
Matterhorn and none of the grandiose harmony of Kanchenjunga or Mount Fuji.
An uncut stone, it impresses by reason of its dimensions, not its
shape……………… [“The
Gilgit Game”: The Explorers of the Western Himalayas 1865-95, Oxford
University Press 1979]. John
Keay]
Nanga
Parvata or Parbat [meaning Naked Mountain] is also known as Diamir [King of
Mountains]. It faces the Nanga Parbat Lake as shown here in front of Fairy
Meadows which gets its name from the local folk who consider Mountains to be
the abode of fairies. The first ascent on Nanga Parbat was a miraculous solo
ascent without oxygen in 1953 by the German Herman Buhl. Its south
Rupal face climbs over 5000 m from the valley base to the summit, offering
trekkers orgasmic views. The north or Raikot face dives over 7000 m
from the summit to the Indus River, forming one of world’s deepest and
finest gorges. Its sides are too steep to allow snow to cover them. The
Karakoram and the Himalaya, the newest mountain ranges in the world, began
to form some 5 million years ago when the Indian sub-continent drifted
northwards and rammed into the Asian landmass. By this time the dinosaurs
were already extinct. India is still racing north at the geologically
supersonic rate of five centimeters (two inches) a year and the mountains
are still growing by about seven millimeters (1/4 of an inch), annually.
The Rupal Valley, on the south side of Nanga Parbat, is accessed via the Astor Valley, which is off the Karakoram Highway (KKH). KKH is 1,260 kilometers (900 miles) long –from Kashgar in China to Mansera in Pakistan] and is overshadowed by towering, barren mountains, a high altitude desert enjoying less than 100 millimeters (four inches) of rain a year. In many of the gorges, through which it passes, the KKH rides a shelf cut into a sheer cliff face as high as 500 meters (1,600 feet) above the river. The highway is an incredible feat of engineering and an enduring monument to the 810 Pakistanis and 82 Chinese who died forcing it through what is probably the world's most difficult and unstable terrain. The road to Nanga Parbat lies between Jaglot and Chilas. There is a bridge near Chilas where the sign to Fairy Meadows is posted; as you approach the mountain, a sign on the KKH advises you to look toward the peak of the ‘Killer Mountain’. The trek to Fairy Meadow takes about 2 days and provides spectacular views for photography, especially with a good camera, facing the Nanga Parbat north side. KKH
runs through the middle of this collision belt. At Tatta Pani , after Chilas,
you can see the sulphur springs along the KKH and this is considered by
geologists to be the fault line. This is also where there is an earth
tremor, on average, every three minutes.
Hence the avalanches on these mountains, leading to climbing
difficulties. [See
pictures at the link: http://www.lehigh.edu/~pkz0/nanga_files/Ndata.html
]. Local
people will ask you to travel fast on this section of the KKH due to land
slides occurring frequently. Also the jeep road to Fairy Meadows was
apparently closed after the recent earthquakes in 2002, so do check with the
locals on this point in case you are traveling to Fairy Meadows. “Crumbling
rock” is an apt description for the giant, gray, snow-capped slag heaps
that tower above the gorges cut between them.
Perhaps even more remarkable is that at Nanga Parbat there is
virtually no evidence of early Himalayan metamorphism. While these rocks
were clearly involved in a major collision event, recent processes have
completely obliterated any igneous or metamorphic signature of the original
collision. Some 30 years ago, a Pakistani geologist, Qasim Jan, working with
an international team on the history of Nanga Parbat, eventually led to
discoveries that have changed geological theory forever. Nanga Parbat was
revealed to be extraordinarily young, or only 1-2 million years old. It is
eroding at a spectacular rate due to glaciers, the Indus River, and immense
precipitation, yet at the same time it is growing faster than any other
mountain on Earth. More importantly, its high growth rate is directly due to
the erosion it endures. A video on this is available for interested readers.
[Nanga
Parbat: Naked Mountain:
Pakistan’s fast-growing mountain, Nanga Parbat, challenges geological
Theory. 57 minutes, Color ,Grade Level: 7-12, College, Adult , US Release
Date: 2002, Copyright Date: 2001 ; ISBN:
1-56029-954-7. Directed by Doug
Prose & Diane LaMacchia, Produced by Earth Images Foundation, Sponsored
by the National Science Foundation. ]
Mountains and Men - Introduction & Early Surveyors Nanga Parbat - the Killer Mountain K2 - the most difficult mountain to climb Women on Nanga Parbat, K2, and Mt.Everest Pakistan's Hunza and Balti climbers Ecological Nightmare on Big Tops & Conclusion |
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