Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/314

308 the col to the summit—a route which has since been demonstrated to be feasible; but I was impressed by the enormous length of the ridge, and ultimately decided in favour of our original plan. We accordingly plunged down to the glacier at our feet, and half an hour later reached a tangled ice-fall. We could see, below us, the deep trench of the Dych Su glacier, but our Tartar porter evinced a strong objection to a direct descent by the séracs. Zurfluh accordingly clambered up to a little notch in the ridge on our right, and after a brief inspection called on us to follow. Without much trouble we found a way down the rocks, and about 4 p.m. reached a tiny shelf of grass a few hundred feet above the great Dych Su glacier. The Tartar cheerily emptied his knapsack and tramped off down the ice to Karaoul, charged with the duty of buying and cooking a sheep, and getting such bread as the resources of that tiny hamlet afforded. Zurfluh and I, after putting up the tent and setting our soup to boil, prospected for the best way to the top of our peak.

The great glacier down which we had come from the Bezingi vsek, falls into the main Dych Su stream at approximately right angles. Between these two glaciers rise the huge rock buttresses which form the north-eastern pedestal of Shkara. A long couloir, or the rocks at the side of it, obviously gave access to a great glacier region from which we considered the higher ridges of our