Looking for Nanda Devi: Remembering the iconic 1934 Himalayan expedition

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Nanda Devi, in 1936. The book is an account of one of the most spectacular expeditions of mountain exploration ever undertaken, when, in 1934, Shipton, along with compatriot Bill Tilman and the Nepalese Sherpas Ang Tharkay, Pasang Bhutia and Kusang, became the first people ever to find a way into the inner sanctuary of Nanda Devi, in the Garhwal Himalaya. Ever since the dawn of mountaineering, a greater premium has been placed on the summitting of peaks, in large part driven by a colonialist narrative of conquest.

Nowhere is this truer than in the case of the Himalaya. But if one were to talk about the less heralded—but probably more important—history of exploration, of finding one’s way in an unmapped world, then one has to tell the story of five men who managed to find their way into a vast, forbidding, mountain fastness, 90 years ago. Nanda Devi is a unique mountain in many ways.

India’s highest peak (that, unlike Kangchenjunga, is entirely within the country’s borders) at 7,816m, it has one of the most unmistakable mountain profiles in the world. But apart from its sheer beauty, it is equally important to the people of Garhwal and Kumaon in a religious and cultural paradigm as their patron deity—the “Bliss Giving Goddess". Situated in central Uttarakhand, and bound by the Dhauli Ganga river to the west and the Gori Ganga to the east, the twin peaks of Nanda Devi and Nanda Devi East dominate an enclosed sanctuary of glaciers, glacial streams and alpine meadows some 380 sq.

km in area. This sanctuary is closed in by a high circular ring of ice peaks and ridges that contains some 17 peaks that are on average about 21,000ft high. This gives rise to an outer sanctuary, that is ringed around by a second “curtain" ridge of