Expedition to the Sacred Mountain and Three Decades of Silence
A joint Indo-Bhutanese Army Team climbed the Chholmolhari Peak (7315 ft) in an undocumented and unpublished 1970 expedition. There were three mysterious causalities at the summit and a major Indo-Chinese political turbulence during the expedition. Thirty years after the successful ascent, Dorjee Lhatoo, a member of the team, first-time told the story in The Himalayan Journal.
A Little about Chhomolhari
Jomolhari or Chhomolhari or Chomolhari ( ཇོ་མོ་ལྷ་རི) sometimes known as “the bride of Kangchenjunga”, is a mountain in the Himalayas, straddling the border between Yadong County of Tibet, China and the Thimphu district of Bhutan. The north face rises over 2,700 metres (8,900 ft) above the barren plains. The mountain is the source of the Paro Chu (Paro river) which flows from the south side and the Amo Chu which flows from the north side. Chhomolhari is clearly visible from the end point of Younghusband Track (Old Silk Route) of North-East Sikkim.
ASCENT OF CHHOMOLHARI
DORJEE LHATOO
WE CLIMBED CHHOMOLHARI (7315 m) on 23 April 1970. But despite the significance of the climb, there was virtually no publicity. This was because of a heated controversy triggered by the deaths of three Indian members of the expedition. Speculation in the Indian press that they could have been shot down by Chinese forces alerted by Beijing, which in turn voiced its displeasure over Bhutan allowing Indians to climb a mountain along the border with China.
The threat of all this blowing up into a diplomatic row resulted in a total press blackout over the details of the expedition.
Ours was the second ascent of the peak, following a successful attempt by Spencer Chapman and his Sherpa companion, Pasang Dawa Lama, in the summer of 1937.
After many requests by friends in the climbing circles, I now tell the story of the fateful climb.
The expedition was sponsored by the King of Bhutan and the Indian Military Training Team. It was led by Col N. Kumar, then the principal of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling. The team comprised eight Indians and three Royal Bhutan Army personnel and was supported by eight High Altitude Sherpas from Darjeeling.
We assembled in Thimpu, where during an audience with the Bhutanese King, I was appointed to carry a religious artifact, ‘to appease the gods’ of the Sino-Bhutanese border mountains. The beautifully ornate copper pot or ‘yangu’ contained gold, diamonds and a variety of precious and semi-precious stones. It was to be placed on the top of Chhomolhari, and in addition to bringing prosperity to the country, it would also protect the bearer from harm or misfortune. I learnt that the people of Bhutan, being devout Buddhists, considered Chhomolhari a sacred mountain and any ascent of the peak tantamounted to sacrilege. The Bhutanese government felt the ‘yangu’ would appease inflamed sentiments over the expedition.
The approach to the mountain started with a drive to Druke Dzong through the Paro valley. The trek beyond to the base of Chhomolhari was easy, and a week after leaving Thimpu, we had established our base camp about 200 m below a permanent icefield.
We pitched our first camp on the icefield itself at about 6300 m. The approach to the camp was relatively easy as most of the crevasses along the way had been packed hard with winter snow. It could accommodate up to 12 expedition members.
However, the way to Camp 2, between a chasm falling about 3000 feet on the East Chhomolhari glacier and a heavily crevassed icefield was trickier. We established the camp at just under 7220 m, below the shoulder of the south ridge which forms the boundary between Tibet and Bhutan.
The First Summit
The first summit attempts were made from Camp 2 on 23 April at 4:30 a.m. The first five-member summit party included Captain Prem Chand, Bhutanese Army Lieutenant Chachu and myself. The Bhutanese government was keen that at least one of its nationals be included in any successful summit attempt, although this meant putting them through a crash course in mountaineering because none of them had been adequately trained. Incidentally, I was given the unenviable task of providing our three Bhutanese colleagues with on-the-job training whilst the expedition was in progress.
The Ascent
Roped together with Chachu and Prem Chand, I took turns leading the way up the snow slope with Santosh Aurora and Sherpa Thundu on a second rope. When we reached the shoulder of the south ridge, we came across a spectacular view of the prominent fortress, the Phari Dzong, standing in the middle of the vast Tibetan plateau, and the massive Lhasa-Chhumbi highway extending into the horizon.
The climb from this point became more difficult as it got steeper and more exposed. A thin coating of snow over the ice required precise crampon work and frequent front-pointing.
Photo by Andrea Williams
I took the lead as we neared the ridge, only to discover that it was too sharp and dangerously exposed on either side. The peak was still a good 150 m away. Taking into consideration Chachu’s inexperience, I asked Prem Chand to belay me as I negotiated the ridge, placing one foot on either side and treading with extreme caution. It was a gut- wrenching experience, and mid-way, I was interrupted by a scream from Prem Chand behind me. I braced myself for the inevitable tug on the rope that would mean he had fallen down the side. But it was something else. Chachu had freed himself from the rope and was trying to go back down the mountain. Unable to control him, Prem Chand was urging me to make him see reason. I shouted across to Chachu in Tibetan, asking him what his problem was and he yelled back that we would all die if we carried on pushing towards the summit. After some pleading and cajoling, I persuaded Chachu to move forward with us to a safer spot, where we anchored him to the ice. Then, ignoring his warnings, we left him behind and moved on upwards.
The last remaining 60 m of the climb were easier and soon we were at the top. Prem Chand, Thundu, Santosh, and I spent nearly an hour on the summit, taking pictures and placing the holy pot on the top with a bit of ceremony and prayers.
A Direct Descent
When it was time to head back, I was against negotiating the treacherous knife-ridge again and decided to try a direct descent from the spot where we had left Chachu. After abseiling 60 m down to a gentle slope, we descended diagonally in the direction of Camp 2. We arrived at the camp to meet the second summit team comprising Capt Dharam Pal, Capt P. S. Kang, Sherpa Aa Nima and Sherpa Nim Dorjee, who were ready to move the next day. After some directions and advice for the second team, Prem Chand, Thundu and I went down to Camp 1 while Chachu and Santosh stayed behind as they were exhausted.
The Second Summit
On 24 April from Camp 1 we saw the second summit team head up towards the ridge. At about 7 a.m. they were barely a hundred feet above Camp 2, indicating that they had started late and the going was very slow. They were on a single rope and Aa Nima appeared to be leading the climb. Two hours later they were on the ridge and given their rate of progress, we soon grew tired of watching them and went about our business.
Lost
At about 10 a.m. when I decided to start tracking their progress again, I couldn’t see them on the mountain face any more. The others joined me to look for them, but we were soon enveloped in a thick fog which made it impossible. When the fog cleared in the afternoon, all we could see was the Camp 2 set-up and there were no human figures on the mountain face.
At daybreak on the 25th, we began anxiously scanning the slopes with our binoculars again and located a lone figure moving above Camp 2. It was Sherpa Nim Dorji, the fourth member of the second summit team, who had gone up about a hundred feet on his own to look for his missing colleagues after spending the night alone at Camp 2.
Fearing the worst, I took Sherpas Phu Tharke, Pemba Tharke and Nim Tenzing with me and headed up towards Camp 2. We came across Nim Dorji there, who was back in his tent and incoherent.
Taking Nim Tenzing with me, I made my way up to the place where our missing colleagues were last seen. We found a telephoto lens up there, along with some fruit tins, but there was no other trace of them. Looking out towards Phari Dzong in Tibet, we noticed a convoy of large vehicles on the Lhasa-Chhumbi highway. Nim Tenzing remarked that it must be the Chinese army observing our moves on the mountain face.
We went back to Camp 2, picked up Nim Dorji and then made our way down to Camp 1. By this time it was clear that Kang, Dharm Pal and Aa Nima were lost and Col Kumar, in a state of distress, requested a helicopter for a search operation.
The chopper arrived on the 26th and reported seeing coloured objects below the summit. However, after a second helicopter search, these turned out to be the Camp 2 tents and not the lost climbers. Col Kumar, Prem Chand and six Sherpas still went ahead with a ground search.
I wanted to join them, but was literally grabbed and held back by the Bhutanese members who said I would be heading out towards certain death. As a Buddhist and a Tibetan speaker, they considered me as ‘one of their own’, and were convinced that I had been spared by the mountain deities earlier because I had been carrying the ‘yangu’.
On 1 May 1970, the search was called off after unsuccessful and exhausting efforts to locate the missing climbers. Two days later, we left the mountain. The expedition was over.
I still look back at the Chhomolhari expedition with mixed feelings. It was a significant climb in terms of mountaineering achievement, but the tragic loss of those three brave young men meant it was never to be celebrated.
The Himalayan Journal, the most authentic source of the Himalayan expedition, had come a long way. It was conceived in 1928, in the first year of the Himalyan Club. It reports mountaineering, trekking and expedition activities of members and invited writers.
Cover photo by Gelay Jamtsho
The H Files are classified documents of expedition, bravery and courage.
H signifies honor, humanity and honesty — something common with the Himalayas.
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