#Panch Pokhri

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The Curious Case of De Nga

The Curious Case of De Nga

View from the ridge above Longdo Nye (Panch Pokhri) lakes

Explorations on the watershed between Lachen chu and Ringi chu, North Sikkim

Text: Anindya Mukherjee Photos: Aloke Kumar Das

It was the third week of November,2015 and Kolkata was showing no signs of cooling down. Autumn was clearly gone and winter was still hesitating to enter into our space. Being gangetic, we understand this. Winter and Bay of Bengal are eternally engaged in a ‘cold’ war. Just like us Bengalis, they do not agree with each other- ever. But I could see and sense from experience that the weather pattern in the eastern part of the Himalaya was moving towards a clearer, stable state. News of new snow on the ridges of Singalila was bringing promises. I was getting restless. Long time, no mountain! And suddenly a plan was in the air.  

As soon as the plan did surface, I met Aloke Das, my companion on Nanda Devi East  in 2013[1]. I knew, Aloke, a senior mountaineer of Bengal belonged to a very different school and was new to this style I was about to propose. Preposterous, exploratory climbing is not blitzkrieg! Perhaps that will be his remark, I thought, but secretly hoped that he would be game. I said, 8 days and that is all we got in order to crack this thing and come back. We shall have to force our way through dense forest and rhododendron thickets right from the river bed, climb steep slopes covering nearly 1000m a day while sleeping under overhang rocks. There will be fewer leeches at this time of the year but be sure to expect plenty of deer ticks. But the good thing is the threat of ticks will be for the first 2 days only and then on the 3rd day we should be able go above the tree line and get near this 5000m mountain. And finally, if we do get there and if the weather gods are kind, we will try and climb this thing. I paused and looked at him. My old pal was smiling and I knew what that meant. Reassured, I resumed.

We shall have only one day at our disposal to climb. No rest days, no bad weather allowances. Since we will be starting our hike from a very low altitude of 700m approximately we should not worry too much about acclimatization I guess. But since time is of the essence and the approach march cannot be shortened really; we get only one shot at it. By the way, did I mention that I do not know what this mountain looks like? To be a little more specific I do not even know if this is a peak or a pass? Aloke seemed lost now. Lost but not surprised. There is not a single report or images published in any journal as presumably no mountaineer or trekker has been here. But in Kekoo Naoroji’s book ‘Himalayan Vignettes’ I saw a map[2]that referred to it as De Nga (5060m). ‘De Nga’ is definitely a Bhotia sounding name and must have had its influence from the inhabitants of Lachen valley lying to its immediate east rather than the Lepcha sanctuary of Dzongu that stretches to its south. In this map, it is shown on the watershed of Ringi Chu in Upper Dzongu and Lachen Chu. If you know where Lama Anden is then perhaps it will be a bit easier to imagine. It is on the ridge serpenting down south from Lama Anden (5868m).

Map with 'De Nga' peak marked

Toyoshima’s map shows this ridge in detail, but no peak named as ‘De Nga’ is marked here. What it shows instead in the same position are two passes with identical names-Thepa la. The northerly one is of 4575m and the other of 5064m[3]. Interestingly enough, this higher Thepa la is approximately in the same position and altitude as De Nga in Kekoo’s book. So, in short, the objective of this trip will be to locate De Nga and Thepa la and end this confusion of entity and title between peaks and passes. Pack your ice climbing gears nevertheless as we honestly do not know what to expect- a scramble or a climb. The meeting was over. I realized both of our smiles were turning into grins now. The glorious uncertainties of exploratory climbing in Sikkim have always been the ultimate lodestone for me. Now my old friend is about to get a taste of it. The spirit is contagious. If the medium is right it can pervade and permeate without much effort.  

Map with Thepa La (two of them) marked

The very next week after this meeting took place, a drive of around 5 hours brought us to Passingdong, a tiny village in the lower reaches of Talung chu valley. Parties that trek to Kishong lake via Tholung gompa has to drive past this village and proceed a bit further to the west till the unpaved road ends at Be. From Be, they more or less have to hike up north following the Ringi chu keeping the Lama Anden- De Nga ridge to their east. Coming back to our trip, while driving up from Siliguri; we had a short stop at Mangan and bought food and fuel for the trip from the local market. Neither the overnight sleeper train from Kolkata, nor the drive from Siliguri was bad. It took fewer hours on the bumpy road than we had imagined. At this time of the year the roads of Sikkim had less traffic as Durga Puja and Diwali vacations were over and the towns were quieter again till Christmas. No sooner than we had lugged our bags down from the car my friend Mingdup Lepcha appeared and lent us a helping hand to carry them into his house. Mingdup has been a close friend since we had forced our way up the Talung gorge back in 2011[4]. That evening we poured over copies of maps and its contours. I tried to explain to Mingdup the curious case of De Nga and Thepa la. It turned out that Mingdup had never heard of De Nga, but the name Thepa la rang a bell. Soon after close inspection of his description we understood that Mingdup had crossed the northerly Thepa la (4575m) before. But never went up its higher namesake.

Mingdup also mentioned that further down south on the ridge there are several lakes. Lepchas call them ‘Longdho Nye’, which means ‘pond upon a rock’. This reminded me that Lepchas call themselves ‘Mutanchi Rong Kup Rum Kup’, meaning ‘beloved children of mother nature and God’ and they are the original indigenous race of the region. Lepchas have language, literature and script of their own. In fact, before the Tibetan rule in Sikkim and British rule in Darjeeling, the language of the whole region was the Lepcha. Even during the early period of the British rule all administrative works of the acquired land were carried out in Lepcha[5]. There is also another name for the lakes in Nepalese however these days and that is ‘Panch Pokhri’. There is a faint trail up to Panch Pokhri. This was good news as this meant we do not have to hack our way up all the way from Passingdong. 

At the end of the discussion, with a deep and mysterious voice, Mingdup said to me, I knew you were up to something strange again. We all laughed. Mingdup’s remark however reminded me of Hercule Poirot’s statement in his last case Curtain. ‘Where you see a vulture hovering there will be a carcass. If you see beaters walking up a moor, there will be a shoot. If you see a man stop suddenly, tear off his coat and plunge into the sea, it means that there, there will be a rescue from drowning...and finally if you smell a succulent smell and observe several people walking along a corridor in the same direction you may safely assume that a meal was about to be served’.  And soon we were all walking along the wooden stairs of Mingdup’s house down to the kitchen ourselves. A delicious meal was on the table. I felt thankful for all the wonderful friends these mountains have given me. The blessing of friendship is all I have.

Next morning Mingdup bid us good bye and wished us luck. He could not join us as a close relative’s wedding was up around the corner of his calendar. We wished him a grand time and healthy ‘chhang’ drinking advices were exchanged. We crossed Talung chu and the started hiking up. After an hour we passed a deserted looking small village called ‘Leekh’. Another couple of hours of steady uphill hike brought us in the realm of Sikkim’s dense forests. The foliage and flora resembled strikingly with central African rain forests. We toiled up for another couple of hours and as soon as we found a little clearing and narrow stream nearby, we decided to camp. Across the valley we saw the village of Lingthem. Interestingly, this was the same village where Geoffrey Gorer had spent three months in 1937. Gorer’s observations and comments are an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of the Lepcha community even today[6]. 

At night Mangan’s lights flickered in a distance below and across the Teesta. Next morning we were up early and after a quick breakfast we were back on the forest trail. In places it became hard to find our way as the undergrowth had everything covered. Not a lot of trekkers hike up to Panch Pokhri, we thought. After a gruesome 6 hours climb we reached the top of a ridge. Crossing the ridge we traversed up north for another hour and then next to a beautiful waterfall and below an overhanging rock we made our second night’s shelter. Firewood was collected, water from the stream was as clear as it could be; and soon we had a fire going. A quick meal followed a few rounds of tea and soon we all found our private sleeping spaces below the rock and prepared for the long night ahead.

Morning of Day 3 began to show a lot of cirrus cloud accumulation high up in the sky across to the west. Climbing through the scree of a dry stream we could see the NE flanks of Pandim (6691m) and its ridge extending towards Tinchinkhang (6010m), Jopuno (5936m) and Narsing (5825m) in the distance.  At the end of the scree we reached the top of a sharp ridge. We figured, in Toyoshima’s map this point is marked as an unnamed pass of 3700m. We realized then that we were now on the ridge itself. On the same ridge further up north lies the higher Thepa la. We tried to see if we could spot a pass or saddle like feature from where we were standing. But our view was guarded by 3 rocky peaks. Further consultation of the maps revealed the these three peaks were respectively 4334m, 4593m and 4292m. They were obstructing the higher Thepa la (5064m) from us. To our immediate east was the deep valley of Rahi Chu. Looking alarmingly at the steady progression of the cirrus gathering we kept climbing north. Another good three hours of steep climb brought us higher up on the same but closer to the Panch Pokhri and we decided to pitch our tents. We were now just above 4000m. The evening transformed into a magical scene as the clouds decided to settle down in a low level stratus formation down the valley. The full moon appeared from somewhere over and above the mountain ranges of Tangkar la (4895m) and Dopendikang (5359m) to the east and south east. We knew just beyond that ridge was Chumbi valley. To our west were of course the great Kangchenjunga with all its majestic neighbour peaks. All the peaks in the map appeared before us. The peaks of the Singalila ridge starting from Talung (7349m) to the Kabrus (7338m and 7317m) lay to the furthest horizon. Proximal to that, were the peaks from Pandim (6691m) to Narsing (5825m). Then came the great east ridge of Kangchenjunga itself. We could make out distinctly the Zemu peak (7730m), the Simvu twins (6811m and 6812m), Siniolchu (6887m) and its Rock Needles (5712m). To add a sort of sense of completion to this map reading delight, the twin summits of Lama Anden (5868m) appeared further up north. We realized what a grand panoramic view point this was.

Next morning was a total anti climax to this. It seemed the valley clouds had an overnight change of mind and now they were determined to make life a little less rosy for us. It started snowing and within a couple of hours it was 4 inches deep. We knew we were pressed for time. We pushed further up north, along the ridge and as we got near peak 4334m, we dropped down to the east from the ridge and moving a bit further up north we decided to camp. We understood we were probably located a bit south of peak 4593m and hoped that this weather would change the next morning and if that happens we would climb peak 4593 and have a look at the higher Thepa la and the confusion of De Nga once and for all. The scheme seemed fine but the weather gods decidedly had other plans for us. It started snowing heavier that evening and continued all night. Morning brought no promises but 6 more inches of soft new powder. The intensity of snowfall lessened, but by then we knew that we were out of time. We packed our bags and wet tents and with a shrug of our shoulders headed back down. The curious case of De Nga remained unsolved. Well, until next time[7].

Observation: Approaching the problem of De Nga or Thepa La would be much easier from Lachen as the slopes are of easier gradient and almost devoid of the dense forest cover that one encounters while approaching from Dzongu. We also learnt ( and saw evidences) that the residents of Lachen do come in the vicinity of ‘Longdho Nye’ (Panch Pokhri) and the upper reaches of the Rahi Chu valley to gather Yarsa Gomba[8], not to mention the occasional poaching trips for Musk Deers and Himalayan Tahrs. This proved our presumption on the ease of access to this ridge from Lachen but increased our concern for the well being of the nature and wildlife nevertheless. We sincerely hope that the authorities of Kangchenjunga Biosphere Reserve will be a bit stricter in their regulations in near future as this area now falls under ‘Tholung-Kishong Conservation Zone’ as per a notification in the Sikkim Government Gazette Extraordinary dated 15 December 2006.

Postscript: Aloke seemed happy and satisfied with what we achieved as well. Well I will never know that for sure of course. As may be, deep down in his heart he is still screaming, didn’t I tell you so? Exploration climbing is not blitzkrieg after all!

[1] HJ 69 p.212

[2]See map 1, source: ‘Himalayan Vignettes- Kekoo Naoroji’, Page 232

[3]See map 2, source: ‘Sikkim Himalaya’ by Tadashi Toyoshima, 1977

[4] HJ 67, page 30

[5]‘Lepchas: Past and Present’- Dr. D.C.Roy, page viii

[6]‘Himalayan Village- An account of the Lepchas in Sikkim’-Geoffrey Gorer, First published 1938

[7]See map 3 for route described in this report

[8] Caterpillar Fungus, Ophiocordyceps sinensis, Chinese name: Dōng chóng xià cǎo, meaning ‘winter worm, summer grass’