32 Sport and Life in the Further Himalaya 



certain to return, being isolated, remote, and 

 precipitous. 



Next morning, taking my shooting tent and kit 

 for a few days, I went down the valley, through 

 forests of juniper and cedar, and then, turning up 

 to the right, crossed a high bare pass leading to 

 the Gasho valley, from which the Kinechuch ridge 

 could be attacked. It looked formidable. A high 

 black razor-edge of slate, bare of all vegetation for 

 a couple of thousand feet above our heads, in 

 length three miles or more. From the side we 

 were to attack it which was the reverse of that 

 the ibex were on the ridge looked very steep and 

 rather awesome, but on essaying it next morning 

 we found it easier than it appeared, and a couple 

 of hours' scramble over sharp jutting-out angles of 

 slate, forming easy but treacherous footing, and 

 loose jangling debris of the same, brought us to 

 the top. Here quite a different kind of ground 

 awaited us. The drop down the opposite side 

 was almost sheer, being parallel with the dip in 

 the slate, and gave no foothold of any kind. The 

 precipice fell straight down for five to eight hun- 

 dred feet or so, and then the naked rock was 

 buried under a less steep slope of old avalanche 

 snow. Below this came alpine pastures falling 

 away down into pine forests two or three thou- 

 sand feet below us. Sharp ridges ran down at 



