The Snow leopard

by Peter Matthiessen

  Red leaves drift on the still lake; a B'on-po coughs. High above this campsite in the silver birches, on a meadow near the sky, blue sheep are grazing. The time of the sun in the high mountains depends upon the placement of the peaks, and this day the sun appears eighty minutes earlier than yesterday, at the head of the wild valley across the lake. Shortly we are under way, headed west up the Phoksumdo Khola to where the Kang stream comes down out of the north.

  Small avalanches that resound on Kanjiroba must be falling with the snow melt on the south slopes of the mountain, for there is no snow dust, only that glittering white point on the blue sky. The sound of avalanche evokes the sound of the great waterfall below Phoksiundo, or hurricane, or surf in storm, a cavernous deep thunder like an echo of the roaring of creation.

  The valley of warped birches and gaunt willows is gloomy even in bright sun, and the only birds are the numerous dead redstarts on the gravel bars—a whole migratory flight—that must have perished in the early October blizzards. To judge from the glum faces of our people, the dead songbirds and the ominous grumbles from the peaks might be warnings from the mountain demons who plague pilgrims in Tibetan myth. Perhaps tomorrow we shall reach our destination, but as GS says, it is sure to be the hardest day of all, even if our porters prove dependable. He intends to carry his own sleeping bag, and warns me to do the same. "In fine weather," he says, "seventeen thousand feet isn't all that high, but weather can change quickly at that altitude, and it isn't a height to fool around with: winds can come up very suddenly that will drop your chilling point by fifteen or twenty degrees. So I like to keep my bag along, in case of emergency or injury." GS, too, appears subdued. Though we don't talk about it, we are both aware that injury or sickness would be serious, and more so every day. When the round trip is considered, Pokhara is now two months away, and the nearest wireless at Dunahi, even if it worked, might or might not locate a doctor who might or might not be able and willing to abandon his practice and make a long trek in over high mountains on behalf of strangers. In short, there is no reason to expect that help would ever come to us over these trails. "One can live with a compound fracture," GS says, "it can always be broken and reset. But a ruptured appendix—" He does not bother to finish.

  There is no trail up this gray valley, only dim paths that lose themselves in bogs and willow flats and gravel streams. Several hours pass before we come to the rock outwash of a chasm in the northern walls where the torrent comes down from the ice fields of Kang La. Even at midday the ravine is dark, and so steep and narrow that on the ascent under hanging rocks the torrent must be crossed over and over. Each time we strip off boots and pants, the Ring-mos cheer in simple-hearted hope that the strangers will crack their skulls on the slick rocks or fall into the frigid water. We climb on, numb-legged, without incident. Higher, where the ravine widens, a snow slide comes down from the east, and just above, in a wood of stunted birch, near tree line, the porters dump their loads and quit; farther up, they say, it will be too cold to camp. GS is nowhere to be seen (he told me later that he sat near the trial and watched us pass— he just needed to get away from human company) and since Jang-bu seems so leery of these people, I step in angrily, shouting out that for two days now they have got away with a half-day's work, that there is no hope of crossing the high pass to Shey unless we gain more altitude today and get started earlier tomorrow. I am astonished when they heft their loads and go on for another hour.

  At a bend in the high canyon where the last shrubs disappear, and the snow deepens, three birch saplings with rocks laid on to steady them served the last traveler as a bridge, for the torrent here is deep and swift, too swift to ford. Spray has built thick crusts of ice on the flimsy saplings, and I cross over without shame on hands and knees. Then our men come, traversing the ice bridge upright with the help of extended arms. But Dawa in his clumpy boots disdains all aid, swaying about on the treacherous sticks as he hacks ice off with the hoe that must serve us as an ice ax at the pass. I am cold and wet, and the foolish fellow is carrying my dry clothes and sleeping bag; at last, he is across.

  Above the bridge, we make rough camp at a cave beneath an overhang, near 14,000 feet. To be alone, I walk a little way upriver and, in near-darkness, watch gray finches forage in gray snow. This evening I feel much better—why? I disliked the gray Phoksumdo Khola and hate this black ravine; thick clouds are moving north, with threat of snow, and already the porters are pointing toward the pass, shaking their heads. Yet I feel calm, and ready to accept whatever comes, and therefore happy. The turn in my mood occurred this morning, when the brave Dawa, attempting to catch Jang-bu's pack, hurled across a stream, dropped it ineptly into the water. Wonderfully, Jang-bu laughed aloud, as did Dawa and Phu-Tsering, although it meant wet clothes and a wet sleeping bag for the head sherpa. That happy-go-lucky spirit, that acceptance which is not fatalism but a deep trust in life, made me ashamed.

  OCTOBER 27

  In the stone fall of this canyon, my tent is pitched at a sharp angle, with bedroll pinched among sharp rocks. Still, I sleep well and awake happy, and enjoy a breakfast of hot tea and tsampa. Then we set off from the Cave Camp in the first light, before the B'on-pos can come up bitching from the birth wood where they spent the night; as long as they remain unpaid, they are bound to follow. GS and I are in high spirits, feeling confident that today we will reach Shey at last

  GS says that yesterday he, too, had felt irritable and morose. "These damned Ring-mo porters are even worse than the Dirty Kamis. And the sherpas were getting to me, too, wasting and breaking everything: you lend them something, and in one day it looks like they'd used it for a month. Yesterday I was just sick of people, that's all." He gazes about him at the still, clear morning, at the canyon side that lies under heavy snow. "This is what it's all about," he says, shouldering his rucksack. "To be able to go up into a valley, and not come on a pile of human dung."

  Soon he is gone around a corner of the canyon. In the ringing emptiness I pause to hear the hiss of the swift torrent under ice, then turn in a slow circle, absorbing all this mighty weight of rock and snow and sky. A monumental glacier fills the southern blue like a frozen waterfall, but the sun flowing down that wall of ice has not yet touched the canyon rim over my head. I climb on through gray daybreak worlds toward the light.

  Rockfalls half-covered with snow, interspersed with ice and scree, make the ascent arduous. Moving quickly to keep away the cold, I meet the sun where the canyon opens out, eighteen hundred feet above the cave. GS's map seems to indicate a steep climb from this approximate point straight up the valleyside to the north, but maps of the region are more imaginative than precise. Seeking Shey Gompa in May of 1956, a scholar of Tibetan Buddhism (whose fine book29 enables me to speak about the iconography of this region with an authority that is not mine) made camp farther up, at the head of this long canyon, and he makes no mention of returning to a point downstream before climbing toward Kang La. Since scholars are less apt to be mistaken in small matters than in large ones, it seemed to me that the ascent to the pass would begin at the head of the valley, a mile farther.

  But GS, certain he is right, cuts off toward the north. I wait here in the sun awhile, to see which way the Ring-mos go, for two of them have been to Shey in milder seasons. Soon they appear—the cold in the dark canyon must account for their brisk pace—and stop at the first sunlight; when they start again, they move on up toward the head of the canyon. GS has vanished over a ridge, and there is no answer to my calls in the empty valley: either he will proceed along the ridge and join the trail higher up, or he will descend again into this valley and follow our fresh tracks in the snow. There is sheep sign here, and perhaps he has come upon a band of na.

  At the canyon's head, a faint path becomes visible, following a steep series of frozen waterfalls to a point where stream and path are buried under drifts. The porters have been resting every little while since emerging from the cold of the lower canyon, and now they quit again on a narrow ridge, kept cl
ear of snow by wind. Breaking trail for them, I keep on climbing, but continually plunge through the crust, over my knees; finally, I cut across to the frozen falls, continuing upward to the snowfields by way of the half-exposed stream boulders, which finally vanish underneath the snow.

  These snowfields lie high up under the peaks, and in this immensity of silence, they are awesome. No one has followed me, nor is there sign of GS on the ridges all around. In hopes that the sherpas can get the porters going, I try to find a stretch of snow that will hold my weight, but after ten yards in any direction, in the thick snow and thin air, I am exhausted. The one chance is a straight climb to the western ridge, where the snow appears to be thinned away by wind.

  Eventually two B'on-pos without loads come up to have a look; for some reason, the sherpas stay behind. Having no interpreter, I tease them in pantomime, and get them laughing, and they agree to bring the loads to this plateau. By that time, GS may have turned up, and Jang-bu, and some sort of decision can be made.

  But it is early afternoon when the porters' heads appear above the ice falls, and it is plain that the expedition is in trouble; the loads are cast down in a sullen way, and even the three sherpas look unhappy. I point out the high ridge to the west that looks less locked in snow: Kang La is no more than a two-hour climb, we have only to take turns breaking trail . . . The Ring-mos shake their heads. These snowfields are impassable, and anyway, it is too late in the day and in the year to go to Shey, and much too high, too cold, to make camp here. Nor are the sherpas any help. When I persist in my arguments, wondering where in hell GS could be, Jang-bu and Phu-Tsering take me aside and express discouragement about proceeding farther. The Ring-mos have persuaded them that even if Kang La is reached, the north face of the pass is perilously steep and icy: why, last year a man lost his life there! Jang-bu is also worried about his friend Gyaltsen—how would he and Tukten ever find us, since the wind is sure to cover any tracks? It is best that we return to Ring-mo.

  Having tried the snow with my minimal load, I cannot blame the porters for wishing to give up. And we have seen blue sheep and sign of snow leopard near Phoksumdo Lake, which is not only strange and beautiful but accessible to the outside world in event of trouble; to cross Kang La only to have the winter snows close the pass behind us is what I fear most. On the other hand, we have come too far to quit—no more than a mile from the Kang Pass, perhaps one day away from Shey—and GS would not consider a retreat even if I abandoned him, which I won't do.

  To the east and south, dark clouds are drifting on the mountains, and wisps of snow begin to fall. I am worried about GS, and the sherpas, though I try to reassure them, are more worried still. Even if the Ring-mos were willing, we cannot go farther, in case GS has had an accident. Perhaps he is waiting for help in the pit of some crevasse, with bitter night coming on: I remember with relief that he has his sleeping bag.

  The Ring-mos mutter: they wish to leave these cold white wastes and take shelter in the canyon while there is still light. With binoculars, I scan the ridges a last time, then give the order to stack the loads against a drift, where a bare place has been spun by wind on the black scree; the whole lot is covered with tarpaulin. We shall start from this place early tomorrow, I announce, getting no response whatever. Dawa and Phu-Tsering are sent down with a minimum of gear and food to the Cave Camp, where there is firewood: Jang-bu and I will backtrack, in the hope of finding our companion before dark.

  To comfort Jang-bu, I say that in all likelihood we shall meet GS on the way down, and we have scarcely started out when he comes in view across the icy falls. Even from afar it's plain that he is not happy to see us here on this side of the pass, and upon his arrival, he insists that his map must be right and these local people wrong, even though he has not found Kang La. "It looks like this day has really been bollixed up," says he accusingly, annoyed by the suggestion that his own disappearance, if nothing else, has prevented us from going farther—though not, I think, quite so annoyed as he might have been had he been left lying broken-legged in the ice as darkness fell, while his expedition proceeded on to Shey. I do not point out that both yesterday and today he was elsewhere when the porters quit; that but for me, we wouldn't have reached the point we did on either day. Instead, I say shortly that the porters won t go farther, that even our sherpas advise us to be content with the blue sheep and snow leopard above Ring-mo. . . . No, he says. The animals at Ring-mo are wild and scattered due to harassment by the likes of these scrofulous porters—we will go to Shey.

  I grin at Jang-bu, who smiles sadly. Knowing that I am worn out from my trail-breaking, he has given his own pack to an unloaded porter and kindly offers to take mine. To mollify GS a little, I say, "No, better take George's." And GS accepts this offer without thanks to either Jang-bu or myself and stalks off down the mountain without a word. Jang-bu hangs back long enough to say, "If this snow keeps up, we shall never reach Shey Gompa." (He actually says something like "More snow, never go Shey," for Sherpa English is more fluent than grammatical.) And I answer that, as the head sherpa, he must feel free to express his opinion to GS. Whether he ever did or not, I do not know.

  I go slowly down the mountain, falling well behind the rest, in no hurry to get back to that dark camp. Despite the hard day that has ended in defeat, despite the loss of three thousand feet of altitude that will have to be so painfully regained, despite the gloomy canyon and uncertain weather and ill humor of my friend, and the very doubtful prospects for tomorrow, I feel at peace among these looming rocks, the cloud swirl and wind-whirled snow, as if the earth had opened up to take me in.

  OCTOBER 28

  A light snow fell throughout the evening, but this morning it is clear. The Ring-mos demanded a raise in pay before they would try again, and not receiving it, have quit. I agree with GS that they are robbers, but since the total increased expense, on the Asian wage scale, comes to about twenty-five dollars, our decision seems to me a false economy. However, he feels—and very likely he is right—that the Ring-mos are sure to quit short of the pass in any case, leaving us that much poorer and no wiser.

  GS left Cave Camp in the early hours, in the hope that the snow crust will support men's weight before it is softened by the sun; he has with him two Ring-mos who agreed to guide but not to carry, and he is also taking Jang-bu, our best interpreter, and Phu-Tsering, our most experienced mountaineer. Traveling light, they will try to reach Shey, where, hopefully, new porters can be recruited. Meanwhile, Dawa will carry a load of firewood up to the snowfields depot, in case GS's party cannot cross Kang La and gets caught by snow or darkness on its return. I shall remain to guard the camp against light-fingered porters, one of I whom has already made off with my trusty stave.

  Now it is noon, and Dawa has trudged away up the dark canyon, I will enjoy a day here by myself, although Cave Camp is the most inhospitable of any of the camps made since Pokhara. This deep bend in the ravine is stony and narrow and very cold; except for a half hour in the first part of the morning, when the sun crossed like an omen between peaks, the camp has remained in profound shadow. At these altitudes, in the Himalayan autumn, the difference between sun and shade is striking: the stream by my tent is clogged by ice, whereas lizards lie sunning on the rock slope above camp where I climb up to get warm and write these notes.

  In early afternoon the sun touches my tent and is quickly gone; a cold wind off Kanjiroba scours the canyon. It is too chilly to sit still in one place, and I go down the ravine a little distance to a point where the high glacier and great icefalls can be seen. The wind blows snow from pristine points that glisten in the light, and there are magic colors in the clouds that sail across the peaks on high blue journeys.

  Once again, I am struck by the yin-yang of these rivers—the one slope white, right down to the water, and the other dark, yet with a snow patch on the dark side and a dark rock on the white, each side containing the seed of its own opposite. The balance of cosmic principles, positive (yang) and negative (yin), as taugh
t in the ancient "Book of Changes" (the I Ching), seems to foretell the electron theory of energy as matter, and is also a wonderful emblem of the flow, the interpenetration of all existence, for which the usual Tantric symbol is the yab-yum of sexual union. In Tantra, the pessimistic fear of desire and pleasure that characterized early Buddhism was seen as but another form of bondage, and emphasis was placed on being-in-life without suppression of life forces but also without clinging or craving. Tantra concerned itself with the totality of existence, the apprehension of the whole universe within man's being. All thoughts and acts, including the sex energies, were channeled into spiritual growth, with the transcendence of all opposites the goal; in the communion of sex, wine, and feasting, the illusion of separate identity might be lost, so long as a detached perspective was retained. All things and acts were equal, interwoven, from the lowest" physical functions to the "highest" spiritual yearning, and even consumption of dead human flesh and filth was recommended as an ultimate embrace of all existence. Thus, Tantra might be interpreted30 as the practice of mankind's earliest religious intuition: that body, mind, and nature are all one. But decadence weakened all the Tantric sects, especially the Old Sect, or Nyingma, and in the sixteenth century a reformation was begun by the new Gelup-pa sect led by the Dalai Lamas. In this same period, in India (where Buddhism had long since been eradicated by the Muslims), the Mogul Akbar had the Hindu Tantrists tied to elephants and torn asunder.