A COLD PLACE, FAR AWAY

A friend recently returned Keay's Explorers of the Western Himalayas and my dreams of weekend productivity evaporated as I re-read its account of early expeditions into central Asia, from the first solo travellers (usually European eccentrics), to the big expeditions (which usually ended badly), to the heroic British defense of the fort at Chitral.

This region is the cockroach of world history - it reappears just when you thought you'd finally gotten rid of it. What other Godforsaken wilderness has seen Alexander the Great march through it (Baz Luhrmann's working on a movie), several British armies destroyed in it (this recent book details one), and a near-nuclear war fought over it?

Here's a map showing the zones of control. The British once viewed Gilgit as the key to the region and kept an agency house and garrison there.

And the mountains. K-2, the toughest mountain the world, is there and had killed 52 climbers at last count. Nanga Parbat which looms over everything is less well-known but equally bloody-minded, killing Reinhold Messner's brother and claiming most of his toes. And questions still linger about what really happened up there. And Haramosh, which has killed a few people too (see "Grim Days on Haramosh" in Heroic Climbs).