Bringing back pre-satellite era Himalayas

The Himalayan range is ever changing. Apart from changes in height, the mountain shifts its contours depending on season and weather formation. In this context, it is almost impossible to grasp the mountain range in its ideal form. Yet human beings have attempted to tame this geological formation for thousands of years. The Himalayan Club established in 1928 has been home to some of the finest trekkers and climbers. One way this exclusive club tried to understand the mighty range was through sketch maps. Most times sketch maps or hand-drawn maps were all that climbers had in the pre-GPS decades. Later these hand-drawn maps were to become invaluable tools to climbers, making many summit conquests possible.

This unique book pays tribute to the early climbers who attempted the feat with the aid of sketch maps which had a romance of its own. From the Kashmir Himalayan range and the Karakoram, and to various segments of the great Himalayan range, these maps are either sketched or painted to provide climbers with a life-saving tool during expeditions. Almost all the expeditions and maps curated in this volume deserve to be collectors’ items. They provide a new perspective on the mountain range and its unconquerable features.

Apart from the sketches, a description of the Scottish expedition of 1951 shows climbers’ love for the toughest mountain range and the communities that call them home. When the four Scotsmen arrived to climb the Garhwal range, they climbed peaks and travelled to the valleys while mingling with the local population and collecting stories of their food habits and lifestyle. The Garhwal Himalayas was just two pages of black dots and straight lines that did not reveal anything apart from providing a planning tool to the team. As time passed, sketch maps became more elaborate with some resorting to paintings.

The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) expedition in the Kumaon range carried detailed maps that showed that even the hand-drawn maps had undergone changes in the latter years. While all peaks of the Himalayan range pose a major challenge to climbers, even those attempting to scale the highest peak, Mount Everest, carried hand-sketched maps like in the 1963 American expedition. Given the collection of maps and climbers’ notes, the book is a must read for those who want to remember the Himalayas in its more rugged form of the pre-satellite days.

Legendary Maps from the Himalayan Club; Edited by Harish Kapadia, Roli Books, ₹1,495.