Still higher, the snowy, frozen torrent of Ultar glacier ran down an inaccessible defile, becoming gritty in its lower reaches and, by the time it touched the moraine, turning into what resembled a floe of solidified black lava. Again there was thunder. I asked Javed. He looked up. That's not thunder but an avalanche.
Spring is avalanche time.
The snow melts, rocks loosen and slip, but because of the clouds and fog you cannot see this from down here. More thunder followed. Now I felt Ultar peak to be frighteningly close, sinister, hiding itself behind cloaks of fog, angry at our proximity. Until 1991, when it was finally scaled, it was among the highest unclimbed mountains in the world. I set out to visit the climbers' graves, but in an hour of rambling up and down the meadow I could not find them.