Number in series 21; Year of publication 1927 - Fell and Rock ...

342ROUND ABOUT NANDA DEVI IN 1926By T. HOWARD SOMERVELL.Few things can be more entirely different than a climb inCumberland and one in the Himalaya. In the one, you journeyby train or car, say from Barrow to " Coniston with its busy,modern life " and stop at the Sun to get a meal. Having donethis, and surreptitiously taken Darwin's rope from the hat-stand,within a couple of hours you are climbing up one of the finestbits of rock in the world, having done which you run down ascree gully and climb it again some other way, and then perhapsif you have not too bulky a companion you will slither downIntermediate, and so back to the busy, modern life for a moresubstantial meal.In the other, after many preparations, you go a journey ofseveral hundred (in my case two thousand) miles by train, anotherby motor-car, and walk (with all your tents, food, and equipmentfor several weeks carried on the backs of mules or of coolies) for acouple of weeks, at the end of which time you may with luckhave time to climb a mountain (which takes several days), orperhaps two, before you find that your leave is near expiring andyou must start trekking back—and so to bed after travelling forsix weeks for the sake of a couple of climbs.Yet both come under the heading of mountaineering, and itswonderful diversity is perhaps the chief thing that makes oursport the finest in the world.So, I will now describe the one kind of holiday for the benefitof those with many of whom I have so often enjoyed the other.Ever since my first acquaintance with the Himalayas in 1922I have had a longing to explore the peaks around Nanda Deviwhich is the highest mountain in the British Empire and thecentre of some of the finest and steepest peaks in the world.And when last year I had a letter from Mr. Ruttledge (DeputyCommissioner of Almora), whose district was the proudpossessor of this group of mountains, asking if I could join hisparty, I assented with eagerness and at once began to get maps