Climbing in the Hindu Kush

Photographer: Eric Newby

‘We set off; Abdul Ghiyas with his awful head, Hugh with his stomach, myself with my feet and my stomach. Apart from these ills, we all agreed that we felt splendid, at least we could feel our legs moving. “I think we’ve acclimatised splendidly,” said Hugh with satisfaction. I found it difficult to imagine the condition and state of mind of someone who had acclimatised badly. We moved up the glacier, plodding along with the unaccustomed crampons laced to our boots, clockwork figures, desiccated by the sun, our attention concentrated on the surface immediately ahead which we carefully probed with ice-axes for crevasses. All the time I had the feeling that our behaviour was ludicrous. Perhaps a more experienced party would have looked at the glacier and decided that there were none, at any rate as low down as this. But in the absence of any qualified person to ask it seemed better to
continue as we were' - A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush.

Ref.: S0027626