John Claude White
In 1888, after the outbreak of the Sikkim-Tibet war, he was sent as the Assistant Political Officer to Sikkim. The following year he was offered the post of Political Officer in administrative charge of State of Sikkim. In 1890, He made one of his first expeditions crossing the Guichala. He crossed Guichala, went down to Talung glacier and then followed the Talung Chu eastwards to Sakyong. In his book “ Sikhim and Bhutan- Twenty One Years on the North –East Frontier 1887-1908” he says in page 53, “ In 1890 I made one of my first expeditions to the snows,crossing the Giucha-la pass and from there making my way to Ringen, following a routethe latter part of which had certainly never been traversed by a European, and I doubt by anyone, except possibly a very occasional Lepcha.”
By doing this epic journey he was able to connect West Sikkim with the Southern tip of North Sikkim. Following the apparently known Dzongri- Guicha La trails, he took the challenge of traversing the unknown and complicated gorges and river system in Talung Chu valley and reached Sakyong the uppermost village in todays Dzongu, the Lepcha Sanctuary. It took White and party 10 days longer than they had planned for. And when he reached safety he wrote, “I do not think this journey could be equaled throughout the world for its beauty and variety of scene, the magnificent gorges, with wonderful waterfalls tumbling down on all sides, the wild desolation of the higher snows, and the richness of colouring and dense vegetation lower down; every few miles bringing new beauties before one.”
John Claude White was a British amateur photographer, who served in the Indian Public Works Department from 1876 and as political agent for Sikkim, Bhutan, and Tibetan affairs 1905–8. White accompanied the Younghusband Mission to Tibet in 1903–4 and during the campaign made a series of mainly landscape photographs, including a number of impressive panoramas. A selection of these was later issued in two photogravure volumes by the Calcutta photographers Johnston & Hoffmann as Tibet and Lhasa (1906). Owing to political sensitivities regarding the accompanying text, they were subsequently withdrawn, and are now extremely rare. A memoir, Sikhim and Bhutan: Experiences of Twenty Years on the North-Eastern Frontier of India, appeared in 1909, and many of White's photographs accompany the articles on Sikkim and Bhutan which he later wrote for the National Geographic Magazine.
Though he was born in Calcutta, White spent his teenage years studying in Bonn, Germany in the 1880s, where he was undoubtedly intrigued by the recent "golden age" of mountaineering of the mid-19th century that saw the first ascents of many Alpine peaks. White was given the chance to live amongst some of the world's most formidable mountains himself in 1888 when he was assigned to the Sikkim-Tibet Boundary Commission, tasked with mapping and surveying the regions' borders. Unlike his counterparts who owned large homes in India and traveled occasionally to their posts in the outlying Himalayas, White settled with his family in Sikkim, where they remained for over two decades.
The Aim of the Expedition
To retrace Claude White’s footsteps in reverse, i.e. Starting from Mangan (North Sikkim) we will enter the Dzongu valley. After Spending a few days in villages like Lingzya, Pentong and Sakyong, we will launch ourselves to the unexplored terrain of upper Talung Chu valley. On reaching the Talung glacier from East we plan to cross the Guicha la and come down to Yoksum in West Sikkim following the trekking trail via, Lamoni, Thangsing, Kokchurung, Tsoka. If we are successful Claude White’s route will be repeated (though in reverse) for the first time since 1890. This will also open up new trekking options in the Talung Valley.
The Expedition starts on March 7, 2011 from Mangan.
Team:
Ong Tsering Lepcha Pakimo
Thendup Sherpa
Anindya Mukherjee
Duration: 3 weeks to 1 month
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