From here the valley began to widen out.
We first crossed a grassy meadow, then moraine, and at 5½ miles reached the snout of the Kero Glacier which, with other side glaciers which come down from nullahs on both sides, fills the valley right across.
The snow peaks about the Nushik La now began to come into sight.
There was a certain amount of vegetation on the lower slopes of the mountain, and showed a certain amount of autumn colouring.
It rained while we were having breakfast, and later on in the morning it rained hard.
The first side glacier came down a nullah up on the right, and pushing right across, was heaped up on our side. We went up the slopes on our left to get beyond it.
The nullah, a broad one, down which it came was flanked on the south side by a range of very jagged mountains, as all are about here.
The second one coming from the left we had to cross, taking about 20 minutes. The stream had tunnelled through both of them.
The sun, shining through the mountain peaks, lit up the crests of the ice falls on the glacier further up the nullah - a fine sight.
The main Kero glacier, we found, reached this point and joined the one we crossed. We saw a herd of ibex on the heights above us and also saw tracks of bears.
We kept on another 2 miles along the moraine and camped at 2 o’clock.
The march was only 7 miles, and the coolies took 7 hours.
There was a small tarn close by in which Neve bathed. I thought the weather too cold for such indulgence, our height being now over 14,000ft. (Neve reported: “In the afternoon we bathed in a little tarn beside the glacier, but found it bitterly cold. There was a slight snow shower...”). Next morning (Wednesday) we found the tent was frozen, so waited till the sun was up before we took it down. We had let the coolies have the outer fly for extra shelter.
We left a few men here at Kulcha Branza with supplies to form a base camp in case we were delayed on the pass, and took on with us 12 coolies for our things, 3 for the Wazir, and 12 with firewood, blankets and food the for the coolies, besides the old guide and the 5 shikaris.
The guide took us onto the Kero Glacier and led across diagonally 3½ miles - in 2½ hours.
The first mile was over moraine, very rough going, then a level stretch over loose stones, and then a stretch of more-or-less naked ice. There were a few crevasses, but easily crossed.
Half a mile or so along moraine on the further side of the Kero brought us at 11 o’clock to a camping place “Ding Branza" at the foot of a spur between the Kero and a glacier coming from the right. There were some old stone shelters here, out of one of which a red bear bolted on our approach. Here we halted an hour for breakfast. (We were now at the east corner of a semicircle of mountains with peaks of 19,000ft or so from which 7 glaciers descend, forming the Kero Longma, the 3rd on our right coming down from Nushik La.
To reach our next camping place, about 2 miles of glacier had to be crossed, and in the 1st mile, a good many crevasses ran at right angles to our track, which entailed a good deal of going to and fro to get round or over them. There being no snow, there was no danger of falling in, but some places we crossed were rather nasty, the crevasses being very deep. The walls were a lovely transparent blue, and great icicles hung down where the sides overhung.
Our pace was slow as our guide was an old man - couldn’t get along very fast. Neve said his guiding was good.
I went ahead to get a photo of the party crossing the glacier, but couldn’t manage it. Instead I took one of the ice fall of the glacier coming from the Nushik where it drops suddenly into the main glacier.
Reaching the spur between the 2nd glacier and the Nushik one, we climbed up about 200 feet and found a flatish place, which had evidently been used as a camping place before as there were the remains of some old stone shelters. It had a name
- Stiatbu Branza - and its height was about 16,000 ft. With some levelling work, we just made enough room for our tents.
The view from here was splendid.
The lower part of the Kero Valley is enclosed on the West side by a range of rocky peaks of extraordinary sharpness, the strata being nearly vertical. Above them far down (beyond Arundu) rose the snow-clad Ganchen. Close round us 7 glaciers came down, and met in a confused mass of ice, from between a semi-circular range of snow peaks.
We got dinner at 6.45, but the height affected me somewhat so I wasn’t able to make much of it and felt a bit sick, with headache, but my troubles were forgotten in sleep.
The coolies were very busy all evening preparing paboo boots and gloves (soft leather goatskin with hair inside) for the morrow.
We slept on the ground tonight to save time in the morning.
The view, when the moon rose lighting up the snows was wonderful.
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