meaning “cloud messenger.” Using helicopters,
the army inserted a platoon of soldiers to occupy
the Bilafond La, one of the mountain passes
favored by climbers coming from Pakistan. Soon
it occupied two more passes. With these moves,
India controlled the Saltoro Range, which
would become the front line in the fight over
the Siachen Glacier and has shaped the archi-
pelago of military outposts that defines the
stalemate today.
Accounts from the front lines of the Siachen
conflict often are couched in romantic notions
of patriotism, but spending weeks or months
at high altitude is far from romantic. At about
18,000 feet above sea level, the human body,
starving for oxygen, begins to break down. Given
enough time, death is inevitable.
But on the Siachen and surrounding glaciers,
the two armies occupy more than a hundred
permanent high-altitude posts. To maintain
these camps requires an astounding logistical
effort—essentially planning more than a hun-
dred mountaineering expeditions simultane-
ously and maintaining them in perpetuity.
In 2011 Cory Richards camped near one of the
Pakistani outposts during a winter expedition to
Gasherbrum II. There he found the frozen wreck
of a crashed helicopter and a platoon of curi-
ous soldiers living in spartan camps. “We had
internet, so they would come over and we would
have tea,” he says. “They asked if they could use
my Facebook.”
It was partly that encounter that had led us to
ask the Pakistani government to let us document
life on the Siachen front lines. Through the years
other journalists have made this trek, and it was
clear the Pakistan Army had a practiced script
for visitors as we sat for the first of several brief-
ings during our tour of some of its bases.
“In the face of all odds, the Defenders of K2
occupy the highest military positions anywhere
in the world,” a captain from the 62 Brigade told
us. “This would be a solid point to be included
in your story.”
From its headquarters in the town of Skardu,
the 62’s supply line snakes up the Braldu Valley
to the Conway Saddle, a pass that rises to almost
20,000 feet. The last half of the journey is acces-
sible only by foot or helicopter. The army made
us walk so that we could acclimatize.
The trail looks easy on the map—a broad,
nearly treeless valley etched by fields of boul-
ders and gushing streams. “For you this is fun,inch long. (National Geographic stopped showing
the line beginning with the atlas’s 2020 edition.)
But Robert Hodgson didn’t live to see the
mounting tensions over his line. In December
1979—several months after news of Kumar’s
expedition was published—Hodgson, who’d been
promoted to head the Office of the Geographer,
died of a heart attack. He was 56.
THE
SOLDIER
On April 13, 1984, the Indian Army launched Oper-
ation Meghdoot, named after a Sanskrit word
A LINE IN THE MOUNTAINS 115