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Sacred heights

Simon Courtauld

Wednesday, 14th May 2008

Simon Courtauld pays homage to one of the world’s great sights

Huddled together on a wooden platform, almost all our fellow mountain-watchers were Indian. There was a collective gasp as the outline of Kanchenjunga, and the range of peaks on either side, slowly became visible, icy white against the dark sky. Then a blob of pink appeared on the summit of the great mountain. Rosy-fingered dawn had broken at 28,000 feet. It was spectacular, breathtaking and surprisingly affecting.

Now the area of pink was expanding, the rising sun appeared, away to our right, and soon the mountain was bathed in a creamy-orange glow. The whole panorama of peaks was now alight, while the valleys below remained in cold blackness. The morning was so clear that we were even able to see the top of Mount Everest nearly 100 miles away. But it looked rather unimpressive, at that distance of course much smaller and lower than our mountain. In the state of Sikkim, to which the heights of Kanchenjunga belong, the mountain is sacred and no one may climb to the summit. It is not only majestic but, unlike Everest, undefiled.

By about 6.30, as our driver said, the show was over, and we knew that porridge and eggs and bacon would be waiting at the Windamere. Later that morning, a collar of cloud appeared below the summit of the mountain; but it was still looking magnificent as we left Darjeeling for Kalimpong, east towards Bhutan and beyond the Tista river which flows from the Himalayas into Bangladesh.

Kanchenjunga also dominates the landscape around Kalimpong, though we were now viewing it from a few thousand feet below Darjeeling. A school, Dr Graham’s Homes, is almost as much a part of the Kalimpong scenery, standing on a hill above the town. It was founded by a Scottish missionary in 1900 for orphaned Anglo-Indian children, and today educates and looks after well over 1,000 students.

Having admired the extensive school grounds and the Anglican church, we took a last look at the mountain, imperious against the sky, and began our descent to the plains. How lucky we had been: a cyclone was forecast to hit west Bengal, clouds were gathering, and Kanchenjunga would not show itself again for several days.